Social-Loco Startup Competition

Finding the best startups of the social-location revolution (local and social converged) ENTRY DEADLINE APRIL 19

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Enter the Social-Loco Startup Competition for a chance to pitch your company to 100s of social-location obsessed VCs, angel investors, executives and media at the 2011 Social-Loco conference in San Francisco. ENTER NOW, it's FREE. :-)

Conference Website: www.socialloco.net

Conference Tickets: Get your Vator 20% discount now, here. (Early Bird and Vator discount happening right now for limited time) GRAB'UM NOW!

Social-Loco: The convergence of the social web, mobile and local-business

Social-Loco will dive into social and mobile web convergence, and what that means for SMB, big brands and consumers. Learn from real-world successes in daily deals, location based services and advertising, mobile marketing platforms and more. Executives from Groupon, Facebook, Google, ATTi, Microsoft and leading investors will address these topics in a highly interactive setting.

Competition basics:

1. Founders and CEOs of social web, mobile and location-based startups will compete for 6 coveted presentation (elevator-pitch) spots on the 2011 Social-Loco stage in San Francisco, May 5th, 2011.

2. Companies will be vetted and chosen by a panel of judges, including VCs, industry thought leaders, peers and media.

3. Winners will have the opportunity to give a three-minute pitch in front of the Social-Loco conference attendees -- comprised of VCs, angel investors, corporate and startup executives and the media.

Sign up now!

This competition has 2 rounds

Round 1

Round 2

Type: Judges

Start date: Thursday, March 10, 2011 06:00 AM PST

End date: Saturday, April 23, 2011 11:00 PM PDT

Enrollment is open until Tuesday, April 19, 2011 11:59 PM PDT

Judging criteria

Innovation

1. How innovative is the startup's product or service?
2. Are they solving a real problem in the marketplace?
3. Are they unique enough to standout from the crowd?
4. What's the likelihood the company will get funded in the next 6 months?

Business model

1. How viable is the startup's business model?
2. Are they a business or a feature?
3. How quickly do you think the company can monetize their product or service?
4 Do they have users?
5. Do they having paying customers?

Team

Who's on their team?

1. Does the founder(s) display characteristics of a world class entrepreneur (s)?
2. What has the team done in the past to warrant support for their company?
3. Based on information available to judges what makes the team good, bad or ugly?
4. What's the likelihood the team will get funded in the next 6 months?

Requirements:

Only startups under three years old can enter.

Rules:

Startup semi-finalists will be chosen by a panel of judges and Converge Labs, LLC.

Ben Choi

Principal, Maveron

Ben has a wide-angle view of the world. And it’s not just because he’s a published amateur photographer. Born in Peoria, raised in San Francisco, and educated in Cambridge, Ben looks at everything in life from multiple angles. Ben focuses on investments in the web-enabled consumer services and e-commerce sectors. He currently serves as a director on the boards of KidZui and TheWrap.com and is a board observer for Course Hero, Mozes, and SAY Media (formerly VideoEgg). Ben joined Maveron from Storm Ventures where his board involvement included Ad Infuse (acquired by Velti), Adgregate Markets, BooRah (acquired by Intuit), DeviceVM, Marketo, Mobio, and YieldBuild. Ben began his career in venture capital at RRE Ventures, where he invested in Massive, an in-game ad network purchased by Microsoft in 2006 for over $200 million. He also served at the strategic venture capital arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel.

Ben came to venture as an operator in several technology start-ups. In the mobile industry, Ben served as VP of strategy at Greystripe, a mobile rich-media ad platform. At Yahoo!, he directed the Southeast Asia mobile strategy. Ben was also an engagement manager at ZEFER, an Internet consulting firm (acquired by NEC), which raised over $150 million in venture capital financing and grew to over $100 million in annual revenue.

Ben lives in the Bay Area with his wife and twin boys. He’s an avid traveler and deeply involved with humanitarian relief efforts. His travels have taken him to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China, Africa, Brazil, and Central America. Of course, with the arrival of twin boys, he’s narrowed his scope a bit to the local beauty of the Bay Area and Seattle. Ben received his BA in computer science with honors from Harvard University and his MBA from Columbia Business School, with dean’s list and Beta Gamma Sigma distinctions. Ben is also a member of the Society of Kauffman Fellows, an exclusive professional organization for the venture capital industry.

Mark Evans

Managing Principal, Bancroft Research Group

Mark Evans

Managing Director

Converge Labs, LLC

I identify market opportunities and build value around them, dedicating myself relentlessly to connecting the right people to the right ideas and deriving tangible, winning business outcomes.

For the past 12 years, I've provided skilled and practical guidance as a market researcher, analyst, business development professional and entrepreneur, serving as founder and Managing Director of Converge Labs and Bancroft Group, LLC.

Clients include: Rackspace, Microsoft Advertising, ATT Interactive, Hewlett Packard, Mashery, CityGrid (Citysearch), ATK (Aerospace), Localeze, and more.

Converge specializes in assembling big brands, agencies, investors and entrepreneurs in new technologies, launching the highly successful Geo-Loco Conferences in 2010. Events that focus on the business perspectives of new tech and markets, i.e., monetization, challenges, and opportunities, and bringing buyers and sellers together.

Bancroft is a market intelligence firm assisting executives and business teams track their competitive, industry and market landscapes. Bancroft delivers customized market intelligence reports (Dossiers) to clients ranging from tech giants like Hewlett Packard to aerospace and defense companies (ATK), and to consumer product companies including Xango.

I served as President of the San Francisco American Marketing Association and, prior to starting Bancroft, was Director of Sales and Business Analysis for Business Design Corp.(BDC), developing and implementing new growth strategies for both BDC and its clients.

To sum up what I do professionally, I build and manage relationships and have a deep passion for doing it; relationships are the engine that power and drive business.

Specialties

Connecting people, and as Paul Grahm says, being "relentlessly resourceful".

Bambi Francisco Roizen

CEO and Founder, Vator

Vator was a side project of mine that was a mere concept while I was a columnist/correspondent at Dow Jones MarketWatch. It was originally started to help me vet the many startups pitching me while I was a journalist. It was designed to ensure that those I couldn't cover would have a platform for others to find them. I left in April 2007 and launched Vatortv in June 2007.

At Dow Jones, I covered Internet trends and investments across the public and private sectors. I was a morning business anchor for KPIX (the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco), and reported on MarketWatch's business magazine show on CBS. I made frequent appearances as an expert on technology on CNBC, Fox Business News, and CBS. I was named one of the top 10 most influential journalists on the Web, by Adweek. In the 'mid-90s, I worked as producer at CNN's financial news network, where I created, launched and produced business shows, including one on IPOs and new ideas.

I am married to Ezra Roizen. We have four boys.

Neal Hansch

Partner, Rustic Canyon Partners

Neal Hansch brings over fifteen years of experience in venture capital, technology operations and investment banking. Before joining Rustic Canyon in 2005, Neal worked in the Corporate Development group at Macromedia, where he was responsible for executing worldwide M&A transactions and strategic equity investments. Prior to Macromedia, Neal was at Technology Crossover Ventures, where he focused on investments in the software, networking infrastructure and e-commerce industries. He has also worked in Product Marketing at webMethods (Nasdaq: WEBM), a leading enterprise application integration company, and co-founded WebAssist.com, a start-up that provides popular software extensions for Web development tools. Neal began his career as a financial analyst in the Software Group at Robertson Stephens, where he worked with clients such as BEA, BroadVision, HNC, Hyperion, Informatica and Intuit. Neal received his M.B.A. with distinction from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he was a Deutschman Venture Fellow. He also received bachelor degrees in Economics and Psychology from Duke University.

Jay Jamison

Jay Jamison, Venture Partner, joined BlueRun Ventures in November 2010 and is based in Menlo Park. He focuses on early stage mobile, consumer and enterprise opportunities.

Jay has 12 years of product management and marketing experience in the software and internet industry. Previous experience includes leading Microsoft Japan’s Windows Business Group as Senior Director, and other senior level roles at Microsoft in product management and marketing. Jay also successfully founded and led Moonshoot, a venture backed online English education service for children.

Jay is a popular speaker on topics of entrepreneurship and building businesses. He has been a featured speaker at the Startup Digest University, the Hacker Dojo, and the Founders Showcase. He is also a Mentor at the Founders Institute.

He received his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and holds a BA from Duke University.