In the world of startups, there is NO TIME, like SHOW TIME, when all that you live and die for day in and day out has to be summed up in about ‘5 minutes’.
For many startup founders, the live ‘Pitch’ is one of the most anticipated but scariest moments in their startup life span whether it is to a future client or a potential investor.
So Start-Up Chile’s newest initiative, Demo Battle, hopes to make this experience a little more comfortable for startups to truly shine when it matters most. And in the process, strengthen the skill that many entrepreneurs in Chile (and the world over) struggle with – refining and mastering their pitch!
An original creation born out of the offices of Start-Up Chile, Demo Battle will showcase two startups in a 3 round competition.
In the inaugural competition to be hosted at Centro Cultural Amanda, on Wednesday, June 6, 2012 at 7:30 pm, Backyard Brains will face off against Motion Displays.
The inspiration behind the Demo Battle
In the fall of 2010 with the pilot of Start-Up Chile, they helped to ignite the Meetup revolution in Chile. The first Start-Up Chile meetups only attracted about 15 or 20 people. And I can attest to that, having spoken at Start-Up Chile Meetup #3 and recalling the days when attendees had to pitch in to pay for the pizza! Imagine that!
Today, the Start-Up Chile meetup group has grown to over 2,000 members. And every Wednesday they attract hundreds of people, with registration and a waiting list generally filling up usually within a day of the announcement. Additionally, throughout Santiago and slowly diffusing to other parts of the country, entrepreneur meetups are becoming and almost nightly occurrence.
So now that the entrepreneur meetup love has gone mainstream, Start-Up Chile is looking to take a larger step, not only doing something ‘disruptive’ for Chile, but also on a much grander scale.
Demo Battle and democratizing the art of pitching with a crowdsourced jury is their next adventure in this space!
How the Demo Battle Will Work
As this is only Demo Battle Version 1.0 and thus subject to change, tentatively this is how it is all expected to go down.
Round 1: Two teams will face off in the Demo Battle and each have 10 minutes to pitch.
Note: While the initial teams pitching are Start-Up Chile participants, in the near future (fingers crossed) non Start-Up Chile founded companies might be able to have the opportunity to go head to head on the big stage!
Round 2: The two participating teams will have a 10 minute Q & A (Question and Answer) and feedback session.
Round 3: A second round of pitches with ‘famous last words’ and closing lines !!
Meet the Inaugural ‘Demo Battle’ Teams
Backyard Brains is working to make ‘neuroscience for everyone’ and one of their fearless leaders, Tim Marzullo, Ph.D can often be found hanging out at STGO MakerSpace, doing all kinds of creepy crawly things with his cockroaches and building little thing-a-mobs and thing-a-ma-jigs on the MakerBot. See evidence in Exhibit A below!
Motion Displays, winner of Start-Up Chile’s Demo Day ‘People’s Choice Award’ and 2012 selection for Kairos Society Top 50 Global Startups to Watch, is committed to the vision of spreading the adoption of large-scale multitouch interfaces.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/28111153[/vimeo]
Luck and success to both of the participating teams!
Want to check it out?
Spaces are still remaining!
