The Launch of CRV Entrepreneur Idol
Valerie Cunningham and Net Jacobsson for these photos. John Furrier and Podtech for podcasting the event. Stanford MBA2 John Anderson and CRV’s Kim Morioka for helping us coordinate the event.
The premise:
60 pitches in 60 minutes. 4 judges – 3 from Charles River Ventures – me, Bill Tai and George Zachary and 1 celebrity guest judge – Matt Marshall from Venturebeat. The first half of the contest took place in the Stanford MBA cafeteria – noisy, chaotic, and fun.
Contestants wait their turn to pitch: 
The judges: me, Matt Marshall, George Zachary, and Bill Tai
The judging criteria:
The judges scored each contestant from 1-100, with 400 being the highest possible score a contestant could earn. The criteria? Because contestants only had 60 seconds, this wasn’t intended to be a business plan contest. We were hoping this could be a fun, educational experience for the Stanford MBAs to learn how to communicate their ideas succinctly and persuasively in 60 seconds or less.
There are some salient, real world reasons why being able to mount a convincing argument in 60 seconds or less can help you as an entrepreneur. For example, we’ve received numerous business plan submissions in the first month since launching our CRV QuickStart seed financing program - it’s an imperative for the entrepreneur to make as strong of an impression as quickly as possible. Or, you may find yourself on an elevator with Rupert Murdoch and want to convince him why he absolutely needs to acquire your startup if he has any hopes of properly monetizing all of the MySpace traffic. Except, he’s getting off on the 6th floor, so you only have 40 seconds.
In both cases, what the pitch represents is a means by which you can capture our imagination and make us want to learn more about your idea. With the Entrepreneur Idol contest, we weren’t looking for fully baked or fundable ideas. That’s incredibly difficult to convey in 60 seconds. But the purpose of the 60 seconds is to get us salivating to hear more of what you have to say. Were you authentic in your delivery? Did you come across as being credible? Was your general target market attractive? Did you make a logical, persuasive argument? Did you make us believe that you could be a great entrepreneur to back?
(Tip: Research your VCs before you pitch them. People tend to fund things they are personally excited about. It makes your job easier if you seek out people already immersed in your space.)
The results:
The judges chose 5 finalists based on the scores. The top 3 got to present in front of an auditorium full of their peers. In true American Idol style, each of the top 3 pitched, received feedback from each of the judges, and the audience chose the winner by clapping and making noise.
The winners, Jeff, Rohin and Ned (left to right) – sorry the photo is blurry:
1st: Ned Tozun, MBA2 – Solid state LED for the developing world
2nd: Rohin Dhar, MBA2 – Online job recruitment services
3rd: Jeff Piper, MBA2 – Hedging instruments for residential real estate market
4th (tied): Vanessa Stanley-Miller, MBA2 – Kid-centric online video service
4th (tied): Ben Savage, MBA2 – Location based mobile game platform
Closing thoughts:
Based on student feedback, people had a lot of fun and it was very educational. For them, it was illuminating to see the top 3 deliver their pitches in front of a big audience – they could learn from their peers and from the feedback we gave after each pitch. Moving forward, I’d like to have all 5 finalists (and perhaps more) give their pitches in front of the larger audience. The margin of difference between the top 9 scores was very small and most of the learning happens by watching other people pitch in real-time.
We at CRV were very impressed by the quality of the pitches - by the delivery, the ideas themselves, and the enthusiasm of the contestants.
Statistics:
That’s awesome.
Looks like the CS grad students need to work on their pitching skills?
Were there any CS grads in the top 9 at least? That aside, this was definitely an interesting exercise.
Well, the event wasn’t marketed to the CS graduate students, so I was pleasantly surprised that they showed up! I would like to do an event specifically for the CS students though.
You bring up a great point – it was an interesting exercise for not only the students but also for us, the judges. Mike Arrington is quoted in a story today in the SF Chronicle as saying, “Once you’ve heard 30 pitches in an hour, your brain cannot comprehend it…”
Hearing 60 pitches in 60 minutes was definitely a challenge – it was a good test for me to quickly and accurately process all of this input. We had about 5 seconds each to score every pitch – so the scores were given on a very intuitive, gut feel basis. It became really hard to score things on a relative basis – because I just couldn’t remember all the ones that came before – so I started scoring things on an absolute basis, rather than trying to keep a relative inventory in my head.
I guess no one can resist VCs and rockstars.
Yes, may be 30 pitches in 1 hr with 1 min gap to score the pitches might have been less stressful on the VCs but from an entrepreneur’s perspective, I think this would have been a more interesting exercise for them as being able to effectively impress the VCs (who also happen to hear pitches day in day out) within a limited time is indeed an art. An art that can be perfected through practice.
Awesome idea, I wonder what all the MBA winner’s studied as undergrads… (and if any of them left academia between degrees).
Kind of sad that the 2nd place winner was an online job startup. How many of those are there, incumbent and startup?
What a great exercise for the MBA students, I hope you explained what a real pitch meeting often entails, you know the brutal 1 hour grilling the start-up’er over the coals type of thing…..
I cant even imagine how mind numbing 60 pitches in 60 minutes must have been.
Not sure if you saw this:
http://blog.koral.com/?p=41
As a VC whats your take on it?
Love the pictures, Picture #3 is almost worth a 1,000 word essay…..or at least some really cool thought bubble commentary….
[...] Susan, Matt Marshall, and John Furrier discuss it as well. [...]
[...] Susan, Matt Marshall, and John Furrier discuss it as well. [...]
[...] CRV’s Entrepreneur Idol or Paul Graham’s Y Combinator, this is designed to reward both startups and potential [...]
That’s possibly the coolest thing I’ve heard anyone do in finance. Great blog Susan!
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