Launch Startup Conference Gets Good Reports
The Launch conference, Jason Calacanis’s response to the Techcrunch Disrupt conference, turned out well despite all the rain and a boycott by TechCrunch publisher Mike Arrington.
I caught part of it and I was impressed by the companies I saw and the judging panel. I spoke to many that were there for all of the conference and heard good reports:
Don Dodge, one of the judges: “I go to a lot of these conferences and this one was good, the content was great and the sessions focused on the startups, there wasn’t any broad industry discussions. The quality of the companies as good too — there were many in the startup pit that should have been on the stage.”
Ken Yeung: “I took some vacation days to come to the conference and it was good. There were a lot of great companies and the quality was very good.”
Doug Mason: “The quality of the companies was good and I managed to make some good contacts and also put some of my friends in contact with people here.”
Jason Calacanis said he was very happy with the conference and said that it had “broken even.”
Here is a list of winners:
From the 1.0 competition:
Best OVERALL: Room77 — http://room77.com
Best Tech: NeuAer for Toothtag http://www.neuaer.com/
Best Design: Cabana (App Design) http://cabanaapp.com
Best Business Model: Volta http://getvolta.com
Best Product: (Phone Products) Lifeproof http://lifeproof.com
The 2.0 Competition
Best 2.0 Technology: Disconnect — http://disconnecter.com
Best 2.0 Design: — http://hipmunk.com
Best Overall: — Careers.Stackoverflow.com
From the LAUNCHPAD
BEST OVERALL: http://greengoose.com
($500,000 Angel funding round closed by Friday — Investors include @Jason, Bill Warner, Jay Levy & @Shervin)
Most Likely to be Acquired: Shoefitr http://shoefitr.com
Best Design: http://pen.io
Best Technology: http://fluidinfo.com
Best Business: http://nandimobile.com
TechCrunch provided no coverage of the conference, something that wasn’t surprising and something which is bound to occur to a greater, or lesser extent, now that industry publications are hosting their own, competitive conferences. There was plenty of coverage by VentureBeat and by ReadWriteWeb. There was no coverage I could find by GigaOm even though Om Malik was at the conference.
It was good to see Dave Mathews and his new company win an award for best technology: NeuAer for Toothtag. It’s a neat Android application that interacts with your immediate environment. “We’re doing proximity search for you,” said Mr Mathews. An iPhone app is on its way.
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