130th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Winners Of The A&N Media-Elance Contest With Imperial College, London
By Guest Post at June 15, 2012 | 10:34 am | Print
130th 1M/1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs: Winners Of The A&N Media-Elance Contest With Imperial College, London
We co-hosted today’s roundtable with Imperial College, London and held a contest. We awarded four scholarships. Today’s judges were Dominique Trempont, Board Member, DMGT (parent company of A&N Media); Rich Pearson, Chief Marketing Officer of Elance; and me.
Here are the pitches:
Print AdExchange
First, Christopher Corbishley with Imperial College, London pitched Print AdExchange, a marketplace for buying and selling last minute print ad inventory for newspapers, magazines, etc. Chris points out that the media world is moving away from print advertising, and all advertising technology emphasis is now on the Internet. However, print is still a very large business, and there is an opportunity to apply technology to make that business run more efficiently. Nice analysis!
Then Michael Newman from Glasgow, Scotland pitched My1login, an identity-management solution to address the problem that each of us has: numerous varied usernames and passwords that we have to remember. A widget to preserve these in a secure place would be highly desirable. Everyone from Facebook to Google to Microsoft wants to own the single identity space, though. Challenging business.
Next Yvonne Biggins from London, England pitched Movellas, a community for writers that nurtures them to publish fiction and non-fiction and leads them towards becoming published writers. The community already has a fair bit of engagement. Millions of story views have taken place. The big question Yvonne needs to wrestle with is the monetization model.
Then, JT O’Donnell from Boston, Massachusetts pitched CareerHMO, an online pre-coaching and coaching service for career management. JT has a small but validated business with 200 monthly subscribers and has validated her business pricing models. She is looking at the youth population that is facing tremendous career challenges in the current environment as well as laid-off workers. Corporations like HP have announced massive lay-offs. JT would like to assist these employees.
Next, Julie Goldman from Montclair, New Jersey, pitched The Original Runner Co., a $900,000 e-commerce company that creates and sells custom wedding runners. Brides with high heels do not want to trip on slippery runners as they walk down the aisle. Julie’s runners are non-slippery. More than that they are custom designed and look classy during the weddings and in photographs. Very cool niche business led by a competent entrepreneur!
Next Bruce Hellman from Imperial College, London pitched uMotif, a website and mobile app for monitoring diets, medications, and other health related items. The ‘quantified self’ movement has taken the e-health world by storm. Bruce is attempting to break into this extremely crowded market.
And the winners of today’s contest are: Print AdExchange, Movellas, CareerHMO, and The Original Runner Co. Congratulations, winners!
You can listen to the recording of today’s roundtable here
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By
Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant, she writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy, and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes. As an entrepreneur CEO, she ran three companies: DAIS, Intarka, and Uuma. Sramana has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
