Ryan Carson’s TreeHouse is enough to get Jason to open his wallet.
Bath-based Amercian, Ryan Carson of Carsonified and the “Future Of…(web apps, web design, etc.)” events was on the latest This Week in Startups show with Jason and Tyler, to talk about his experiences as a web developer come entrepreneur, building an events business, the desire to build products, raising money and his business/life philosophies (mainly derived from Dale Carnegie at some stage).
The show’s a good watch, and Ryan is a bit of a star. I’m a huge admirer of his companies, mostly, I just love the beautiful design and attentional to detail he puts into everything. I know very well that it can be too easy to skip over design in favour of speed, in a world where he who shouts loudest usually wins. It takes some balls to stick to your guns and apply the same consistently high quality of design to websites and products that Ryan does and I’m a huge admirer of that.
And clearly, there’s a number of people who agree.
Ryan was over in the US and able to attend the studio, since he was presumably out closing the round which included and started with non-other than Kevin Rose, Reid Hoffman, Mark Sustre, Greylock Partner et al. You can see a much better run down of the deal on this TC article.
And maybe it was this illustrious list that made Jason’s competitive streak kick in, and kick himself for originally passing on the deal. Well, it had to happen sometime, heck, we came close a couple of times at TWiSTldn meetups with Tripbod and YReceipts, but Jason finally loosened the purse strings (alright, a little unfair considering the volume of investments he’s been making) on air. What was more surprising was that Jason put out a lengthy email only a few days back explaining why he was cutting back on the Angel investments and so to cave so quickly was quite a surprise.
I think what everyone in the UK and the International meetup cities around the world are waiting for, is Jason to fall in love with one of the global companies and put his money where his mouth is and back some of the TWiST community companies that tickle his fancy.
Dead Heat! Kliqed and MyChoicePad share the honours
It’s fair to say the bar was set pretty high after our last meetup, both in the event organisation and the pitching companies. If I said I wasn’t feeling the pressure, I’d be lying! That said, everything came together (almost) perfectly which resulted in another fantastic event for all those involved – what fun!
As ever, the 6 pitching companies battled it out for the opportunity to link up directly with Jason Calacanis and Tyler Crowley – adorned in British paraphernalia – to give their pitch and get the sought after feedback from the TWiST crew.
Of the 6 companies, including Eeve, Kliqed, Lifesort, MyChoicePad, Skadoosh and Vungle, it was Kliqed who emerged victorious as voted by the 70 strong crowd who turned out for the event.
Runners up, MyChoicePad and Skadoosh joined Kliqed on the live show.
For the first time, Jason and Tyler were split on who should take the overall title.
Jason’s Picks
1. MyChoicePad
2. Kliqed
3. Skadoosh
Tyler’s Picks
1. Skadoosh
2. Kliqed
3. MyChoicePad
In the end it was decided that Kliqed and MyChoicePad should share the honours, with each company being invited to the next Launch Conference and being given a booth in the demo pit. How the Mailchimp prize will be allocated, we need to figure out…
In a further gesture, Jason invited the founders of the other pitching companies to attend Launch as well, and as TWiSTldn found when we attending the hugely impressive first Launch, it’s definitely a great opportunity for all those involved. Keep an eye out for the event video, but in the meantime, here’s the show broadcast for those that missed out
This Week in Startups 153 – With Steve Schofield
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Here comes London: TWiST pitchers #4
We have got an brilliant line-up for This Week in Startups #4. Six awesome startups picked from a greater number that submitted a video interview though the cloud video interviewing platform OVIA.
The three organisers Steve Schofield, Dimitar Stanimiroff and Colin Hayhurst had a hard time picking the final six and are sorry to disappoint those other applicants.
We’ve sold out on tickets so this should a cracking event of pitching and networking. If you have not got a ticket , you can always follow the event on Twitter at #twistldn and then watch the live TWiST show here. The audience on the night will pick the top three pitches and those will pitch again live to Jason Calacanis.
Here are the companies in alphabetical order:
A fun way to discover and create events with your mobile phone
A meet-up management phone app that helps you see the important people in your world more easily, more often, for more fun!
The first all-in-one system to Sort, Store and Share your files, pictures, music & videos
Everyone has the right to communication – MyChoicePad is an educational Makaton iPad app that enables people to communicate. Be heard. Be cool. Be you.
Sh! Coming soon… Earn rewards for loving the things you like.
App Discovery through video
We can’t wait to hear these startups pitch. Last time those companies put through to the live show, bowled Jason over. One of them, Tripbod, even got nominated for the TWISTEE awards last week, as one of the five best pitches of the whole of the year. Also all the companies got invited to the first Launch event in San Francisco.
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TWiSTldn Winners to get Chimped!
One area I’ve been really keen to make the most of, improve and evolve is ensuring our pitching companies have the biggest incentive to apply in the first place and if selected, to put on a great show at the events. I know that if we do that well, our humble little meetup will be known for it’s quality of both the companies and the guests who will come along to see them as a result. And to me, that’s why I’m doing this. Quality wins out at the end of the day.
So, what can you offer to companies as a cash strapped, volunteer supported event? Well, up until now, apart from the exposure and opportunity to pitch to Jason and appear on an episode of TWiST, the answer is very little (unless you also count tickets to Launch for the last meetups success stories).
But things are moving in the right direction and off the back of the event’s success, the buzz around London tech right now and growing popularity of This Week in Startups, I’ve been inundated with sponsorship inquiries and offers of support, which has been really gratifying. While we figure out what to do with them on a local level, this news actually comes from the support we’re now getting from our friends at This Week In. And, more importantly, their headline sponsors!
So, we can all thank, in a Jason monkey stylie “OOooohhh, OOooooOOOhh, Aaaahhhh, Aaahaaah”, our friends at Mailchimp who have donated 50,000 credits to the eventual winner of TWiSTldn #4. Now, I have a feeling it’s not going to stop there and we’ll have some more news on the prize front coming up…
Read MoreA look back @TWiSTldn #2 – Teamly
Last August, at the second TWiST london meetup, Scott Allison gave a brilliant pitch of his startup Teamly. On other nights he may well have won but was unlucky enough to be on the same night as Sally Broom of Tripbod, who squeezed him into second spot.
Scott gave us an insight into the challenge of everyday businesses where it’s important to track, monitor and manage the everyday tasks of our staff. Teamly is a cloud based application that helps you get that done in a way that is visible and open. Since Scott has built up and run a successful business, abica in the past, you can sure that he has built his new venture based on real experience.
What’s great about Teamly is the simplicity with which you can organise and prioritise your tasks. As the name suggests it’s designed to make this effective for teams and in particular small businesses.
Since then Scott has worked relentlessly to build the user base and profile of his company. Indeed showing true commitment he moved from his beloved Scotland to be based in the startup scene in London. Teamly currently has over 6,000 users of the service and just recently exited from Beta status.
Teamly has had a lot of press coverage demonstrating Scott’s proactive character and the interest in Teamly. Earlier this year Teamly got selected to be part of the UK Web Mission to San Francisco and “South by South West in Texas: He writes about that here with some great tips should you be thinking of going yourself. But since he has written about his journey in detail you are are better reading about it from the horses mouth.
Teamly are currently in the process of raising a seed round and have committed investors, so if you are an investor now is the time to get in!
Here’s a look back at Scott’s pitch during TWiSTldn #2
Read MoreA look back @TWiSTldn #3 – ICONIC.fm
Iconic.fm did not fair as well with the TWiSTldn audience as I thought they might. I think they suffered in a way because of the presentation. In their case, they have a very nice product, having used it myself with a user interface that is a great example of simplicity and the use of certain well-placed jquery elements that would be very familiar to most of their users, as they are derived from similar elements on Facebook.
The concept itself? There’s something very cool about being able to find untapped local music venues, new bands and those which perhaps few people know about. It’s social, and that works.
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