This past week, the third annual TechCrunch50 event was held at the San Francisco Design Center. Of course it wasn’t always known as TechCrunch50 – but the format still remained the same: 50 startups were selected by the event committee (specifically serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington) to present their startups and demonstrate their product to the audience and 100 different startups were also selected to pitch their wares to the crowds in the “Demo Pit”.
As this was my first time attending TechCrunch50, I was hoping for something different from the numerous conferences I had attended previously. I really wasn’t disappointed since this exclusively focused on companies that were specifically launching something that day. Whether it was a new product or it was a new company that they wanted to promote, they were there. It wasn’t a lecture circuit like typical other technology conferences and there weren’t any panel discussions. Instead, there were expert judges on stage to critique each startup – almost like it was a tech version of American Idol to help the audience make an informed decision about the viability of the startup.
Amazingly the Internet connection was not something to even be concerned about since it seems that the fine folks at TechCrunch put in some additional dollars (rumored to be about $56,000) on running ethernet cables throughout the conference hall and upgrading their bandwidth. Even Arrington remarked that he was surprised it held up as near the end of the conference he was quoted to have said something along the lines of:
I was watching from the back and noticed that someone was watching the live stream [via Ustream] on his laptop…
Each day presented something new and exciting to talk about. But rather than blabbering on, here are some photos of the event to help tell the tale:
1938 Media’s own Loren Feldman made an appearance at TechCrunch50.
The event hosts of TechCrunch50: Jason Calacanis & Michael Arrington.
Michael Arrington trying to weasel out some information from Mint.com’s CEO, Aaron Patzer, after it was officially confirmed Intuit was purchasing Mint.com.
Some of the fine folks in attendance at TechCrunch50.
One set of panel experts including Google’s Marissa Mayer, Roelof Botha, Marc Andreessen, Lior Zorea & Zappos’ Tony Hsieh.
Hanging out with great people at one of the many TechCrunch50 after-parties.
Kevin Rose
Chamillionaire made a special guest appearance to be a judge.
Girls in Tech at TechCrunch50.
The winners of TechCrunch50 and $50,000 – RedBeacon – with Heather Harde & Jason Calacanis.
View more photos of TechCrunch50 by clicking here for the first day or the last day.
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Since TC50, I have seen RedBeacon become the newest internet baby. But what about the rest of the crowd? How many do you think will push it to the next level? Is it that once they have made the TC50 they are “made” companies?
Hi Brian – typically after a TechCrunch event, the startup that wins does become the darling of the Internet world. The rest of the companies on stage get considerable promotion from the people in attendance and those that have signed up to check out their product. I think what was interesting is that the different judges on the dias said that there wasn’t a “game changer” except for one called CitySourced.
I don’t think that it’s a fair assumption that any company who gets to pitch their product on the stage of TC50 will automatically be considered to be “made”.