As a guest, I had the pleasure of watching the Saturday night presentations of yet another successful version of the original Startup Camps. This one intended for students at Melbourne Uni.
This particular weekend was an initiative by organiser Amir Nissen from Agents Of Change and enthusiastically moderated by Bart Jellema from Tjoos.com. Bart is a Startup Camp Australia veteran.
Before I arrived I had already seen the great video created by oneoffjobs.net. The video is sure to generate interest, and as a result I also thought the idea was good, which shows the value of good marketing!
When I walked in, the first thing I saw was ratemyguts.com. I was amazed to hear these guys’ story from their overnight endeavours! The team realized that it was a terrible name for yet another diet site and was instead used for a site where you brag about your gutsy moves and rate others’ stories! High ratings to the team to have the guts to go through with this change.
At 9 PM the presentations kicked off. I didn’t expect to be impressed as the mood was best described as subdued after a long night of hard work. Amir needed to pull out Eye Of The Tiger in the hope of providing a bit of punch to otherwise flat presentations. It did become evident that all projects were excellent in getting so much functionality actually working. Clever use of existing content management systems, nice graphics, nice logos, overall very nice jobs done by all. The presentations themselves needed to be as good as — or better than — the actual services but unfortunately they were not. Teams will need to work more on their pitches and carry the marketing message through.
www.oneoffjobs.net
Seek or offer cash in hand jobs.
As mentioned an excellent video to captivate those with short attention span, ie: the average person. Would I use it? Surely I don’t want a random student doing my grocery shopping? Maybe I would… but on the other side, there are the users that will bid on jobs. Will they want to do my jobs? If I need groceries, I need them today or tomorrow, not next week. There needs to be good interaction with both the job advertiser and job seeker to ensure they don’t lose faith in this site.
www.ratemyguts.com
Share your gutsy stories.
Could this one become a Startup Camp cult hit? In the end an excellent domain name for a site that can surely take off. All attendees at the camp agreed video is a requirement for this site, currently you can only enter text, and then there only needs to be one viral video posted here for the business to succeed. The ratemyguts team thought maybe the target audience should be exclusively males, which was vocally rejected by the 50% of the population that was consequently feeling left out. This is fun for the whole family.
www.chorecop.com
Ensure your house mates are doing their chores.
Chorecop attempts to solve a problem anyone experienced in shared living arrangements, which is that inhabitants are not doing their fair share in the house. I was hoping that when the chore was left undone, some ex-army security guard would be sent to house and teach the lazy house mate a lesson. Instead, the offender is being intimidated only via a string of emails.
ibrewit.com
Social site for home brewers.
Although not a distinctly new idea, a problem can always be solved better(TM). Home brewers are often brewing by themselves and want others to rate their proudly created beers. New brewers need recipes and ideas. The team at ibrewit.com are active on the site themselves and make new users feel welcome in the community.
www.microjobs.com.au
Seek or offer freelance jobs.
This site is almost identical in approach to oneoffjobs.net but is sleekly designed, positioning it in a more professional space, for more serious jobs. Maybe the presenter just didn’t explain the purpose of the site properly but this idea seems a dime a dozen and it’s hard to see how this site would compete with existing freelancer sites.
www.conversionspace.com
Send your attachments in PDF format.
A compact and useful idea that people can use immediately. How can you go wrong? Anyone wanting to convert a Word document to PDF prior to sending an email will like the convenience of being able to do this in one step. There are a few limitations that users will need to be aware of but basically it just works. The presenter tended to think students were the target market of this but I was assured by Mark and James that business users were absolutely a target market. How could they not be.
And the winner is…
Below are my ratings of the 6 startups:
- In the last place: chorecop.com. Not a convincing idea. Doubtful that their solution will actually be helpful in real life.
- In 5th place: microjobs.com.au. This site would win it on the logo and site design, but there is not much behind it that will make a difference.
- In 4th, and an honourable mention goes to: oneoffjobs.net, market is well defined, but will it ever take off? Great, memorable video!
- 3rd place: ibrewit.com, serving a niche market with a thoughtfully produced website.
- Runner up: ratemyguts.com, a clear marketing message, best domain name and possibility of going viral. The team have a gutsy story of their own: they changed their business completely after registering the domain!
- My winner: conversionspace.com, solves a common problem, small as it may be. The name is memorable and the site explains the service clearly. Anyone that sends emails can use it.
NerdBurger 