Sweden vs. South Africa Meetup #260

Thursday

May242012

Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 01:41PM

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On This Week in Startups, it was an unprecedented TWiST first! Sweden went head-to-head with South Africa for an international meetup! Who won? You have to watch!

1:00-3:00 Welcome everyone to the first city vs. city meetup!
3:00-5:30 Tyler, where are you today?
5:30-8:45 Thank you to our incredible sponsor Sourcebits! Everyone thank @Sourcebits for supporting independent media!
8:45-10:00 Welcome Ben Page from Sweden! What’s going on over there?
10:00-14:00 First to pitch: Martin Walfisz of Planeto pitches his knowledge community that helps users explore and contribute to educational topics.
14:00-15:45 Jason gives Planeto’s pitch an 8.5 and the product a 9. Tyler gives it an 8 and 9 respectively.
15:45-17:45 How is everything in South Africa, Tyrone? Any news on the companies that presented last time?
17:45-18:45 How do you solve a problem like bandwidth?
18:45-20:15 The first South Africa pitch is from MoneySmart, a personal finance management platform that aggregates all your financial information into a single spot.
20:15-21:45 How is this different from Mint?
21:45-26:30 Tyler, what did you like and what could be improved? (Tyler gives the pitch an 8 and the product 8.5/9.)
26:30-28:00 Stefan Bech pitches Wantr--think Pinterest meets a globally-minded Shopping.com
28:15-30:30 Tyler, what was the best part of that presentation?
30:30-33:30 Jason gives 8.5 on both the pitch and the presentation and so does Tyler.
33:30-34:30 Stefan, do you have a response for our feedback?
34:30-38:00 Thank you to GoToMeeting for supporting the show! Everyone thank @GoToMeeting!
38:00-40:45 Mark pitches TaxTim, a web-based, digital tax assistant that walks the user through the process and submits it automatically.
40:45-44:30 Jason gives both the pitch and the product an 8.
44:30-46:00 More about the value proposition with some statistics would have helped this pitch.
46:00-48:00 Are you planning on building an upsell product?
48:00-52:30 Jason and Tyler discuss the upcoming LAUNCH Education event.
52:30-54:30 Jens Hagman pitches Desmo, an online fundraising platform for non-profits that runs through ecommerce sites.
54:30-56:15 Tyler: He should have employed the “poster child effect”: choosing one charity to focus on.
56:15-58:30 Jason and Tyler both give the pitch a 7.
58:30-1:00:00 Jens, any thoughts on our feedback?
1:00:00-1:03:00 In the final pitch from South Africa, we have Zac Rusagara from Idea Bounty, a platform for crowdsourcing creative ideas.
1:03:00-1:04:00 This is a brilliant idea. I can see ad agencies loving this. The pitch was a solid 8.
1:04:00-1:05:45 Tyler, what did you think of the idea and the presentation? (Tyler gives is a 7.)
1:05:45-1:06:45 Zac, feedback on our feedback?
1:06:45-1:09:00 How does anyone know who won and why?
1:09:00-1:10:15 Has it happened where a company wanted to buy more than one idea?
1:10:15-1:12:00 Jason and Tyler both agree that the site outage needs to be fixed. And they both give the idea a 9.
1:12:00-1:17:00 Jason and Tyler recap and debate over the merits of the pitches.
1:17:00-1:19:15 It was a great competition. Jason’s #1 pick was Idea Bounty and his #2 was Planeto. Tyler had the reverse and he explains his thinking. So that means we have a tie for first!
1:19:15-1:21:30 The city winner, as determined by the third place vote is... Sweden!
1:21:30-1:25:00 Sweden, congrats! What do you have to say?
1:25:00-1:25:30 The TWiST Meetup cup goes to Sweden for now, but we’ll have a rematch soon! See you all next time!

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Keep up with the latest from our sister company, LAUNCH:

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