TWiST Auckland vs. Sydney Meetup #280

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Today on TWiST, we had an amazing startup competition between Auckland, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia. Who took the TWiST International Meetup Cup? You’ll have to watch to find out!

1:21 Welcome to the TWiST Auckland vs. Sydney meetup.
4:25 Thank you to Sourcebits! If you meet with them you get a free meeting with Jason. Email sourcebits@thisweekin.com to get started.
6:25 The first pitch from Sydney is Jesse Black of Teacher Time, a service to connect inspired teachers to each other.
9:10 Jason says he has an affinity for education. Anything that can help teachers find resources is great.  This idea is great.
10:25 Lon: Anything that helps teachers is great. It's a tough sale to get a teacher to pay you monthly.
11:30 Jason gives the pitch a 7 and the product a 7.5.
13:59 Up next from Auckland is Chris White from BigLittleBang, a virtual world for kids that enables musical collaboration.
15:54 Lon liked the pitch. He's worried about lag and syncing.
17:30 Jason: As a parent he wouldn't feel wrong about letting his daughter interact on the network. Pitch would have been better if it had an emotional hook to it.
19:55 Thank you to our sponsor GoToMeeting. Everyone thank @gotomeeting!
21:33 Next up from Sydney is Tom Frazier of ProcessGo, a web app to help enterprises select a better business process.
23:40 It's a really good idea but the pitch could be better.
27:03 Next up from Auckland is Chirag of TranscribeMe, a service to convert word to text.
28:30 Lon: If it works like it says it works, it'd be amazing. Transcription is a huge pain.
30:14 Jason: It feels like I would pay for something like this. What didn't come through in the pitch was that it's an app.
31:30 Lon: From a journalistic standpoint it's ridiculously epic.
34:28 Next up from Sydney is Simon of Rezdy, a booking engine specialized in tours and activities.
37:05 Lon: I think it's a great idea. This is a huge problem.
38:30 Jason: The real pain point is the objective reviews. Pitch and product were both solid.
40:30 Up next from Auckland is John of SlideSpeech, a service that makes your slides speak for you.
44:40 Jason: If I made a speech about why this product is a great one, someone else would say it and then sync it with slides. Is that correct?
45:59 Jason: Terrible presentation but great idea [ Jason does his version of SlideShare pitch ].
49:58 Sydney TWiST MC's personal favorite: Rezdy.
51:14 Auckland TWiST MC's personal favorite: TranscribeMe.
52:28 Jason thinks Lon picked BigLittleBang, Rezdy & Teacher Time.
53:00: Lon's #1 is BigLittleBang, Rezdy is #2 & TranscribeMe is #3.
53:40 Jason's favorites in order: Teacher Time, BigLittleBang & Rezdy.
56:40 Lightning round commences w/ Snackle from Auckland & GoCatch from Sydney.
1:01:00 Jason picked Snackle, Lon picked GoCatch.
1:02:58 It's a dead tie.
1:04:00 Big thanks to all of the sponsors in Auckland & Sydney.
1:04:20 Jason's advice: Amp up the design a bit. People make decisions based on design.
1:07:00 Thanks everyone. We'll see you next time.

Support This Week in Startups and independent media by joining the TWiST Producer Program at TwistList.co!

Want to support TWiST another way? Use bit.ly/twistamazon when you shop and a portion of your purchase will go toward helping keep independent media like TWiST on air!

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

Good to Great to Excellent: A Roadmap
http://www.launch.co/blog/good-to-great-to-excellent-a-roadmap.html

Building a Better Techmeme
http://www.launch.co/blog/building-a-better-techmeme.html

LAUNCH Looking for an Awesome Full Stack Engineer/Developer
http://www.launch.co/blog/launch-looking-for-an-awesome-full-stack-engineerdeveloper.html

Live Blogging LAUNCH Education & Kids - Day Two
http://www.launch.co/blog/live-blogging-launch-education-kids-day-two.html

FOLLOW ON TWITTER
Jason: @jason
Lon: @lons
GoToMeeting: @gotomeeting
Sourcebits: @sourcebits

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PREFERRED PARTNER eMINUTES
Lawyers who focus on forming and maintaining corporations and LLCs. Check them out at http://eMinutes.com and @eminutes.

Support This Week in Startups and independent media by joining the TWiST Producer Program at TwistList.co!

Want to support TWiST another way? Use bit.ly/twistamazon when you shop and a portion of your purchase will go toward helping keep independent media like TWiST on air!

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

• Good to Great to Excellent: A Roadmap
• Building a Better Techmeme
• LAUNCH Looking for an Awesome Full Stack Engineer/Developer
• Live Blogging LAUNCH Education & Kids - Day Two
• Live Blogging LAUNCH Education & Kids - Day One

FOLLOW ON TWITTER
Jason: @jason
Lon: @lons
GoToMeeting: @gotomeeting
Sourcebits: @sourcebits

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PREFERRED PARTNER eMINUTES
Lawyers who focus on forming and maintaining corporations and LLCs. Check them out at eMinutes.com and @eminutes.

Special thanks to the members of the TWiST Backchannel Program!

Executive Producers

• Louis-Eric Simard
• Benjamin Gifford
• Jacek Artymiak
• Octavian Mihai
• Will Paoletto
• Geoffrey Clapp
• Jeff Hoffer
• Austin Miller
• Rashaun Sourles
• Robb Kunz
• Greg Berry
• Sean Lynch
• Mary Ann Halford
• Jim Joyce
• Morgan Howard
• Margaret Johns
• Kyle M. Brown
• Paul Cole
• Nick Duncan
• Magnus Ingvarsson
• Amir Ayalon
• Carlos Zaidenweber
• Avery Keitt
• Joshua Shipsey

Producers

• Eli Coler
• Ted Inoue
• Radek Rybicki
• Hunter Owens
• Ildar Khakimov
• Matti Hallanoro
• Rodrigo Dauster
• Rodrigo Fuentes
• Anthony Ortenzi
• Daniel de la Cruz
• Michael Hofmann
• John Meneses
• Mike Sunyich
• Sami Rageb
• Michael Lustig
• Alex Deli
• John Davies
• Mark Burcher
• Morgan Howard

Associate Producers

• Brad Pineau
• Kat Ganesan
• Nicholas Christian
• Mau Frontier
• Kyle Braatz
• Serena Ehrlich
• JD
• Alex Lotoczko
• James Kennedy
• Benoit Curdy
• Asher Nevins
• Mike Kaltschnee
• William Doom
• David Lee
• Jake Kerber
• Sarp Coskun
• Giuseppe Taibi
• Tyrone Rubin
• Keno Vigil
• Paul Peters
• Jamal Waring
• Nick Ostroff
• Alex Binkley
• John MP Knox
• Bryan McCormick
• Marcos Trinidad
• Allen Cordrey
• Daniel Mich
• Joshua Rosen
• Grant Carlile
• James Smith
• Christopher Rill
• Elliot Myhre
• Nihon Giga
• Nathan Gielis
• Greg Meadows
• Rick Cartwright
• Jacques Struwig
• Robert Ward
• Adam Gering
• Shelley Gaskin
• Jim Shute

Supporters

• Ryan Hoover
• Michael Cranston
• Josiah Thomas
• João Fernandes
• Petrus Theron
• Michael Wild
• Dale Emmons
• Tim de Jardine
• Alejandro Vasquez
• Milan Babuskov
• Chris Rowe
• Nelson Melo
• James Dawson
• Toddy Mladenov
• Daniel Torres
• Chris Macke
• Piotr Zuralski
• Armand Konan
• Brian Vogel
• Paul D
• Jennifer Sun
• David Kolb
• Sue Marrone
• Eugene Granovksy
• Will Blackton
• Ryan Dodds
• Brett Arp
• Jason Cresswell
• Edwin Orange
• Daniel Bradley
• Shawn Daniel
• Priidu Kull
• Patrick Desroches
• Alex Lam
• Paul Secor
• Ryan Urabe
• Madhu R.
• Paul Ardeleanu
• Ian Thomas
• Manny Alarcon
• Charlie Osmond
• Christopher Smitley
• Roshan H.
• Barcy Cordrey
• Matt Beaubien
• Matthew Smith
• Oscar Bueno
• Tim Hoyt
  
• Ian Gerstel
• Taphon Maddison
• John Bradley
• Luigi Armogida
• Dave Ferrara
• Janus Lindau
• Chris Mancil
• TR Ludwig
• Giles Thomas
• Jason Cartwright
• Michael Del Borrello
• Joshua Rosen
• David Karlberg
• Marcus Schappi
• Justin Furniss
• Mike Hauck
• Jess Bachman
• Isaac Hill
• Robert Haydock
• Dan Sfera
• Flaviu Simihaian
• Kiko Cherman
• Chandra Siva
• Kasper Andkjaer
• Zach Woodward
• Chris Galasso
• Chad Olsen
• Michael Grabham
• John Shiple
• Gregory Hoffman
• Chris Rickard
• Eskil Steenberg
• Jay Moran
• Karim Sarkis
• Michael Davidovich
• Petru Marchidan
• Sam Drzymala