19 November 2009 | Posted inBlog News & Updates
Look out American Idol…
St. Louis is serious about attracting and retaining start-ups, especially in the IT industry. This week I had the complete honor and privilege to serve on a panel of very prestigious judges from various organizations in the region to participate in the first ever StartUp CUE. The StartUp CUE is a friendly competition open to anyone with an idea, product, invention, concept or better way of doing… well, anything. As long as it solves a problem or improves someone’s life, it qualifies.
Judd Knight of Trainiac wears his product, a corporate learning map, as he takes 1st place
Participants were allowed 150 seconds to tell the audience about their idea – some used slides, props and even costumes. The audience included local business leaders, tech people, entrepreneurs and media people. Presenters were judged based on how their idea was Convincing, Useful, and Exciting – hence the CUE.
I personally had a great time and went home dreaming of becoming the next Paula Abdul, although I guess she is no longer officially an Idol judge. Seriously, it was wonderful to be a part of such a cool mentoring opportunity and to get to know more about all of the many initiatives going on in this region to promote new businesses.
- The Startup CUE Winners Circle
- The audience
The Start-Up CUE team was led by Josh Jeffryes, organizer of the St. Louis Design Meetup, and includes Dave Blankenship and David Phillips, IT Talent from the Bounce Back Network. The competition was the final event in a day-long conference called the Start-Up Connection, which was organized by Innovate St. Louis, ITenterprises of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, IT Entrepreneur Network, Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise, BioGenerator, the St. Louis RCGA, and Bounce Back St. Louis. Now if that isn’t a list of resources to get any entrepreneur with a good idea off the ground, I don’t know what is!
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