Entrepreneurs representing five emerging startups gathered at the 2016 INBOUND summit for an inaugural pitch-off competition. Participants had two minutes to convince a panel of judges that they deserved the grand prize, a package valued at over $30,000.
HubSpot’s annual conference brings together business professionals and speakers across the sales and marketing field. Hosted at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, the 2016 conference ran Nov. 8 through Friday. The pitch-off took place Thursday afternoon and was powered by General Catalyst.
The pitch-off event was moderated by a panel of judges, including Paul English, the co-founder of Kayak, and Larry Bohn the managing director of General Catalyst.
First up, the CEO of BILLSHARK, Steven McKean, pitched his company.
“Your local cable TV, your wireless internet provider is ripping you off. So we created BILLSHARK,” McKean said.
The company is a negotiation service that works to help individuals lower their monthly bills. A “shark” negotiates the bill with companies to see if there are any hidden savings, according to the company’s website.
“Our core purpose is to empower people and businesses to lose smart money value effortlessly,” McKean said. “We take [your bill], we negotiate it and you get savings.”
Next, Alison Lyness and Michele Choi, co-CEOs who met in their first year of Harvard Business School, pitched their company, ONEE.
ONEE “reinvents the buddy system” with a smart bracelet that allows friends to track one another other and notify each other in times of emergency, Choi said. It was inspired by the founders’ dedication to ending sexual assault on college campuses, according to the website.
“Unprecedented resources and attention are being directed at the issue of campus sexual assault prevention,” Lyness said. “And still, one in four of female college seniors report that they’d experienced unwanted sexual contact during undergrad.”
Next, Kickfurther took over the stage. The company aims to reinvent the “buy for x, sell for y, make a profit,” mentality, said Erik Straub, the CMO of Kickfurther, at the pitch-off.
“Kickfurther is a crowdfunding platform that helps brands to scale and market their products and allows buyers to partner with these brands to earn a profit,” reads the INBOUND website.
Annie Dean, a cofounder and co-CEO of Werk, took the stage next.
“The leadership pipeline is broken for women,” Dean said. “In the Fortune 500 there are more CEOs named John than there are women. That means we need to do something.”
Werk is a marketplace of career opportunities for women, Dean explained. The platform includes a community of flexible full-time opportunities and senior level positions. Soon, Werk will feature an approach to help with maternity leave, according to the website.
“It’s never been more important to create a structural framework for women to get positions of leadership,” Dean said, referring to the presidential election results.
Adam Schoenfeld, co-founder and the CEO of Siftrock, proceeded to pitch his business next.
Siftrock is a company that aims to optimize the potential of marketing and sales teams, with innovative solutions and unique data, according to the website.
“We have a very simple solution: we plug in, we convert those replies to new leads and new opportunities for business,” Schoenfeld said.
After all five semi-finalists presented, the judges deliberated and the attendees had a chance to choose their favorite by voting on Twitter.
“I think all of them had a very clear value proposition, but I liked how BILLSHARK made it incredibly easy to recognize immediately for the consumer without any risks upfront,” said Michael Yaroshefsky, 27, a student at Harvard who attended the pitch-off.
Overall, the audience favored Werk. The judges selected BILLSHARK and Kickfurther as the finalists.
“I thought it was a great forum for startups to showcase their stories with INBOUND attendees and the set of judges,” said Juan Luis Leung Li, a senior associate at General Catalyst Partners. “I hope the event was impactful for the companies.”
In the end, the grand-prize winner was selected: BILLSHARK.
“We are building a great company around our core values of tenacity, camaraderie and growth mindset,” McKean said. “We got this great early traction.”
