LAUNCH Conference
Encyclopedia
The LAUNCH Conference was created by Jason Calacanis
. Although it is legally unrelated to the TechCrunch40 and TechCrunch50
events, it has been perceived as the natural evolution of those events citing Calacanis' involvement, and then split, from Michael Arrington
and the TechCrunch series of events. The premise of the Launch Conference was to create the "most affordable, high-end technology event in the world.".
Winners
Winners
From the LAUNCHPAD
The 2011 Grand Jury was made up of:
refused to cover the event. Based on its self-description of their mission, "to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news", the lack of attendance was seen as a disappointment to attendees of the show.
While TechCrunch did not have anyone in attendance, several startups and competitors were profiled in TechCrunch during the conference, although the associated articles made no mention of the Launch conference. The first presentation of the conference, Careers 2.0, was profiled without mention of the conference.
Jason Calacanis
Jason McCabe Calacanis is an American Internet entrepreneur and blogger. His first company was part of the dot-com era in New York, and his second venture, Weblogs, Inc., capitalized on the growth of blogs before being sold to AOL....
. Although it is legally unrelated to the TechCrunch40 and TechCrunch50
TechCrunch50
TechCrunch50 was a conference held at the Design Center Concourse in San Francisco, California on September 14-15, 2009, hosted by TechCrunch and Jason Calacanis. Its aim was to find the best Web 2.0 start-ups and launch them in front of the industry's most influential venture capitalists,...
events, it has been perceived as the natural evolution of those events citing Calacanis' involvement, and then split, from Michael Arrington
Michael Arrington
J. Michael Arrington is the founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in USA and elsewhere...
and the TechCrunch series of events. The premise of the Launch Conference was to create the "most affordable, high-end technology event in the world.".
2011 Conference
The 2011 conference took place on February 23–24 at the San Francisco Design Center. 500 companies applied, only 54 presented on stage, 13 prizes were awarded.1.0 Competition
This competition was created for completely new companies that had never had any press, public demos and whose services are currently in closed alpha or beta. Companies applying to be in the 1.0 Competition were required to take down any web presence, ensure that they were not included in press or public notices of any kind, and keep their presence in the competition private until they took the stage to present.Winners
- Best Overall: Room77
- Best Technology: NeuAer for Toothtag
- Best Design: Cabana (App Design)
- Best Business Model: Volta
- Best Presentation: (Phone Products) Lifeproof
2.0 Competition
This competition was created for existing companies that were launching new products, or significant new versions of an existing product. Examples provided by the conference for 2.0 qualifications included Google launching a completely new social network, or Twitter launching a completely new interface.Winners
- Best 2.0 Technology: Disconnect
- Best 2.0 Design: HipMunk
- Best Overall: StackOverflow
The LAUNCHPAD Competition
The LAUNCHPAD companies were selected from over 80 participants that were invited to the conference by Calacanis on his "This Week in Startups" podcast, such as TripBod, or through competitions run on both Quora and HackerNews. In addition, companies could pay $1500 to have a table in the LAUNCHPAD. The method of entry (invite or paid) did not affect the selection criteria by the grand jury when LAUNCHPAD companies were selected to join on stage.From the LAUNCHPAD
- Best Overall: Greengoose
- Most Likely to be Acquired: ShoefitrShoefitrShoefitr Inc. is a privately held multinational corporation that creates software to help internet shoe shoppers find proper fitting footwear. Shoefitr uses 3D scanning technology to acquire measurements of the insides of shoes and compares them....
- Best Design: Pen.io
- Best Technology: FluidInfo FluidinfoFluidinfoFluidinfo, formerly named FluidDB until early 2011, is an online cloud data store based on an attribute-value centric data model. Fluidinfo is written in Python and characterized by a publicly writeable schema-less database that provides a query language, a fine-grained permissions model and...
- Best Business: GripeLine
Grand Jury
The Grand Jury selected the Launch competition winners, and were required to watch all presentations as well as walk the LaunchPad floor to select participants to join on stage.The 2011 Grand Jury was made up of:
- Harvey Allison
- Brian AlveyBrian AlveyBrian Alvey along with Jason Calacanis co-founded the publishing company Weblogs, Inc., home to such blogs as Engadget, Autoblog, Joystiq, TV Squad, Cinematical and Slashfood. Time Warner's America Online purchased Weblogs, Inc. in October 2005. In November 2006, AOL also purchased the blogging...
- Ryan BlockRyan BlockRyan Block is a technology journalist and critic. He was the editor-in-chief of AOL’s Engadget before he co-founded the popular community site gdgt....
- Jose Caballer
- Don DodgeDon DodgeDon Dodge is a Developer Advocate for Google, which requires that he helps developers build applications on the company's platforms. Prior to working at Google, Dodge was a start-up evangelist at Microsoft, where he was one of their most visible employees following Robert Scoble's departure in...
- Marshall Kirkpatrick
- Bill Lee
- Jay Levy
- Mark PesceMark Pesce- Biography :September 1980, Pesce attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology , for a Bachelor of Science degree, but left in June 1982 to pursue opportunities in the newly emerging high-technology industry. He worked as an Engineer for the next few years, developing prototype firmware and...
- Shervin Pishevar
- Adeo Ressi
- Robert ScobleRobert ScobleRobert Scoble is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft. He is married to Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble. He has three children; one from a previous...
- Bill Warner
TechCrunch controversy
The initial Launch conference did have a minor controversy. TechCrunchTechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
refused to cover the event. Based on its self-description of their mission, "to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news", the lack of attendance was seen as a disappointment to attendees of the show.
While TechCrunch did not have anyone in attendance, several startups and competitors were profiled in TechCrunch during the conference, although the associated articles made no mention of the Launch conference. The first presentation of the conference, Careers 2.0, was profiled without mention of the conference.