[Essential Web 07](http://www.libraryhouse.net/events/web07/)

Fantastic day with a strong mix of investors and entrepreneurs. Some wonderful pitches and a killer opportunity for start-ups

We were thrilled to be the only Irish company to get a showcase presentation slot at Essential Web 07 on Wednesday. The event was dedicated to letting hot web start-ups pitch to a large audience of investors and their peers. The longer slots were five minutes, the shorter ones 1 minute.

Most of the presenting I have done in the past year has been to small groups in Enterprise Ireland or BarCamp or Soho Solo. This was going to be the biggest audience I’d had in over fifteen years so you can imagine the stress! But days of practice with my stopwatch had me coming in at four minutes forty seconds so I knew I was ok.

The venue was IMAX in Waterloo and it was perfect. Tons of space, lots of seats, huge screen. Only the powerpoint button and the lectern mounted mikes were problems. I’d have preferred a lapel mike so I could move around more.

The entire day was MCed brilliantly by Doug Richard. His commentary went far beyond the usual banalities of such a role and he nailed several of the speakers with incisive digs.

The quality of the presentations varied from shockingly awful to awe-inspiring. To be honest, I still don’t know what Spottify do and at the other extreme, I wanted to hand all my money over to Seatwave.

In fact, Seatwave was the pitch highlight for me. Love the business, the model, the customer focus and the pitch itself. Doug asked some tough questions about ticket touting/scalping and Joe Cohen shot back with killer arguments which I 100% supported.

By comparison, even though the Wonga presentation was superb and I loved the idea, the CEO crumbled when Doug pointed out the astronomical APRs associated with their short-term mini-loans.

I was presenting in a fantastic group. First was Jaiku, an absolutely wonderful application which I love (and of course which LouderViesti uses). Jyri is an inspirational speaker and I was kicking myself for not getting to talk to him afterwards. Throughout the event they showed snippets of an interview with Tim O’Reilly. Tim made some totally inaccurate statements about Jaiku which Jyri dealt with well.

ParkAtMyHouse is such a brilliant name, you don’t even need to go to the site to know what it is about. You also realise instantly that it is a world-class idea. Every large city worldwide is a potential market for Anthony and the guys. They are going to be huge.

WAYN is already a big success and has lots of funding so the presentation really just touched on the highlights. I mentioned to the CEO that I thought I was the wrong demographic for the site since it presented as very much 18-30. But he pointed out that over 50’s are their biggest users.

Zubka is another one of those disruptive sites that could put all headhunters and recruitment agencies out of business. Those looking to hire people put up job specs, if you know someone who fits the bill, you recommend them. If they get the job you can get up to a couple of grand as a fee. Killer app.

My presentation went pretty well. No clangers, got a laugh with my horror graphic and thought I answered the question on advertising revenue accurately.

Our expert panel consisted of Judy Gibbons, Chris Seth and Paul Walsh. Paul’s “question” to me was “burn the tie Conor”. Comedy highlight of the day and helped as an opener for conversations for the rest of the day. Thanks Paul!

The one minute sessions had to move from the foyer to the main auditorium due to noise. I’m glad they did as some superb ideas were presented. The complementary and competitive angles between LouderVoice, Crowdstorm and WeLoveLocal gave myself, Phil and Max plenty to talk about at the party afterwards.

I got to talk to a ton of people throughout the day and the Blognationers seemed to be everywhere!

Saul announced SeedCamp too and this is a big big deal for Europe. I’ll blog more on that over the weekend.

The only criticism of the day was the terrible food and the lack of it. This was a 12 hour event and far more nourishment was required.

I hope those investors who attended found our pitch interesting and as I said on the day, we are actively fundraising.

Rated 5/5 on Jun 29 2007 by Argolon Solutions Team

LouderVoice Review Tags: conference, ecosystem, entrepreneur, event, investor, jaiku, loudervoice, startup, vc

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