Dialsmith

We’re no strangers to pitch competitions. After all, our dials have been used to judge everything from Food Network Star to The Celebrity Apprentice. But every once in a while, we land upon a competition that just seems to be tailor-made for our Perception Analyzer dials. This is the case with the upcoming event Pitchlandia. The event organizers were even thoughtful enough to hold it in our backyard, here in Portland, Oregon. In fact, according to organizers, the event will have the unique Portland flair.

Pitchlandia, being held May 27^th, touts itself as, “The world’s first completely crowd-sourced, crowd-based and crowd-selected startup pitch event.” Dialsmith and our Perception Analyzer dials are handling the “crowd-selected” part of the competition. Twenty finalists will get 4-minutes each to present their business plan and a supplemental three minutes of Q & A from the panel and audience of approximately 300 who’ll be using the PA dials to score each presentation. The top ten winners split the funding pot. Additionally, a panel of experts will be continuously rating each presentation Moment-to-Moment. Similar to the lines that CNN shows during its coverage of the presidential debates and State of the Union, rating results from the panel will be displayed in real-time as data lines on the venue’s IMAX screen.

Pitchlandia is the brainchild of founders Michael Coates, Mark Grimes, John Friess, Thubten Comerford, Robert Scott and Clint Bowers. The group wanted to establish a pitch competition along the lines of the successful Start-Up Riot, which the team brought to Portland in 2012, but with a unique Portland twist—cue tattoo artists, microbrews, live music, bagpipe-playing unicyclist… you get the point. “Pitchlandia is a different type of pitch competition,” explained Coates. “This isn’t about finding one diamond in the rough. It’s about supporting the Portland startup community. Ten Portland startups will be walking away with the cash to help them grow and get to the next level.”

“We wanted it to be egalitarian rather than having one person win the money,” Friess added. “So, by selling tickets through [crowd-funding site] CrowdSupply, the Pitchlandia team is able to pool enough money to help seed a new wave of Portland-based startups.” “Having the dials in the hands of our audience brings a unique entertainment and engagement quality to the event. Every audience member will play a critical role in selecting and validating the winning startups. It’s truly a crowd and community centric event.” “This event can not only impact 10 people’s lives, but everyone involved in making those winning ideas take shape, “ added Friess.

“Seeing people’s ideas have legs and having the community get behind it is what I hope to see,” Added Coates. “I’d like to see everyone prosper from it. We have to drive the startup ecosystem into the community. Then, when businesses grow, they start hiring people and the community will benefit from that.” For more info on Pitchlandia or to purchase tickets for the event, visit the Pitchlandia website. You can keep up with the event on Twitter at @Pitchlandia.