LAUNCH Conference

LAUNCH Festival
Key people Jason Calacanis

The LAUNCH Festival was created by Jason Calacanis. The Festival now averages 10,000 attendees per year and features a few dozen speakers well known in the start up world. Past headliners have included Mark Cuban, Paul Graham, Evan Williams, and Yves Behar. During the festival, 50 start ups are revealed and "launch" at the event. The entrants compete in front of a select panel of judges for $100,000 in investment. Winners of the competition have also received investment from the LAUNCH Fund, such as Connect, which received $250,000 from the fund after they successfully won the 2014 competition.

2015 Conference

The 2015 conference was held March 2–4 at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. The Hackathon started on the previous weekend on February 27 - March 1. Eleven winners were selected from fifty startups including Abra, the overall winner and Recurrency, the Best Incubator Company. [1]

Early history

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.[2][3] The premise of the Launch Conference was to create the "most affordable, high-end technology event in the world.".[4]

Competition structure

There are two types of entrants to the Festival, 1.0 and 2.0 companies. Each category has its own requirements for qualifying to participate in the Festival. There is also a Hackathon event which admits 5 entrants per year right before the Festival.

Hackathon

Each year, a Hackathon is kicked off the weekend prior to the Festival. At the Hackathon, around 200 teams of 4 members spend the weekend building a product which competes for a chance to enter the LAUNCH Festival competition. 5 teams are selected from the 200 for the final chance to get the $100,000 grand prize.

1.0

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 are required to have zero 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 take the stage to present.[5]

2.0

This competition was created for existing companies that were launching new products, or significant new versions of an existing product. As cited by the FAQ, a 2.0 company must have a "feature or product that GigaOm, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Mashable, and ReadWrite all want to cover."[6]

Previous competition entrants & winners

Previous keynote speakers

Past festivals

2015 Conference

The 2015 Festival took place at the Fort Mason Center and saw over 12,000 attendees.

Competition

Winners

Speakers

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

Winners

2.0 Competition

Winners

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

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.[7]

The 2011 Grand Jury was made up of:

TechCrunch controversy

The initial Launch conference did have a minor controversy. TechCrunch refused to cover the event.[8] Based on its self-description of their mission, "to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news",[9] the lack of attendance was seen as a disappointment to attendees of the show.[10] 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.

References

  1. ↑ Calacanis, Jason (March 8, 2015). "The 11 winners of the LAUNCH Festival 2015 (and why they won)". calacanis.com. Retrieved 2015-03-10.
  2. ↑ Boutin, Paul. "Launch Conference founder will invest in winning startups". http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/11/calacanis-new-launch-conference-everybody-wins/''. VentureBeat. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  3. ↑ Boutin, Pail. "Confirmed: TechCrunch50 conference is no more". Confirmed: TechCrunch50 conference is no more. VentureBeat. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  4. ↑ "Calacanis Pits LAUNCH Conference Against TechCrunch Disrupt". Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  5. ↑ "Conference Rules". Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  6. ↑ "Conference FAQ". Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  7. ↑ "Judges and Grand Jury". Retrieved 11 March 2011.
  8. ↑ "It's War of the Silicon Valley Boosters". It's War of the Silicon Valley Boosters. The Atlantic Wire. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  9. ↑ "About TechCrunch". About Techcrunch. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
  10. ↑ Scoble, Robert. "Will TechCrunch cover The Launch Conference?". Quora. Robert Scoble. Retrieved 16 March 2011.

External links