Last week, Tracy Isacke, Head of Telefonica Digital’s Silicon Valley office, served as a ‘Sage’ at VentureBeat’s bi-annual DEMO conference, providing feedback on the social companies who pitched at the conference.
Tracy, along with Mike Cassidy, Director at Google; Josh Elman, Principal at Greylock Partners and Jason Medelson, Managing Director at Foundry Group, watched approximately 20 companies pitch social ideas on stage at DEMO. The companies ranged from social job searching (Barrel of Jobs) to an app that organizes after-work sports schedules (RecBob) and Flinja, a site that helps college students and alumni find jobs.
Tracy and her fellow Sages addressed a packed room on three occasions to provide feedback to the pitch companies on their budding ideas.
The bi-annual event brings together both established luminaries and emerging startups together to track what’s next in technology. In addition to the Sages and pitch companies, it also featured fireside chats with business leaders such as Evan Williams of Twitter and Scott Case, CEO, Startup America Partnership.
Evan Williams was a crowd favorite for his advice on start-ups. Check out a tweet from Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch on entrepreneurship:
So, which social media startup demos emerged as favourites?
Overall, the demos received positive feedback from the sages, and while some companies delighted more than others, there was strong feedback for all the candidates who appeared on stage. In a VentureBeat article on RecBob – a Facebook app for adult recreational sports – VentureBeat’s Christina Farr quoted the sages, saying:
Jason Mendelson of the Foundry Group (also a musician) said it would be compelling to see this platform work for other team activities like band practice. “I would pay for that!,” expressed Tracy, adding that it would be a useful application for parents to organize little league and other junior-league sports.
In addition to RecBob, a sage favorite was Flinja. As noted in our tweet stream, the sages, including Tracy, want to see this young start-up succeed. Barrel of Jobs came highly commended too.
If you’re interested in reading more about the companies who launched at DEMO, VentureBeat has extensive coverage on their website here.
