5 Things We Learned At TechCrunch Disrupt
In late September the (mt) event team hit San Francisco for the what we consider one of today’s most relevant tech conferences – TechCrunch Disrupt. It was an exciting week, starting on the heels of “AngelGate” and ending with news of TechCrunch being acquired by AOL.
We first hit the Disrupt Hackathon, where groups of over 450 amazingly driven hackers gave up on sleep and worked a full 24-hours to win a coveted spot presenting on the Disrupt stage to over 2000 attendees. Next came the conference itself that brought with hundreds of startup exhibitors and one of the most impressive speaker lists we’ve ever seen including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the legendary Barry Diller of IAC, CEO of GroupOn Andrew Mason and many, many more unique personalities.
It took us a couple weeks to get this together, but we’ve finally picked the top 5 things we learned at Disrupt….
1. Sleep is for the weak!
The TechCrunch Hackathon continues to get bigger at each event, growing from 300 at the last Disrupt in NYC to over 450 this time around in San Francisco. Clearly, the word has spread what a unique opportunity it is to compete and win the hackathon, so these crazy hackers gave up on sleep and powered through a 24-hour coding session. We were lucky enough to catch up with some of the hackers and get some demos of their apps…
In the end, a 22-year-old programmer, J’amie Ohm’s app called, WiseDame, described as a “black box” recorder like they have in planes, but for real life, took the prize and presented on the main stage to over 2000 attendees and countless others watched the live stream.
Hackathon winner J’amie Ohm of WiseDame. Photo Credit: TechCrunch
2. Nothing beats TechCrunch Disrupt for launching your startup
The Disrupt Exhibitor floor. Photo Credit: TechCrunch
With hundreds of startups exhibiting and a small group of of the best of the best competing in the Startup Battlefield, there simply isn’t a higher quality or more relevant audience to launch or exhibit your startup. Whether you’re looking to meet VCs – who attend Disrupt en masse – or just trying to gain some extra exposure, we’ve never found a better venue to make an impact in just a few days… just ask the $50,000 Battlefield winner Qwiki – an exciting new app that TechCrunch calls “The future of information consumption.”
Startup Battlefield winner, Qwiki. Credit: Techcrunch
3. Creative people are still making amazing things.
Yes, at times we must admit that we suffer from startup overload – but Disrupt showed us that despite all the noise out there, enterprising entrepreneurs are still creating amazing things. Here are a few of our favorites:
Qwiki
Qwiki is a mind-blowing search application that creates video stories on the fly based on your searches. The technology incorporates open resources such as photos on Flickr, Wikipedia and hundreds of other sources to create amazing content-driven experiences. Qwiki was named the winner of TechCrunch Disrupt Start Up Battlefield. This is one you have to see to believe.
Badgeville
Badgeville is a cool white label Social Rewards & Analytics Platform. It makes rewarding your web audience easy, engaging and fun. They made a big splash at Disrupt, winning the audience award sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark and gaining Techcrunch as a new client.
Ovia
Ovia claims to make it possible to “interview anyone, anywhere, anytime.” Ovia is a webcam driven system that allows you to pre-setup interview questions and conduct video interviews by the dozens to quickly identify and hire talent.
Teamly
Teamly, an (mt) favorite, is a new kind of productivity tool that helps you and your staff move beyond your mile-long to-do lists and focus on the truly important stuff—your top 5 priorities for the day, week and month. A few of us here at (mt) are using it and we have nothing but good things to say about our experience.
4. VCs and Tech execs can and will form boy bands.
CoverFlow
We had the privilege of throwing the opening party for Disrupt. The party danced to covers played by Entrepreneur Boy Band, Cover Flow, consisting of Blippy’s Philip Kaplan (Drums), Mayfield Fund VC Raj Kapoor (Vocals/Gold pants), Investor Tim Chang (Bass), Facebook’s Ethan Beard(Guitar) and Prashant Fuloria (Guitar).
5. MC Hammer has still got it!
Photo Credit: Photo Credit: TechCrunch
No really… THE MC Hammer performed was brought in for a special performance for the Google Ventures/SV Angel party… and he’s still got it. Hammer has been pretty active in the startup community in recent years, but who could ahve guessed he hasn’t lost a step? Over 2,000 people packed into the venue to be taken back to their younger days. His performance was so inspiring that attendees were wowed by TechCrunch Editors Michael Arrington and Erick Schonfeld along with Silicon Valley Investor Ron Conway joining their teams on stage to show off their Silicon Valley dance moves.
Photo Credit: TechCrunch
We’d like to close out with a big thanks to all the amazing people we met at Disrupt, and a big thanks to TechCrunch for putting on an amazing event. Be sure to let us know your favorite things about Disrupt in the comments. See you next time!