Nibletz Staff
Wrapping up the EE Tennessee Conference this week was the Startup Ave competition. OverDog was selected as the winner of the competition, walking away as the Heavyweight Champion of Everywhere Else.
EE Tennessee hosted eleven startups for the event, but only three companies would be selected by conference-goers to move forward to the pitch competition.
Over the course of the conference, attendees were able to visit each booth and chat with the companies before placing their vote (a poker chip) at their favorite booth.
Companies WedddingWorthy (represented by founder Tameesha Desangles), OverDog (represented by co-founder and CEO Steve Berneman), and WannaDo (represented by CEO Steve Buhrman) were selected to move forward to the pitch competition, a short but intense presentation of their company in front of three judges and conference attendees to compete for funding.
The competition was judged by Ben Yoskovitz, Mara Lewis, and Frank Nemanic.
The most common question asked by the judges was, “how are you going to monetize your business?”
WannaDo spoke about offering an events marketing service on the “street level”. Their monetization comes from partnering with local businesses and offering them a unique dashboard and access to user data and analytics to better promote their events.
WeddingWorthy functions off of a drop-ship retail model. Instead of charging the user for the wedding project management tool, the service partners with wholesalers to provide a one-stop-shop for bridal parties to efficiently purchase their wedding merchandise.
OverDog works off of a partnership model as well, but with professional athletes. The app also has a sponsorship model (just to “pay the bills” though) and noted that one out of three users made an in-app purchase, creating a decent revenue line for the company.
Laura Whitener is the Managing Editor for Firmology.com, a technology news and resource site for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Follow them on Twitter!
