Last week downtown Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Field (home to this years Super Bowl) played host to the first Powder Keg conference.
Powder Keg piggybacked off Connections 12, ExactTarget’s annual conference for their digital marketers.
The signature event for this year’s Powder Keg conference was the first ever Startup Bowl. The Startup Bowl pitted 12 regional startups against each other in a traditional pitch contest. To put a very cool spin on it, conference organizer Matt Hunckler, held the Startup Bowl at Lucas Oil Field.
Derek Pacque and his startup CoatChex was among one of the 12 contestants. Pacque is somewhat of an Indy startup celebrity. He turned down a $200,000 investment from Mark Cuban in the first episode of Shark Tank Season 4.
Pacque’s mini celeb status wasn’t enough to thwart a duo of entrepreneurs from Purdue though. It was their startup, FindOPS, which took home a prize package worth $15,000.
FoundOPS founders, Jon Perl and Oren Shatken admit that their startup isn’t the sexiest. FoundOPS is a useful mobile app that offers route optimization, data collection and GPS tracking.
FoundOPS is in the hot enterprise space, targeting field services. Companies with field workers will take advantage of the many features found in FieldOPS mobile app.
What were the judges looking for?
“What’s their go-to-market strategy? Have they identified their market correctly? Where do they fit, versus their competition?” Judge Christopher Day, Managing Principal at the Nabudar Group told the Indianapolis Business Journal.
FoundOPS had all the components the judges pool were looking for. Startup America CEO and Founding CTO of Priceline.com, announced the winning team at the end of the event.
Linkage:
Source: IndyStar
Here’s more startup news from “everywhere else”
Photo: TechCocktail