1000s Of Startups & Small Businesses Vying For Super Bowl Commercial Thanks To Intuit

Intuit, the small business leader in financial management solutions, is holding a pretty big contest for small businesses and technology startups.

The contest, which Intuit calls the Intuit Small Business Big Game, kicked off in August when all those interested in entering had to inspire the folks at Intuit and everyday people across the globe. That round narrowed nearly 100,000 entries down to just 10,000.

The remaining 10,000 companies are using their networks, social networks, friends, and families for an upvoting process. Those 10,000 companies are being dwindled down to just 20 which will be revealed on Monday, October 28th.

The next step in the Small Business Big Game Challenge will have Intuit’s 8500 employees and then a judging panel, narrow those 20 companies down to just four.

In November Intuit will reopen voting globally for the world to vote on the final four contestants in the Small Business Big Game. The company with the most votes will be chosen as the winner and receive a professionally produced television commercial to air on the national telecast of the Super Bowl in February.

The Super Bowl commercial will put the winner in front of over 100 million viewers, many who actually watch the game for the commercials. Last year’s Super Bowl fell just shy of the record for the most watched television program in history and was the third highest rated Super Bowl of all time.

You can stay up to date with Intuit’s Small Business Big Game here.

That’s not the only big thing for startups in February check this out.

A Startup World In An Infographic

We know that startup scenes are booming across the United States, but other areas around the globe are also growing, sometimes even faster than their US counterparts. A recent infographic published by the Australian arm of Intuit highlighted the latest Startup Genome data from across the globe and found out that out of the top 20 startup ecosystems across the world, the US only lays claim to six.

Obviously Silicon Valley still ranks in at the top. That’s quickly followed by Tel Aviv which came in second. Many actually refer to Israel as the “startup country,” although most of their startup activity is concentrated in Tel Aviv.

Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Boston, and Chicago round out the rest of the US entries in the data set.

One of the most interesting pieces of data points to the fact that many entrepreneurs are migrating away from Silicon Valley to other cities across the globe. 35% of startup founders in Waterloo, Canada previously lived in Silicon Valley. The same holds true for 33% of the founders in Singapore and 31% of the founders in Toronto.

Guess who works harder?

If working long hours is an indication of actually working harder Singapore, not Silicon Valley, takes the cake. Singapore entrepreneurs average 11 hours per day while their counterparts in Silicon Valley work an hour and a half less.

Check out all of this intriguing startup city data in Intuit’s infographic below.

Bill Harris, Former CEO Of PayPal And Intuit To Speak On “Adult Supervision” At Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

Bill Harris, Personal Capital, Intuit, Paypal, Facebook, everywherelse.co the startup conference

Bill Harris CEO of Personal Capital and Former CEO of Paypal and Intuit to speak at everywhereelse.co (photo: salon.com)

Everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference has quickly become the biggest starutp conference in the United States. The unique thing about everywhereelse.co is that it’s a celebration of startups outside Silicon Valley with information, and education for startups facing a similar set of challenges, being from outside the valley.

By now you’ve heard that our speaker lineup is one of the best in the country including Scott Case, Pat Riley, Tracy Myers, several managing directors from startup accelerators across the country, founders from some of the best accelerators across the country like Techstars, YC, and MassChallenge and many more.

Today we’re pleased to announce that veteran “parental supervision” CEO Bill Harris will speak at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference on Monday morning.

Harris is the CEO of Personal Capital, his own startup that’s already raised $25 million in venture capital, prior to that he has had a successful career in media, finance and entrepreneurism. Harris has twice been brought into young companies to be CEO and returned the companies to their founders in incredible positions.

Harris was brought into Paypal as it’s first CEO back in the late 90’s and prepared it for a $100 million dollar investment, eventually leading to the acquisition by eBay who owns it today. He also served as CEO at Intuit after merging ChipSoft into Intuit. Harris serves an advisor to some of the Facebook billionaires and has also taken a board or advisory role with several other successful companies.

Harris will speak about his current company Personal Capital. He will also talk about the real need by some startup founders to hire a CEO that is more seasoned than themselves. Eric Schmidt, the current Executive Chairman of Google, was hired as CEO of Google to lead Sergey Brin and Larry Page to the point where they could take back the company they founded.

Many credit Harris with bringing together Confinity and it’s founders Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek and Ken Howery with X.com and Elon Musk to actually form the company we know as Paypal.

Attendees and startups in the everywhereelse.co startup village will benefit from hearing Harris speak on all things startup and about his experiences advising, mentoring and helping some of the biggest startup founders in the world. It’s an amazing victory for startups “everywhere else” to have the opportunity to hear someone of Harris’ caliber and experience at a conference.

Nearly 2000 people from across the country and around the globe, have already purchased attendee tickets for everywhereelse.co the startup conference. The are still a handful of tickets left. There are 135 startups in the Startup Village and there are just 10 startup village booths left. More info can be found at everywhereelse.co tickets can be purchased below.

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