Hire Things – things for hire!

Well, yesterday was a blast.  At 10am, Darryl & I presented HireThings.com in a 7-minute pitch going up the Wellington Cable Car to some of Wellingtons most respected innovation, business experts. 

We were one of nine finalists from an original list of 360 applicants to make it through the selection rounds through to the final.  The Cable Car Challenge is a twist on the “Elevator Pitch” where you should be able communicate the essence of your business value to someone in the brief time you may have with someone in an elevator. 

On the Cable Car listening to us pitch was Sam Morgan from Trade Me, Mark Dossor from Endeavour Capital, Dion Mortenson from Movac, and Gowan Pickering (ex CEO of IBM, FRST, and now working with the Commerce Comission).  Also onboard was Cable Car Challenge front-man Rob Acton.

I am proud to say I think we did a good job, and put our best foot forward.  The judges had already read through a 6 page business plan summary and were mainly interested in the viability / investability of the business and the potential / likely impact the business will have on the Wellington Region.  They judges then used the 7 minutes coming back down on the Cable Car to pose a number of questions to us about the challenges and assumptions behind our business.

The winner was announced at a ceremony last night in the Council Chamber of Wellington Town Hall, hosted by re-appointed mayer Kerry Prendergast.   All the 9 finalists did a 2-minute pitch to the audience so they got to know a bit abut the contestants, and then the runner-up place getters were announced.

HireThings.com was one of 6 runner up place getters, which we are pretty proud of.  We go a framed award, a hand-signed copy of GUy Kawasaki’s excellent book, The Art of the Start, plus $2,000 seed funding.

The winner, Eye Magnet, won the grand prize of $30,000 seed funding, and $20,000 of professional services in kind.  You can see the article here on Stuff.co.nz at http://www.stuff.co.nz/4240035a13.html

It was a great experience, and good timing for us as we are seeking investment now and there were a number of potential investors and leads in the audience, many of which I talked to before and after the prize giving.

So getting to the top 7 out of 360 I think is a good sign that others see the potential of Hire Things just as we do.