I’m delighted to announce that this year’s Startup Competition at LeWeb, the annual gathering of global technology luminaries and startups in Paris, will be organized in partnership with TechCrunch Europe. We’ve been running startup events all over Europe for some time now — so I hope to be able to inject our experience into this great event.
Like last year, the LeWeb Startup Competition will have a dedicated room and stage. A total of 20 startups/applications will be selected to demonstrate a new product live on stage at the event. The winners of this competition will then have a chance to present their companies on the LeWeb main stage during a special session the following day. More after the jump.
All the details are on the submission page here, so please go and enter the new product you’d like to launch. The format of the competition will be a 6 minute presentation on stage. The application deadline for the The StartUp competition is OCTOBER 10th, 2009. Good luck to all.
Great news….Loic, can you make sure it’s free of charge for startups. At this point you have to pay 1500 euros for 2 people
it’s entirely free to participate and yes IF YOU ARE SELECTED to present we ask a HALF PRICE ticket per person for two people, that does not seem very high for us given the cost to run the entire event, above $1 million for two days, and the visibility it gives to the winners.
If you are not selected, we don’t ask anything.
Sorry Loic, but that’s slightly disingenuous.
20 start-ups (40 heads) pay €60k to provide entertainment at your show. Sure, that’s a very small % of your $1m costs but it’s an even smaller % of €1.5m revenue (say 1,750 heads averaging 850 per head). Ex VAT, yourself & Geraldine will be clearing €250k+ here and more power to you, but a bit mean at that stage taking a further €60k from start-ups. Note also, most, if not all, will not be from Paris and so will have significant travel costs + the tickets are only half price vs. the late registration price. They are actually more expensive than early bird pricing. Not good. Do speakers on the main stage also pay for their ticket? I suspect not, so start-ups are second tier citizens?
@Liam @Alyssa our costs are actually above 1m euros not dollars – my mistake – and the event barely breaks even.
In fact, I am actually happy we can even still put it together with the help of our sponsors for the 6th year in a row and it represents a significant personal risk for us to launch it.
The startups who present get a huge exposure and the full conference program and activities, we give them a half price to thank them for being on stage with us and again we don’t think it’s too much, it’s below our cost per person so we’re making a loss on each of them.
I totally understand there are travel costs to cover and some cannot afford it, we’re doing our best and have been supporting entrepreneurship in Europe with LeWeb for 6 years in a row, starting with 0 budget and 100 people last year. I guess enough people find we’re fair and the quality justifies the cost since 1800 people joined us from 35 countries last year.
I meant 6 years ago not last year of course.
Loic, no one doubts your commitment and all agree it’s a great conf, but most also agree that it is crazy that A list content providers (speakers) get free tickets whereas start-up content providers (demo contributors) pay, and pay more than early bird pricing. That said, more than enough start-ups will apply, and would be crazy not to, as agree the exposure is immense, but that doesn’t mean your pricing is fair – it just means they have to grin and bear it! That’s me done & wishing you all the best for the conf which I suspect will be as good if not better than previous years.
“cost per person”?? why? do you provide hotel? or food?
there’s no cost per person in your event. Just cost – and over 1 million euros? why? hotel/conference center cannot cost all that money, even in paris, even if you add wi-fi (which I would bet a baguette that you will not provide, given the fact that this is happening in Europe, where free wi-fi is still hard to find), even if you add a cocktail/reception on the first and last days…. all these costs are more than covered by attendants and sponsors…
you are being just greedy. And I would even bet (again, a baguette) that you are break-even with the money given by sponsors, and the rest is just pure net benefit.
don’t use your “multi-entrepreneur, nice guy” mask on this. Just say it plainly, you are a business man, and this is business. There’s nothing wrong with it, especially if you are living in the US, where everything is business, even people’s health care.
You do have sponsors offsetting the cost though, yes?
Hi Loic,
It is undoubtedly a huge opportunity for startups. Can you please clarify the eligibility criteria here as it is not listed anywhere on http://www.leweb.net? Is the competition open for companies outside of Europe, launching products with global appeal or is it restricted to European startups only? (the “country” option on the application page shows lets you choose a location from around the globe). We really missed out on TC50 due to our extended development deadline but would surely like to try our chance in LeWeb.
Cheers,
Nasr
We are an Indian startup btw
the startup competition is opened to every startup, not only from Europe. The companies who can present will be selected by the team of LeWeb and TechCrunch.
Thanks for answering so quickly and confirming the overall cost. Startups add value to your conference. Also TechCrunch50 was entirely free to all startups presenting….I assume you want LeWeb to become the European TechCrunch50 right ?
That’s cool! Let’s hope that Superfeedr will be selected
Heh. Tired of arguing with Calacanis, Arrington has decided to enter into a new argument breeding venture with Loic.
See, the world *is* full of magic. Does the felt-covered Shel Israel have a passport yet? Loren seriously needs to get to the Post Office right away if not.
I think we are going to participate too. We need this kind of events here in Europe.
Good to see statups getting a look in. Always make a conference that little bit more exciting as they always bring great energy and you just never know who the start up pitching could go on to be.
Fingers crossed. I have two start-ups in my portfolio applying.
We’ll probably step in the contest too
For €3,000 one can buy a lot of Google Adsense which gives a huge exposure too – to your target market.
These Web 2.0-launch conferences are not giving exposure to your potential customers, especially if you are selling to busiensses.
Congrats @mikebutcher and @loic – the more conferences are about demoing rather than talking and powerpoints the more valuable they are to developers, biz people and investors
Cheers, @jlopezvalcarcel
How come Techcrunch France is not associated to the event ?
Oh wait, they’ve been on holidays for the last 3 months!
Hopefully the move gives the merged event a more pan-European flavor. Europe is still not playing as a whole in the Internet scene.
If not online, Europe won’t be able to play together anywhere.
What is the geographically (countries) distributed appliers for the startup competition ?
Is the selection has already started ?