RedBeacon Wins The Top Prize At TechCrunch50 2009 | Hacker News Reader

RedBeacon Wins The Top Prize At TechCrunch50 2009

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I thought TC50 was about innovation. I was expecting something disruptive coming out as a winner. This seems to be a good business but what is innovative about it? I am disappointed.

when you have crappy selection, you'll make a crappy choice. The competition this year downright sucked, there really wasn't a single company(I'll admit I wasn't really following TC50 that closely) that really made me say "WOW, what an awesome service"

I thought CitySourced and LocalBacon were pretty cool. They solved real problems and actually listened to their customers' pain points.

i was talking more about technology.

As far as those 2 choices, yeah CitySourced has a good idea, but most towns already have a line you can call to report potholes etc.

LocalBacon I thought was stupid. It might have worked if it was the only option out there, but it's not. Why would a user go to their crappy site and pay money, if they can apply on Monster for free. Same goes for advertisers, they'll still have to post on Monster/Dice and deal with all that crap anyways, How many people using the LocalBacon who don't know about Monster?

Also localbacon is a very bad name, I read the TC post on it yesterday, yet when you mentioned it just now, I didn't think about the company, I thought it was a service that would deliver bacon to your door. So they have 0 name stickiness.

I think these were lacking in one way or another whereas RedBeacon had a more thought out product. You have to realize that Jason and Mike have to protect the TC50 name.

From a judgment perspective, the market cap proposition of CitySource is not there. As in, if you funded this and this were actually highly successful they would only be able to net a few million a year. Additionally, getting cash from cities is going to be extremely difficult in this budget cutting environment.

LocalBacon was much riskier. They didn't really have a solid distribution model.

You guys might be a little more charitable. You're starting to sound like the trolls in TechCrunch comment threads.

PG, I think it is a good business model with a huge opportunity and they are going to do good. I am just saying it was not something I was expecting to come out as a winner of TC50.

Congratulations to RedBeacon team and TC50.

superman does good. red beacon is doing well

TC50 is supposed to be for the best 50 companies TC gets. Shouldn't the winner of the event be something substantial? I mean compare it to Mint...they aren't even on the same level.

Can you honestly say that these guys will still be in business a year from now? Shouldn't that be a requirement for the winner of the "best tech conference"?

These are companies who are launching at the event. Things change after the first user, even business plans. Right now all one can do is take a hard look at the individuals, and see if they have what it takes to make it.

And frankly, this is business, not a spectator sport.

I'm really shocked that more people didn't get into the multi-platform toy. American Girl is a multiplatform toy concept and it's enormous. That prototype was hideous, and they need to work out some of the cross platform elements to it but if I were a kid and I saw that? Yeah. Plus, anything that has multiplatform revenue capabilities like that is a smart play right now. 90% of the companies at TC50 were talking about subscription models I didn't think users would be willing to pay and anybody who thinks they're going to make dough off ad revenue alone is nuts. The market is oversaturated and there isn't going to be a roll up.

Anyclip?

Oh yea and the flash developer technology was hot times. UI is going to become reeeeeeeeallllly important in the next gen of web users

Somebody tell me why this isn't boring.

Depends on how boring you think making a lot of money is. Servicemagic.com makes upwards of 100M/yr. Boring or not its a great business.

There's countless startups doing the exact same thing.

Trollim ("lets coders battle for programming superiority") sounds like fun if they can figure out how to make it into a game rather than some dumb HR thing.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/15/tc50-trollim-lets-coder...

Edit: but why did they decide to call participants "trolls"?

I know a lot of you guys are saying "where's the innovation". If it's so innovation-free, why does a service like RedBeacon not exist yet?

And if it's not so simple, then wouldn't it require innovation to build the platform and the marketing to make it all gel?

I don't know if these guys can pull it off. But if they do, they will need a lot of <unsexy> innovation.

"why does a service like RedBeacon not exist yet?" -> they do, servicemagic.com and more.. but the market isnt yet saturated and rb is trying to take some of it with a different pricing model

They addressed servicemagic specifically during the presentation: it's catered to a very specific niche while RedBeacon is more broad.

Just because something doesn't exist doesn't mean it should.

Fair enough. Why do you think it shouldn't exist?

I wish this was working already! Just today I was looking for a good mechanic to replace a transmission in San Francisco. I tried RedBeacon but SF won't be ready until October 1. If this works it would be really useful.

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