There is something to be said for striking when the opportunity is there. For startups and new companies, the best way to get noticed is by doing something daring and bold that everyone will want to pay attention to. In the technology industry, that means getting on stage and demoing your product to the audience in the hopes that there’s some appeal to the masses. And quite frankly, one of the best places to get your product involved with has to be anything TechCrunch is involved in. Over the past few years, the events put on by one of the industry’s leading publications have promoted some of the most popular startups that are used in the world today: Mint.com (acquired by Intuit), Yammer (acquired by Microsoft), RedBeacon (acquired by Home Depot), GetAround, Shaker, and now Uberconference.
It seems that one of the most known things about winning at a TechCrunch event is that it will grant any company instant celebrity status—almost like the publication is a “king-maker,” where mere minutes after touting the success and accolades of a startup, the company goes into overdrive and reaps instant benefits from the news. The track record speaks for itself; after all that notoriety (in a good way), companies are stepping out into the world and entering their beta phase much wiser and with more interest in being funded. And for the lucky few that have successfully navigated their ways through the maze of competition at a TechCrunch event, the future rewards are immeasurable. But don’t take my word for it, let’s look at one recent winner: Uberconference.
The winner of TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City earlier this year, Uberconference has come a long way since its presentations. This revolutionary conference calling service has certainly disrupted the industry during the four months since its win at the conference. It has since raised over €18 million in funding, grown its team to a staff of 18, and is looking to hire more. Would this have happened had they not taken a chance and gambled on participating at Disrupt? Probably…but it would have been much more difficult.
Some other statistics to share about Uberconference’s success post-TechCrunch are below, shared through the recent release of a cool (but brief) infographic highlighting the popularity of the service over the past four months of its life:
Uberconference is certainly making tracks to becoming more mainstream instead of focusing on just the tech sector. As you can see from the above graphics, the service is definitely gaining a lot more traction and becoming useful to people. You can view their released infographic here.
With the recent trend of “winners” at TechCrunch events getting acquired or achieving some other higher plateau of success, one must wonder what will become of Uberconference? Will it be the recipient of an interested company? Who knows, but this is an interesting tale to follow, especially since all the above activity took place over the past four months—imagine what will happen to the company within a year of its win.
Just who will become the next company to pay attention to? Will they have the same success that past winners have had? TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco is set to take place this week—just what brave solution will a startup solve that will be deemed disruptive enough and launch them forward to the next and exciting new phase of their journey? Tickets are probably sold out, but you can watch the livestream of the demos and talks here.
Photo Credit: Uberconference wins TechCrunch Disrupt New York via TechCrunch