On the eve of the final day of the 2013 SXSW Interactive festival, the Indiegogo team brought together the crowdfunding community, Indiegogo campaigners, and other tech-film-music rockstars for a night of pitching and partying — the result was one-thousand-and-one glassfuls of crowd-fun.
The night kicked-off at the TechZulu Lounge with PitchFest — a chance for people to pitch their passions. Each contestant had two minutes to propose a crowdfunding campaign and any potential perks — in front of a panel of expert judges that included Indiegogo campaigners Hannah Hart and Pearl Wible of My Drunk Kitchen, Sean Keegan of Angry Video Game Nerd, and Indiegogo film experts @IndiegogoFilm (Brad Wyman and John Trigonis). Check out TechZulu’s recording of PitchFest!
Great views and great pitches at the #indiegogo #sxswi PitchFest, #gogoSXSW twitter.com/brianjohnglynn… — Brian Glynn (@brianjohnglynn) March 11, 2013
My hero @harto at #sxsw @indiegogo party #mydrunkkitchen twitter.com/katharinejoann… — Katharine J. Relth (@katharinejoann) March 11, 2013
After an hour of intense competition, insightful feedback from our judges, and an inspired crowd, our three winners were selected:
First Place — Robert Marshall: A military veteran himself, Robert wants to build a transitional home for veterans suffering from PTSD and combat-related injuries.
Second Place — Sharon Simmons: After violent crime made a permanent impact on her life, Sharon is creating a crime-reporting application called iGotem.
Third Place — Ali Spagnola: A surprise appearance at PitchFest, Ali is currently running an Indiegogo campaign to fund her album-meets-drinking-game tour, “The Power Hour.”
Our winners!
Each of our winners won money for their campaigns as well as varying amounts of Skullcandy headphones and earbuds to offer as perks on their campaigns! We’d like to give them a heartfelt thank you to them and all of our PitchFest participants for taking the courage to share their ideas with our judges and the rest of the audience.
As PitchFest wound down, our party was just getting started, and I was on the scene to interview the scores of Indiegogo campaigners past and present who were there to party:
Not from the party — but you get the idea!
I was lucky enough to talk to (among others):
- Hannah Hart and Pearl Wible from My Drunk Kitchen
- Sean Keegan from Angry Video Game Nerd
- Ali Spagnola from The Power Hour
- Caitlin and Brian Hill from Help the Hills Put a Bun in the Oven!
- Kristopher Rutherford from A Canvas of Sound
- Len Kendall, CEO of CentUp
- Lauren Bird of the Harry Potter Alliance
- Tim Scott of Mitscoots
- Lex Lybrand and Kelli Horan of Summer League
These campaigners have or are raising money on Indiegogo for everything from socks companies to IVF procedures, and I appreciate them all taking the time to share their crowdfunding experiences with me! Subscribe to our YouTube page and stay tuned in the next few weeks for the interviews!
We were also lucky enough to be joined by two-time Indiegogo master and SXSW Interactive closing keynote, Matthew Inman of the Oatmeal (BearLove Good & Let’s Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum):
Citizens of #sxsw, I’m headed to the Indiegogo party at the Hilton Garden Inn on the 18th floor. All are welcome
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) March 11, 2013
Thank you everyone who joined us, and we hope to see you again at this year’s SXSW, next year’s, and elsewhere! Also — a big shout out to Indiegogo campaigners and Austin locals Gypsy Heart Wandering Photo Booths for setting up shop at the event:
Stay tuned for more of Indiegogo @ SXSW — and follow the action on Twitter and Instagram with #gogoSXSW!
Many thanks @indiegogo for the great shindig and headphones yesterday. We’ve been talking about both all day #sxsw twitter.com/mitscoots/stat…
— mitscoots socks (@mitscoots) March 12, 2013
Unchained at #SXSW: Made some new friends at the @indiegogo party last night. fb.me/2tAJAM3oS
— Indies Unchained! (@IndiesUnchained) March 12, 2013
