1st Place: Judd Knight, Trainiac

2nd Place: Meredith Turk, Impossible Museum

3rd Place: Jeff Lewis, Twain Lighting System

1. How long have you been working on Trainiac?

We have soft launched our Trainiac offering here in the USA in 2009, based in Saint Louis. Our business operations are 8 years old where we have been serving clients in Europe and Africa.

2. What inspired Trainiac?

The idea, to use visual content and experiences to help people learn, is of course thousands of years old, but we were struck by two feelings. One, that business content was so uninspiring, and two, that it was becoming so convoluted. So we had a paradox, being both underwhelmed by boredom and overwhelmed by complexity. Going back to basics was critical. For leaders to get the best out of their business, they have to get the best out of their people. Getting the best out of your people means engaging them so that they learn, so that their learning turns into a behavior change, and that change leads to a business result. It still all comes down to people, and people love pictures!

3. What stage is your idea in now?

We are a small company that has worked with Fortune 500 corporations to mid sized operations. We are growing and our offering of picture based training and communication products and services is expanding. We are also working on an idea that will empower trainers to create their own material, which is exciting.

4. Where do you see things going in the next year?

Of course one can’t ignore the impact of the economic meltdown and its effect on large and small business alike. I think we are past the shock and denial phase and are now accepting the current state. Our industry, corporate training and communication, had its share of budget clampdowns, inactivity and folks putting everything on hold. But business goes on, and the winners will be the companies that emerge from this economic hit with a well trained, skilled and engaged workforce. So we are seeing a refocus on this with a few changes

1. Training needs to be more effective and organic. It needs to happen in the job, in short, regular bursts
2. Training is a companywide initiative, with non trainers doing more and more of the training.
3. Companies have to equip those non trainers to perform that function
4. People love pictures, but above all else we are engaged by other people, so training will get better results when it’s a group oriented activity.
5. Technology will play its part, but not to purely deliver training online, but to bring groups of learners together to be engaged.

Any last words?

We are investing in Saint Louis and this region, so we would love to hear from organizations who are looking to improve the quality of their training results without compromising their budgets. We will also be staffing up and so people who love instructional design, visual design or HR executives who love training and workforce development and have a network in this region should call or visit trainiac.com.

Our 3rd Place winner was Jeff Lewis. He’s created a municipal lighting system that combines solar and wind power into a public light that can be set up anywhere and runs on it’s own. It’s a great green solution for almost any public space that needs to be lit.

He took a minute to answer a few questions for us.

1. How long have you been working on your idea for the Twain lights?

Three and a half years.

2. What inspired you?

News clip about city residents needing street lights for homes built in the early 1960’s. Street lights were not required in building codes back then. Now due to electric location it would be too costly to install traditional street lighting. Residence questioned about solar lighting.

3. What stage is your idea in?

Very small Company.

4. Where do you see things going in the next year?

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has set aside more than $12 million in Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant funding for cities and counties. The Twain technology Lighting System (TTLS) fits all requirements set forth by this grant. We are working with city’s across Missouri to help them apply for this grant to put in the TTLS in their city’s.

5. If people read this post and contacted you, what would you want them to contact you about (invest in you, ask for a job, use your product, test things, brainstorm, interview, etc.)?

Any and all.

1. How long have you been working on the Impossible Museum? What are your inspirations?

I’ve mulling over this idea now for about a year. Several themes in my life were merging and this idea real struck a chord with how I wanted to contribute a greater conversation happening in St. Louis.

The Impossible Museum combines a few key but simple concepts and inspirations:

1. Once you see it, you can begin it. This is something that I practice daily. I find the ability to tackle problems, issues, tasks when I have them written down in front of me, or when I have a close friend to listen to me and work me through my thoughts. This is an important part of what I want the Impossible Museum to be, a physical place that archives ideas and allows us to interact with their possibilities.

2. Everyone is creative. I’ve been involved in a lot of conversations around St. Louis where we keeping asking, “How do we keep and attract creative types to St. Louis?” I think it is important to support “creative types,” and I also think there is something we lose when we only label people who seem artsy or unique a “creative type.” There is a whole other part of the community that contributes each day in meaningful and un-traditionally creative ways. I really want to tap into the creativity of each individual who is committed to St. Louis. I hope that the Impossible Museum can facilitate a creative process for everyone who wants to enter.

3. ‘Impossible’ is relative. The reason I came to St. Louis was through a fellowship called Coro where I was trained in the methodology of General Semantics. General Semantics focuses on the power and possibility of language, and how our perspectives give us access to different ways of thought. This sounds pretty abstract, but the concept is simple: what seems impossible to one person, could seem possible to another. And when you have people gathering and sharing in this way, perspectives can shift.

And in the end, what I really love to do is bring people together who normally do not meet –I feel that is one of my greatest strengths. This concept made me really excited about the potential to bring a city together in a way like never before.

2. What stage is your idea in now?

The company stage is still very conceptual. The Startup CUE was the first time I even pitched this idea. Again, now that I’ve talked about it, I can start creating even more. I made some great connections even in the last few days, and am so honored and energized to be on the receiving end of some people’s most creative ideas.

3. Where do you see things going in the next year?

The Impossible Museum is such an abstract idea that I need to just start talking about it and getting a feel for its relevance here, because without relevance, this idea is nothing. I will work on a business plan and work to establish some solid mentors. Already I am overwhelmed with people who are willing to pour their personal time into my development. In a year, I hope to feel that there is a real future for this project.

Any thing you’d like to say to your fans out there?

They can email me at impossiblemuseum\ at \gmail.com. I would like to brainstorm with and interview people. And I love pie, ice cream and falafel so I’m happy to eat those things too while brainstorming!

The Audience

Our first StartUp CUE was a huge success! Attendance was great, and many innovative thinkers presented their ideas. It was a fantastic opportunity to get inspired and meet other entrepreneurs and tech professionals.

The winner of the StartUp CUE was Judd Knight, and his new company Trainiac.

Second place went to Meredith Turk, and the Impossible Museum

Third place went to Jeff Lewis, and his new Twain lighting system.

Other contestants:

Clayton Smith, Worldki
John Zeman, Trends for the Future
Chase Huey, Renaissance Road
Rosalyn Andrews, The Review Fairy
DC Cooper, His Amazing Voice
Ed Mass
Diane Pearce, Diane’s List
Harish Sundaram, Stand Against Poverty
Brady Lewis, Eco-Friendly Marketing

We had a lot of last minute walkups, unfortunately my notes are a little garbled, and I’m not sure I’ve got all the names right. If you read this and want to correct it, or send a link to your idea, send a note via the contact form.

Stay tuned for video and more information about the winners, and keep an eye out for the next StartUp CUE!

How to Pitch to a VC or Angel – ReadWriteWeb’s excellent advice on building a powerful, focused presentation

Positioning and pitch decks for startups – Ed Sim’s advice on how to position your startup through your presentation. That’s fancy marketing talk for explaining how you’re different from your competition.

Guy Kawasaki’s Video Advice on Presentations – the man’s a legend for a reason, listen and watch.

The Art Of The Pitch: Ron Popeil And Steve Jobs – believe it or not, the same magic that convinces you to buy a combination food processor and fax machine is also at work making you run to the Apple Store everytime Steve Jobs speaks. Make some of that magic work for you.

Perfecting the Fund-Raising Pitch – it’s BusinessWeek, which is completely unhip and 1.0, but they still have some good advice on sticking to the essentials.

What if you don’t want to read all that? Then you’re missing out. But we’ll summarize for you:

1. Keep it simple
2. Be confident and passionate
3. Explain exactly why your idea is completely awesome (not 60% awesome, completely awesome)

That’s it! Now go out there and submit your presentations!

*we also have terrible writers. We’d fire them if we were paying them anything.

Here are a few examples of great pitches. Some of them have live demos, which we’re not doing (PowerPoint only), so ignore that part and focus on them getting up in front of an audience and talking about their incredible new ideas.

Yelp:

HelpGuest Elevator Pitch… In An Actual Elevator:

Graph.me, winner of TechCrunch Munich 2009

Foodspotting (very close to how we’re going to do things):

Startup Weekend Pitch: Foodspotting from Women 2.0 on Vimeo.

This presentation by Present.ly is possibly the best set of slide you’ve ever seen: