SIIA Previews - Grading the Pitches

One of the sidebar conversations I had at the SIIA Previews Day was around the idea of having the audience vote for the best presentations.

While I don't know if that will come to fruition, I thought that I'd take a moment to share my votes.  The ten presentations spanned a wide range of business models and industries. 

I think that the two most compelling presentations were by Daphne Kwon of ExpoTV and Michael Breyer of Courtroom Connect. 

ExpoTV offers user-generated product review videos.  Its business model is based largely around lead generation and they have done a solid job building a strong community of enthusiasts. 

Courtroom Connect delivers real-time broadcasts of trials and hearings from more than 50 courthouses.  They are well-positioned to serve law firms, hedge funds and other markets by providing access to information that would not be accessible to most.

Another company which I gave consideration to was TutorVista.com, whose outsourced tutoring model is a game changer in the tutoring and test prep space.  Of all the presentations, I think TutorVista has the greatest opportunity to hit a home run.  However, as more of a platform/education company, I thought they were less relevant from a pure content/technology perspective.

Let's take a look a year from now to see how these three companies have grown.