Next week a group of nine Oklahoma interactive entrepreneurs will take their elevator pitch talents to the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, for a live competition with $10,000 on the line.
The competition will be held as part of Oklahoma’s Buffalo Lounge efforts at the SXSW show. It will begin at 9 p.m. at the 512 Bar at 408 E. 6th Street in Austin on March 11.
For the record, the nine finalists selected to compete in the pitch competition are:
- Josh Wright, Buzzam Radio, Oklahoma City;
- Chris Zenthoefer, Docvia, Tulsa;
- Jeff Moore, Littlefish/Fountain Ventures, Norman;
- James Simpson, Goldfire Studios, Oklahoma City;
- Dustin Curzon, Narrable, Tulsa;
- Autumn Worten, RenKid, Tulsa;
- Jacob Johnson, ReTenant, LLC, Tulsa;
- Ross Faith, SpectrumFX, Tulsa;
- and Jay Wright, SpokesMe, Oklahoma City.
Some of them came to i2E’s Oklahom City offices last week for a pitch run-through in which they received feedback from a couple of our investment professionals.
The Buffalo Lounge is a collaborative effort to spotlight Oklahoma companies and innovators at the South By Southwest Conference, which last year attracted more than 50,000 visitors in the areas of film, music and interactive. Several successful companies such as Twitter, Foursquare, Phonebooth and Highlight were either introduced or spotlighted at SXSW.
Also, Buzzam co-founders Josh Wright and Greg Starling appeared on the Oklahoma Live television show late last week to talk about their innovative smart phone app and the upcoming Buffalo Lounge pitch competition. Take a look at the interview: