Cable car challenge

My eye was caught recently by the rather curious judging and selection process for the Wellington Cable car challenge.

Congratulations must go of course to Eyemagnet the winners of the inaugural Wellington region specific Cable car challenge, a competition for start up or concept stage businesses.

Eyemagnet, a young start up company, aged around 4 years, with a head office in Auckland and branch offices in Wellington, Brazil,(and the USA) successfully captured the $50,000 first prize.

Eyemagnet was also fortunate by successfully capturing what may be a multi-million dollar contract in Brazil with the assistance from the NZ Minister of Trade just prior to the competition judging.

Lets just look a little closer at why the Cable car challenge was created and focus on what some would call inconsistencies with regard to entry and judging criteria.

Excerpts taken from www.cablecarchallenge.com & www.cablecarchallenge.co.nz

What’s the Cable Car Challenge?
Submit your best and cleverest business concept into this Wellington region competition and be in to win a NZD$50,000 prize package to make it happen. (My italics)

Terms & conditions
3: Applications made by an individual require that individual to be resident in the Wellington region (based on regional council boundaries). Applications made by a team require at least 50% of the team to be resident in the Wellington region.

8: All applications must pertain to new business creation, an early stage company or business development.

FAQ's
What is an early stage company?
An early stage, or seed stage, company typically is at the inventor stage where there is an idea, a concept, or even a product, but little or no income has been generated yet.

Can a business proposal enhance an existing, revenue generating business?
Yes. But the new plan must aim to considerably enhance the company’s future success.

Depends on whether you see the entry criteria applicable to business concepts and start-ups i.e. less than 2 years old or whether you read the criteria as applicable to all and sundry......

Admittedly the entry criteria and competition rationale are a little bit of a mixed bag.

Compare the previously stated entry criteria to a sample of the judging criteria and competition purpose:

• Improve access to early stage seed funding for start-ups.
• Commercial potential and profitability of the business, with high-potential, growth oriented businesses likely to be viewed more favourably.
• Market potential and whether there is a sustainable national or global market.
• Likelihood that the business described in the plan can achieve a sustainable, competitive advantage.

One might want to ask whether the entry criteria and judging rationale was deliberately left ambiguous so that political and marketing considerations were possible during the competition rounds. Or is it a case of too many cooks stirring the CMS pot?

This ambiguity would allow an entry that may not have met the entry criteria however ambiguously stated, but looked rather nice to certain people with a marketing bent, could possibly be chosen.

A decision that could certainly have been driven, whilst ignoring the fact a business has been around the block for a number of years and outside the accepted definition a start-up, by the co-incidence of the business announcing a major deal, thereby gaining more press coverage for it and the competition?

It certainly looks a bit strange awarding the prize to a company that is effectively a multi national with HQ's in Auckland and Brazil that may or may not meet the stated entry criteria of business concept or start-up and may or may not be a Wellington based company.

It would be nice to know whether the capital that was distributed was tied to investors wanting a slice of the action and getting it, or was it "no strings attached" corporate largesse?

One could also ask whether other competition entries were pulled as they posed too much of a threat to the pre-anointed choice when it came to the actual judging of the award with respect to those entries meeting the stated competition criteria more closely. Or were other entries simply unworthy?

Questions inside questions and about as illuminating as the decision making process of the CDC.

It's a wonder Telecom didn't enter.