Announcement: 20 nominees to go through to the second round!

We like to thank all participating startups for their time and effort. We had a stunning total of 160 competing mobile startups. This made it a big challenge for our jury and it was a close call on many occasions, which really shows the quality of this year’s entries!

The jury selected the very best entries based on the 5 criteria mentioned below:

- Originality, creativity and innovativeness
- Technical and operational ability
- Economic and financial viability (business case)
- Use case and end-user value
- The quality of the members of the (management) team (e.g. their experience, knowledge, skills, relationships)

Here are the nominees for the second round (in alphabetical order)

Spain:

The Netherlands:

Portugal:

United Kingdom:    

Congrats to all nominees! We wish you good luck in the second round. We would like to request you to send the presentation material to us. The deadline for this action is Sunday September 5th at 6:00 PM (CEST), so our jury members can consider this when selecting the finalists.

The finalists will be decided based on the criteria and the material you provide. We will contact you again on Monday September 13th to let you know if you have made it to the final.

All non-selected startups can request feedback from the jury by contacting Yuri van Geest on the following email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Please keep in mind that due to the many startups competing, this could take around 7 work days. Thank you again for participating in Vodafone Mobile Clicks and we wish you all the best for the future. We hope this competition has enabled you to think further about your concept and bring it to a higher level.

The jury members that made the selection possible

For Spain:

- Belen Aparicio
- Marketing Specialist (Vodafone ES)
- Carles Ferreiro - Co-founder MoMo Barcelona & Madrid
- Albert Cuesta - Technology Columnist at CanalPDA

For the Netherlands:

- Jochem Heerkens - Head of Postpaid Terminals Marketing (Vodafone NL)
- Marc Fonteijn - Chairman MoMo Amsterdam
- Peter Robinett - Owner of Mobile DevCamp website/database

For Portugal:

- Nuno Inácio - Product Manager (Vodafone PT)
- Vitor Domingos - Founder Mobile Monday Portugal
- Luís Silva - CEO Wit Software

For the United Kingdom:

- Mike Eaton - Head of Content (Vodafone UK)
- Helen Keegan - Co-organizer Mobile Monday London
- Rafe Blandford - Blogger allaboutsymbian.com

Global jury members:

- Rudy de Waele - Founder Mobile 2.0 Europe
- Yuri van Geest - Co-organizer Vodafone Mobile Clicks

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010: Thoughts and advice

Last year Woobius came in third and took EUR 25.000 prize money to develop their concept “Woobius Eye” further. They’ve made a lot of progress since then and in this blogpost they will share some thoughts and advice about Vodafone Mobile Clicks. Also keep in mind that the entry deadline is on Sunday August 22nd at 11.59 PM sharp.

Why did Woobius apply to Vodafone Mobile Clicks?

We were really busy at the time (as are all startups, I suppose), but we thought it was important to apply. Our initial thoughts were that we wanted to raise the funds to develop one of our product ideas into a real product. Woobius Eye, at the time, was just an idea, but we knew it had potential and we wanted to give it the attention it needed. We also applied for the publicity. Vodafone is a very respectable, international brand to be associated with. Finally, we applied because we wanted to win a prestigious award!

How was your experience of the competition and what did you really like?

We had a very unique experience, because unlike others, we didn’t have a product to begin with, just an idea. What this translated to in practice is that at each stage of the competition, we had to evolve the idea, push it forwards, develop it further - which is probably what made Vodafone interested in us, because they saw not just an idea, but also the progress of that idea.
 
We were constantly surprised by how useful the competition process was to pull the product into existence. Each step forced us to think more about how to give life to the product. Each interview, and its set of valuable feedback from the judges panel, forced us to think about all aspects of the idea and make it more and more robust.
 
The demand for materials like blog posts and video clips forced us to think about reaching the market for the product earlier than we would have otherwise. Creating these public bits of information, and convincing people to vote for us, meant we needed to think in terms of what people actually wanted out of this tool, and it allowed us to feel out, quite early on, just what the market wanted. It also generated a lot of interest and feedback early on, which is always invaluable in any startup.

What were the results for Woobius, after competing in the competition?

We used the money to develop the product and bring it to a point where several impressive customers are using it on a daily basis. It’s become an essential tool for collaboration in the construction industry. Without VMC, this would have remained an idea. We haven’t quite got it to the finished product stage yet - it’s still in testing - but we wouldn’t have got this far without the funding.
 
The general brand awareness was great too. There is no doubt that when you mention Vodafone, people pay a bit more attention to you.

Why is it interesting for startups to join this year’s competition?

Vodafone Mobile Clicks is not an easy win - there’s a lot of tough competition - but then again, nothing valuable is. Even to be shortlisted is a great honour. People should enter for the prize money and the publicity, but our advice is: if you enter, make sure you use the competition properly to develop the product.
 
As we mention in the video, it’s easy to fall prey to seeing the process as a series of hurdles that you need to jump over. That’s missing a trick, though, because those aren’t hurdles, they’re more like springboards. Each presentation with the dragon-like judges gives you the opportunity to get invaluable feedback, both in the form of questions and as direct advice. Each blog post about the product gives you further feedback from your potential users. Each video forces you to articulate the key points of your product even more clearly. Take advantage of this, and you can get a lot out of the competition, even if you don’t win.

As a past winner of prize money in the competition, what tips can you give new participants?

The most important piece of advice, in our opinion, is to treat the competition seriously. Take on this challenge with the philosophy “if we’re going to do this, we should do it properly.”
 
When asked to submit blog posts, submit the best blog posts you can. When video clips are suggested, make the best video clips you can. When you have to give a presentation, prepare a great presentation and Wow the audience.
 
It’s a waste of time to enter this half-heartedly. If you’re going to do this, you have to do your best.

Impression of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009

Interested in joining the competition this year? Get an impression of the process in this compilation video of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009.