Big 50-2016: Questionnaire for the 80 Finalists

If your startup made it through round 2 and is one of the finalists for the Big-50-2016 Startup Report, please fill out the questionnaire below.

These questions will help the Startup50 team create profiles on your startups, and these questions will also be used to pick the final 50.

Please take the questionnaire seriously, and don’t simply cut and paste corporate boilerplate.

Tips for filling out the questionnaire:

1. Avoid hyperbole. Terms like “revolutionary,” “world’s first,” “cutting edge,” “bleeding edge,” etc. are just noise. Please eliminate them.
2. Avoid jargon. Startup50 readers have a wide variety of backgrounds. Don’t assume they know what your arcane jargon or acronyms mean.
3. Explain what your startup does in terms you would use to describe it to a lay person, or to you grandmother.
4. If you are a PR rep filling this out, be sure to confer with the startup’s senior executive team about key differentiators and the competitive landscape. They should know this stuff inside and out, but make them explain it to you in plain English. Consider this an opportunity to press them for real, concrete details, pushing them away from pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking.
5. Prioritize. When we ask, for instance, for your key differentiator, give us 1 (2 tops). Overwhelming us with everything the startup does isn’t a good strategy. It tells us that you can’t prioritize.

Deadline for completed questionnaires:

Thursday, April 14 at 5 PM PT. 

*To see if your startup is a finalist, go here. 

Questionnaire for the Final 80

Startup's name *

Is there any information you would like to update from your previous Big-50 questionnaire? (I.e. have you raised additional VC funding or launched a new product or service?) *

Yes, we've raised additional VC funding.

Yes, we've launched a new product/service.

No.

How much funding, in total, have you raised and from whom? *

Please tell us about your new product/service. *

Who is the startup's CEO, and what was the CEO's previous position before joining this startup? *

Where is the startup headquartered? *

In one or two short sentences, tell us what the startup does (Hint: avoid marketing spin. In other words, how would you explain this to your grandmother?): *

How many employees do you have? *

1-25

26-50

51-100

100+

What does the competitive landscape look like? *

We have no competitors; we jumped on this trend first.

The incumbents have fallen behind the times and need to be displaced, but no one has done it yet.

It's a land grab.

Who are your main competitors? *

How big is the market sector you are targeting? *

<$50 million

$51-$250 million

$251-$500 million

$501 million - $1 billion

>$1 billion

Not sure. We're defining a new space.

Do you have any data or research to support your market size estimate? *

Yes

No

Please provide links to research or anything else that validates your estimate of this market's size:

What is your startup's key differentiator? *

What is your main advantage over other startups rushing into this space? *

How is your startup's approach different from legacy solutions in the market? *

What is your #1 marketing/PR challenge when it comes to getting attention for your startup? *

Do you have any customers on the record? *

Yes

No

Are you allowed to name them? *

Yes

No, we don't have approval to disclose any customers yet.

Please list a few customers: *

What is your biggest challenge when it comes to identifying and communicating with potential customers? *

Which best describes you? *

PR rep working at a large agency

PR rep at a boutique agency

I work at the startup in a marketing role

I'm the startup's founder or CEO

OtherOther

Your name: *

Your email: *

Δ