Obviously it is not that easy to say “this is the best start-up to my mind” when one hasn’t even been listening to what they have to say…

But then again one sees if a start-up does something original or just copies (and improves) an already existing service. Which can also be needed at times of course!

Anyway, I think Mike Butcher & Co in the jury did already a great job choosing the 12 finalists of the elevator pitch. I say that because when I first looked at the long list of everybody in there, I quickly got bored with quite a number of not at all exciting ideas. Saying that is of course damn easy, especially if one,  me definitely included, never even tried to come up with an own or even innovative business idea.

Judging others is always done very easy, but not in this case, I noticed. However, these are my 3 favourites among these 12, and I hope that their presentation will take them one step closer to winning the competition! They are in no particular order!

1. Trust You If this solution works, they would be loved by a huge number of shopping sites and their users! And it seems to work, their social semantic search, having listened to their presentation.
http://www.trustyou.com/ 

2. StoryTude As a pretty frequent traveller, I often see things on my way, wondering if there would be any stories connected to these. This could be a great travel companion, allowing one to discover lots of stories that lie off the normal tourist path, which I usually avoid anyway. Plus – no travel guides in paper needed anymore!
http://www.storytude.com/ 

3. JoinBox Yes, please – one login for everything from everywhere. But as secure as only possible, please! After all I am German and naturally worried about the protection of my personal data… 😉
http://www.joinbox.com/

Good luck to ALL finalists!