Think Big Partners Launches PitchCastr Virtual Demo Day Platform for Entrepreneurs and Investors

Think Big Partners is thrilled to announce a new virtual demo day platform for both entrepreneurs and investors.  The platform, known as PitchCastr, is not just another funding platform—it’s a connection platform.  PitchCastr incorporates science-based research, the flexibility to make deals anywhere at any time, a filtration process that weeds out companies outside the investor’s area of interest and a standardized format that allows select entrepreneurs and investors to experience a live, virtual pitch from the comfort of their own home or office. 

PitchCastr For Entrepreneurs 

By establishing a PitchCastr profile, uploading a business plan and recording a seven to nine minute PitchCastr video pitch, entrepreneurs will use the virtual demo day platform to find investors that are interested in their idea.  When a certain number of investors have expressed interest in the idea, that entrepreneur will be invited to hold a Live Demo Day, in which all potential investors will tune in via online video platform.  The PitchCastr platform will eliminate first-time entrepreneur/investor meetings that not only take up too much time, but will also put an entrepreneur’s idea in front of only those investors who are genuinely interested and able to invest. 

PitchCastr for Investors 

Investors can log in to the PitchCastr platform, submit their pitch preferences and search a pre-screened selection of PitchCastr videos that they may be interested in funding.  When interested, investors are invited to “Attend Demo Day” and can both watch a live feed of a pitch and partake in a question-and-answer session.  The PitchCastr platform gathers insight about both a business plan and an entrepreneur, providing investors with a more robust view of potential opportunities.  The virtual demo day addresses the issue of rising valuations in the middle of a capital raise.

“We created PitchCastr with the entrepreneur in mind,” explains Herb Sih, co-founder and managing partner of Think Big Partners.  “Between running a startup company and executing their plans at full speed, there is never enough time in the day to connect with investors, not to mention investors that are actually interested in your idea.  PitchCastr is not only a simple way to get your idea out into the world, but will also be the best way to connect with investors who are interested in your idea and ready to fund it.” 

“In today’s environment, investors are overwhelmed by entrepreneurs.  There are too many business plans to look over and not enough time to go through them all,” said Tyler Prochnow, co-founder of Think Big Partners.  “PitchCastr will give investors insight into high quality investment opportunities from all over the world and allow them to focus only on those that are of interest to them.  We created PitchCastr to establish an efficient marketplace for investors and entrepreneurs to find one another.”

PitchCastr is operating as a free service during private beta.  Startups, entrepreneurs and investors are invited to sign up and try PitchCastr for free during the month of February 2013.  To learn more, visit www.pitchcastr.com.

Connect with PitchCastr at @PitchCastrTips. 

Microsoft Azure Cloud vs. Amazon Web Services

While hosting Microsoft's Azure Cloud and Windows 8 App Kickstarts, we were asked a lot of questions.  But the most prevalent question of all seemed to be "What's the difference between Microsoft Azure Cloud and Amazon Web Services?"

We're glad you asked.  Because as a matter of fact, there are a lot of things that differentiate Microsoft's Azure and Amazon's cloud platform.  Which one is right for you?  Read below to find out:

Who Leads in the Cloud Space?
Amazon has been known as the cloud leader for quite some time now mainly because of its competitive price points.  But that hasn't stopped Azure from claiming some of the top accounts including Boeing, General Mills, Lockheed Martin, Travelocity and Xerox. At the same time, Amazon Web Services have been around longer and plans to expand its global datacenters and cloud portfolio.  When it comes to credibility, Amazon may be the most trusted, but Azure isn't far behind.

IaaS vs PaaS
Amazon is best known for its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) when Azure provides a Platform as a Service (PaaS).  What's the difference?  In IaaS models, the vendor only provides the underlying infrastructure (to include network, storage, compute resources and virtualization technology).  PaaS models, on the other hand, provide both an underlying infrastructure as well as the application development platform to include automation to deploy, test and iterate applications (through operating systems, databases, middleware, up-to-date tools and services).   

Which Makes Building Easier?
Azure seems to be more user-friendly than AWS.  According to Craig Knighton of LiquidSpace, "it is easier for the average engineer to accomplish high availability on Azure because the tools push you down that path and make it pretty darn easy to build stateless applications."  .NET engineers will also benefit more by utilizing Azure cloud while Java and Python developers may excel using AWS.

Which Performs Faster?
It's a close one, but AWS might take the cake.  Experts believe that AWS and Azure are probably equal when it comes to pure performance, but AWS may out-perform Azure when it comes to specialized applications.

Which Saves Me the Most Time? 
Hands down Azure.  As a strong PaaS, Microsoft's Azure Cloud platform automatically configures, optimizes and updates the cloud environment for the developer, saving loads of time.

Which One is More Cutting Edge? 
AWS may be considered more "cutting edge" than Azure.  The platform gives developers the capability to deploy new technologies event before becoming part of the platform.  But in the case of a simple business application, either AWS or Azure will do the trick.

Which Has a Better Failover Strategy?
It's a tie.  There is no way to provide a 100% uptime of availability zone or data-center whether that be on Azure or AWS.  Keep in mind that disasters usually happen because of poor application not because of the fragility in the cloud.  AWS is still recovering for the 4-day outage it endured in April of 2011.

Which Is Better for Big Data?
Amazon does big data really well.  Whether it's extra-large memory instances, high-CPU instances or cluster compute instances, Amazon really can't be beat.

Which Has More at Stake?
Azure--but that may be a good thing.  Knighton notes that if Microsoft fails with its cloud platform, the company will die a long, slow death.  Amazon, on the other hand, can rely on book selling if AWS fails.  Therefore, with Microsoft facing more pressure with the platform, there's no doubt that its Azure cloud service will succeed.  Either way, one thing is for sure, neither Microsoft or Amazon are going away anytime soon.

Which One's Cheaper?
Both Azure and AWS allow you to utilize a free usage tier to test out the platforms.  From there, it's up to the user to determine how much they want to spend on their cloud platform service.  Therefore, price depends on what services you need to use.  I will say that in order to determine how much money you will spend, Azure has a super easy pricing calculator (vs. Amazon's pricing charts).

Let's face it.  You can't go wrong with either Azure Cloud or AWS.  Both provide great cloud platform options--it all depends on what you need it for most, what type of developer you are and what you're trying to accomplish.  We'll let you make the decision on your own.

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