BBVA Open Talent 2012 & Red Innova

In this article we look at BBVA Open Talent & Red Innova 2012.   We look at results and their selection pattern in order to help entrepreneurs understand what might they be looking for and how to be prepared for next applications to investors, accelerators and incubators.  We provide an overview of what the application process is like and the projects that were finally selected.

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BBVA provides information about their selection process here.  They have a 4 step process:

1. Start Day: 29 April: You can start submitting your project through the online application.
2. Two Week Online Voting: 30 April – 15 May: People vote your project here.
3. Three Week Project Valuation: 16 May – 7 June: Project Valuation.
4. Final Event: 14 June – 15 June: Finalists and Winners.

Stage 2: Two Week Online Voting:

Once you’ve submitted the online application, BBVA suggests that you ask people to vote for your project online.  Your result will then help you with 10% of the final decision.

Did any of the projects in the top 20 votes get into the final 20?

The answer is no.

So, does it make sense to go through the voting process? Well, if the top 20 finalists had been part of the top 20 voting list, then yes, because 10% is still a good number when you have a tough competition among the other Top 20 finalists.  However, it seems that in this edition in particular, those who are among the Top 20, had something else that mattered more than being in the Top Voting chart, and it’s important to understand what they have in common.

Another additional fact you might be interested in noting is that getting votes is a stressful endeavor, and you might create a negative buzz if you push to hard on your contacts to get a vote.  So, a future recommendation here is not to focus on these votes and focus on getting a better product/service up and running.

So, why does Open Talent ask you to do this?  Some reasons might be the following: They want to generate Buzz, they want to get e-mails on Facebook and Twitter, they want to expand their community, they want to promote their project.

Stage 3: Three Week Project Valuation:

Here we want to understand what the 20 finalists have in common and what’s the major difference with the rest.  We don’t have access to these projects’ application information, so we cannot infer what we don’t see.  We will focus on what we can, so we’ll look into the projects’ landing pages and descriptions and will try to infer some reasons for their success.

Landing Pages

Does it have to do with the type of landing page used? Among these finalists only two of them don’t have a landing page with an explanatory video or additional rich information.

1. Ventura Match Makers
2. Bull4All

Both of these used a LaunchRock landing page, no video, no further additional descriptions, FAQs or working system behind it.

One differential fact about these two is that they are financial oriented.  As you know BBVA is interested in these types of projects, so this might have something to do with why they are in this list.

The other 18 projects have very nice and rich landing pages:

1. MoveinBlue
2. Wideoo
3. TeDa! / GalaxyMovil
4. Kalakai 
5. Clic Educa
6. Buguroo 
7. AgentBot
8. Oxobox 
9. StartBull 
10. MProjects 
11. Bolsa.com
12. RinPay 
13. Ahorro.net
14. MyKey 
15. Energywe 
16. Gamisfaction
17. Socialare 
18. Meddoc

We analyze below some of the common content in these pages.  In order to do so, we’ve broken up the analyses into 13 categories/questions.  Each will be answered with a Yes, No or Not Available (NA – if we don’t find the information on the Page):

1. Is it already functional? Is the project already working?
2. Explains what it does through images? Do the owners of the project explain the project using images/visualizations in the web-page?
3. Explains what it does with a video? Do the owners of the project explain the project using videos in the web-page?
4. Does it have a nice page? Do the owners use interesting designs in the web-page or is it a static/uninteresting page?
5. Does it have a logo? Do the owners have a logo?
6. Feedback section.  Do the owners have a contact form/blog/twitter page/facebook page for users to send information to them or contact them?
7. Does it use Rock Launch? Do the owners have a Launch Rock page, or have they custom designed their page?
8. Does it allow for registration/pre-registration? Can users register or pre-register for private beta?
9. Does it show the team? Is there a link or information regarding the team in the web page?
10. Is it a multinational? Is the project already a multinational project? Is there any information about this on the page?
11. Does it already have clients? Do they already have a critical mass of clients? This might be either a small subset of big customers or a big number of users (for example on a social platform).
12. Is BBVA already a client? Is BBVA already a client of them?
13. Is the main business: Money/finance/savings/monetization? Is the project oriented to a financial service/product, monetization, payment platform, etc. Or is it on something other than that, such as education or social services?

The results based on the criteria above show the following:

1. 70% of the projects are functional.
2. 75% of the projects use images to explain what they do.
3. 40% of the projects use videos to explain what they do.
4. 90% of the projects use either images or videos to explain what they do.
5. 90% of the projects have a nice page, the other 10% use launch rock.
6. 95% of the projects have a logo with image and rich design.  The only project without a design, does have a specific font for it though which could be considered a logo.
7. 75% of the projects have a feedback section.
8. 15% of the projects use Launch Rock as a system to contact users.
9. 80% have links that allows users to provide feedback, either through a form in their page, or through social networks.
10. 55% of the projects have an About us section.
11. 10% of the projects show multinational presence.
12. 20% of the projects show that they already have clients.
13. 10% of the projects show that they have BBVA as a client.
14. 50% of the projects are financial/monetization/payments oriented.

2012 Acceptance rate:

Total projects that applied to BBVA OT 2012: 506

Total Funnel to Top 20 Finalists: 4% Acceptance Rate

Total Funnel to 2 Finalists: 0.4% Acceptance Rate

This means that out of 506 projects, 486 are left out in the first selection round and 504 are left out in the second selection round.

Here’s a brief Poll to get some more info around this subject:

 

 

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