I’m really happy to announce that CreateDebate has scored again! On Friday, we won the March 2008 round of Pitch Dingman. It was a well-run business competition and a worthwhile experience. Five other companies did their best to compete but I’m happy to say that we took home the grand prize. It was really interesting to sit through all of the presentations. There was a biotech company, two other web 2.0 startups, a niche advertising firm and an outsourcing consultancy. It was really energizing to be surrounded by so much entrepreneurial energy.

It was important for us to take part in this competition for a couple of reasons. First of all, we won some more prize money, which is going to help when we begin executing our marketing plan later this month. Most importantly, however, it forced us to spend a lot of time thinking about and translating the value of CreateDebate into a well-rehearsed presentation. We came out of the experience with much better competitive research, predictions for growth and revenue expectations than we went in with. We also made a few great personal connections with some folks that are really involved in the local investment scene.

We are doing our best right now to launch CreateDebate publicly by the middle of April. Once we do, our traffic is going to start booming (especially when you guys get to see some of the new features we’re baking up). At that point, the site is going to require a lot more time and energy, which is kind of hard to believe because we already live and breathe it. At some point in the not-so-distant future I think we’re going to have to take on some capital. Now that I’m confident we have a winning pitch, I feel a lot more confident about going down that road.