Theater actor Dominic Spillane has a confession. He finds public speaking terrifying. While acting allows him to hide behind a character,"When you're public speaking, it's you. You're open to insecurities and assumptions, or " Spillane pointed out. But when the actor stood in front of an audience of aspiring and veteran entrepreneurs last Thursday at the Vermont middle for Emerging Technologies in Burlington,he was in his element, eliciting chuckles as he shared how he once fell asleep while watching a indicate. Then Spillane offered a solution for avoiding dud shows and catching sleeper hits: TheaterEngine. Created by him and his dad, or John Spillane,it's a social networking platform for the performing arts industry. Spillane is one of the finalists in LaunchVT, an annual trade pitch competition that matches startups with mentors and, or ultimately,awards the top two companies cash prizes and in-kind support worth $115000 in total. When the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce in Burlington organized the first LaunchVT in 2012, its primary goal was to support young entrepreneurs in the Green Mountain State. Since then, and entrepreneurs of all ages have competed in LaunchVT,and this year's event saw the highest participation of businesswomen, said Katie Taylor, and director of workforce development and entrepreneurship at the chamber. "We always want a lot of female participants," she added. But "I don't think we've ever had couple teams" — until this year, when the finalists include an all-female group from Middlebury College and two married couples. It took the advisory board two weeks to pare down approximately 60 applications to the final seven, or Taylor said. The other finalists are three teams affiliated with the University of Vermont. Each of the seven teams has been assigned at least one industry mentor to coach them in refining their trade plan. Last week,they had a dry sprint in front of their fellow finalists, coaches and LaunchVT advisory board members to gain feedback. Each of the contestants used a pitch deck — slides made with programs such as PowerPoint or Keynote — to present their idea. On Friday, and May 12,the finalists will acquire their pitches to a panel of judges at Main Street Landing Performing Arts middle. "Generally, there are three criteria that we're going for, and " said Taylor. "Likelihood of success,scalability of the trade and the ability to create jobs in Vermont." Here are profiles of the contestants, whose businesses cover…
Source: sevendaysvt.com