Apple just released their newest reality Television Show called "Planet of the Apps". It is a similar concept to the television show "Shark Tank"; however, it is only for contestants that hope to be picked up by one of the judges as a mentor and if selected, they will eventually pitch their app idea to a VC firm in hopes of funding. "Planet of The Apps" has four great judges on board. The four judges are Jessica Alba, who founded the very successful company called Honest, musician Will.i.am, the CEO of VaynerMedia Gary Vaynerchuk and lastly, the founder of Goop Gwyneth Paltrow.
Apple released their first episode of Season 1 on Tuesday night.
"Planet of The Apps" and what we know thus far...
The concept of the show is that each contestant or group has a specific amount of time to pitch their product to the judges. The creators pitch on a moving staircase. By the time the escalator ends, their pitch must be done. After the pitch, the judges each have an IPad, in which, after hearing the pitch, they will vote yes (green) or no (red) if they are interested in being their mentor or not.
The first episode: Companion and Pair
In the first episode, viewers watch three different sets of founders. The first is Pair, which is an augmented reality that helps you pick our furniture.
Jessica Alba is very intrigued with this app and believes that she can also utilize it with the Honest Company. Jessica Alba signs on to mentor Kemendo (the founder of Pair) and will prepare him to meet with the venture capitalists.
The second app, which gets immediately rejected by all the mentors is a dating app called Twist.
It allows for users to meet in real life and they are connected through meeting at an event or party. None of the judges like this idea and they do not feel that is safe. All of the judges do not believe they thought hard about the fact that women or men can be flocked around at a party when that person is simply only present at the event to meet ONE person.
A bit overwhelming. So... that app idea was vetoed.
The last app, was Companion. Companion is a safety app that allows for your friends and family to track your location and keep an eye on you. It was created by two twenty-two-year-olds while attending the University of Michigan. Companion was developed by Lexie Ernst and Jake Wayne, who already had great growth prior to coming onto "Planet of The Apps". They came up with the idea of Companion while doing a summer coding boot camp a few year prior and truly developed their app while at the U of M. Gary Vaynerchuk took Lexie and Jake under his wing and mentored them for six weeks up until their final pitch in front of venture capitalists. The episode finalizes with Companion having to pitch their idea to Silicon Valley VC: Jeremy Liew, of Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Lightspeed Venture Partners was the first VC company to invest in Snapchat.
The episode finalizes with Lightspeed being on board for Companion and funding them 1 million dollars for their future ventures.
The first episode was definitely a hit. Let's see what the rest of the season has in store for viewers...
