The first challenge of a start-up contest: Sorting through buzzwords

WASHINGTON -- The ambitions of the entrepreneurs are stuffed into a 170-page Google doc. They want to stop cyberbullying, curb unemployment, lower tuition costs and limit student debt. They want to make it easier to compost and eliminate energy waste, change the way immigrants send money home and moderate police misconduct.

"One hundred seventy pages?" says the woman whose job it is to sort through these hopes. Donna Harris, co-founder of a District of Columbia incubator for up-and-coming tech companies, is sitting in a conference room, Diet Coke in hand. Along with providing space and mentoring for young businesses in Washington, 1776 runs an international start-up competition each year. The winner -- chosen during May after rounds of city- and country-level events -- gets a $150,000 investment from 1776, a swath of outside financial help and connections in the industries they hope to work with.

Translation: what every entrepreneur wants.

By the time all the applications come in (to keep it manageable, cities have different deadlines), Harris and her co-founder, Evan Burfield, will have looked over plans for more than 8,000 companies.

On this Thursday in October, they're starting with just the ones who applied in the D.C. area. "Just" 170 pages of info, from which they will pick 36 companies worthy of making it to the next round.

The ideas ranged from a watch that measures a person's UV intake from the sun to a mentoring system for entry-level teachers. Each company falls into one of four categories: energy, health, cities and, first up in the vetting, education.

Harris's reading glasses go on. The lights go off. Brittany Heyd, the incubator's director of strategy, uses her laptop to project the document full of applications onto a wall covered in white-board paint.

". . . pioneering next generation content . . . "

". . . It's intuitively interactive . . . "

". . . the Netflix for Impact Careers . . . "

". . . embedded connectivity solutions . . . "

"What does that mean?" Harris asks.

"What do they even do?" Burfield says.

"Umm . . . "

"Is there a 'how it works page?' "

This is the biggest challenge facing people who want to launch their company further than a website and donations from their mom: Can they explain what they want to do?

For the majority, the answer is no. Instead, their pitches are full of buzzwords such as "innovative," "cutting-edge" and "game-changing."

It makes Harris cringe. Burfield occasionally yells at the proposals: "BUT TELL US WHAT YOU DO!"

In some way, they can blame the buzzword-heavy proposals on reality shows such as "Shark Tank" with Mark Cuban during which the focus is on the investments. All the hard work that goes into developing the companies isn't the focus -- it's convincing viewers that they too can fix the world's social ills and make money at the same time.

"There's a certain glamorizing that goes on on these shows and in movies such as 'The Social Network' about the start of Facebook," Harris says, noting that now "it's Hollywood to talk about" start-ups.

That's why its easy for 1776 to quickly eliminate companies from the competition. If the business hasn't been thought through, or if it is already being done, it's not worth letting them compete.

"Edbacker is up next," Heyd says. "We know them, they're a 1776 member."

Harris and Burfield don't automatically accept the companies that they work with on a regular basis, but some of those entrepreneurs are better equipped to explain what they do.

The words projected on the whiteboard read: "Edbacker is the [online] funding platform for schools.

"Purpose: To help schools get funded for everything from small classroom science projects to large scale facilities projects -- all to the benefit of children.

"Who it's for: Parents, teachers, administrators, students, community leaders, PTAs, PTOs, and others looking for an all-in-one school fundraising solution."

This is the kind of idea that it takes, Harris explains. "It has to be understandable, and it has to be compelling."

They reminisce about past ideas that didn't win but caught their attention: a fuzzy polar bear that changes colors and emotions to tell you if you're using energy responsibly, an app that made women in India more comfortable to ride in taxi-like sidecars, a phone charger powered through the sole of your shoe.

Another test: The business has to be "highly scalable." The winner of the Challenge Cup might start out as a small business, but the goal is to be a global, multimillion-dollar company.

"To get there, you have to be almost delusionally self-confident and incredibly humble at the same time" Burfield says.

That was the formula for last year's Challenge Cup winner, HandUp, a company that aims to revolutionize the process of giving money to the homeless.

Burfield and Harris are confident that there's a company out there just as deserving of this year's win. But for now, they're digging for gems in a digital folder of rocks.

". . . a very intuitive way to explore . . . "

". . . equally revolutionary way to integrate . . . "

Harris's Diet Coke is almost empty now.

"Here we go, again . . . "