We have a champion in St. Louis Inno Madness.
Business Video School has claimed the bragging rights in the inaugural edition of St. Louis Inno’s bracket challenge. Nearly 2,000 votes were cast in the final matchup of Inno Madness, with Business Video School winning with a 55% share of the vote.
The company, led by CEO and Head Instructor Nick Niehaus, has developed an online school for real estate agents and small business owners to help them use video in their communication and marketing efforts. The bootstrapped company has experienced growth in enrollment, recently surpassing 700 active students, Niehaus said.
“We also introduced a new offering called Premium Workshops that have been a big hit,” he said. “During these 2-4 hour live online sessions we teach a specific video related skillset and help the participants practice and implement it during the session. They leave with a detailed workbook with customized notes that contains a system they can follow again and again in their businesses. Our goal is to help our students develop habits and systems they can rely on in their companies for years to come rather than just teaching them the skills.”
Business Video School’s victory in Inno Madness comes as it plans to further expand with new video-focused live courses and projects for business owners.
"Our project concept, which launches this summer, is a bit different. We choose a specific project, such as developing a weekly video messaging outreach system that attracts new leads, and work on it step-by-step with each student over a series of sessions,” Niehaus said.
While bootstrapped, Niehaus said Business Video School is open to considering investment opportunities that would help advance its growth strategy.
The runner-up in Inno Madness was Speak Information Technologies. Led by a group of students from Washington University, Speak Information Technologies is a clinical documentation software company aimed at helping health care providers streamline data entry and administrative tasks. Launched in September 2021, it has grown to a team of nine.
Founder and CEO Kai Skallerud said he plans to pursue the company full time after graduating from Washington University in May with his MBA. Upcoming milestones are expected to include a seed funding round and hiring a professional chief technology officer, Skallerud said.
Business Video School and Speak Information Technologies were among several underdogs to advance far in our Inno Madness contest. Business Video School and Speak Information Technologies were seeded #30 and #28, respectively. Seeding in the bracket was determined based on the amount of funding raised by each company and name recognition of the businesses nominated.
More than 15,600 votes were submitted by readers during the five rounds of voting in Inno Madness. That engagement highlights the goal of Inno Madness, which was to give a snapshot of some of the most promising tech companies in St. Louis. This contest was by no means a complete list of St. Louis' best startups, which is a testament to the size of St. Louis' tech scene. Our bracket sought to represent the full breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In the end, we hope you thought of the bracket as a fun look into local, technology-enabled companies you need to know in 2022.
Congratulations to all 32 companies that competed in this year’s St. Louis Inno Madness. Thank you for your participation and for adopting the spirit of Inno Madness through your friendly competition and efforts to get out the vote for your companies. We hope to see you again in the bracket next year. A bracket with full results of this year's contest is below.
