Just one week in and voting has gone bananas! Competition for
the £10,000 O2 Smarta 100 Entrepreneur of the Year Awards has been
fierce. We take a look at the leaderboard to see who's in the
running, who's bringing up the rear, and how to push your brand up
the rankings. Remember, voting for the Smarta 100 closes on the
20th September.
So, who's in the top ten, then? As of this morning, the leaders
look like this:
1. Great Little Place
2. Pitcher House
3. Righteous Living
4. Tutor2u
5. Wedge Welly
6. Blottr
7. JAM
8. Startup PR
9. Flamingo
10. Childcare.co.uk
So these are the top contenders. What a mixed bag! But remember,
it can all change over the next 12 days.
Here are some other interesting stats. Bringing up the rear at
#100 is online pawnbroker Borro. At exactly half way up the ranking
is Aframe, at 50.
Of course, we aren't going to say exactly how many votes have
been cast. It's more fun this way. But we can reveal that there
have been thousands.
Here at Smarta HQ, we've been receiving lots of queries about
what consistutes as 'fair' when canvassing for votes. We called a
crisis meeting at the beginning of the process to discuss what to
do in the event that certain candidates 'got creative' in gathering
votes.
The consensus from our end is this: we are an entrepreneurial
resource. We celebrate the go-getters, the innovators, the
disruptive enfants terrible shaking up the status quo. Who are we
to criticise those who take an entrepreneurial attitude to this
competition? If you want to offer a prize, launch a 'VOTE FOR ME'
Facebook group, Twitter handle or create a viral Youtube clip to
get you votes, go wild.
The only thing that we will not stand for is out and out
cheating, i.e. attempting to game the system. We have safeguards in
place to watch out for multiple votes, attempts to hack our login
system, invalid email addresses and other nefarious ways that shady
individuals might try to game the system (we're not going to try
and give you any ideas here!).
If hacks are traced back to an individual or brand affiliated
with a Smarta 100 company, they will be disqualified.
On a lighter note, we will be covering the most innovative
voting campaigns at the end of the process, so feel free to get a
bit clever.
And, to prove that we're not short of a little entrepreneurial
savvy either, we've launched a little Smarta 100 sideline
ourselves. For all your Smarta 100 t-shirts, hoodies, mouse mats,
mugs and even iPhone cases, roll up, roll up.
The
Smarta 100 Awards online shop is here!