Pitching a business is an art. And casting your new concern in its best light at the Startup Bowl is the equivalent of sketching a masterpiece in the time it takes to toast a piece of bread.

On Thursday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium, 12 entrepreneurs from around the country competed in the fast-pitch contest as part of the Powder Keg conference for high-tech go-getters, future magnates and current movers and shakers.

The task: Explain the basics of your business plan in less than five minutes in front of four judges. The prize: $15,000 to be awarded at a Powder Keg event on Friday evening.



“We’re looking for a good team, a strong team that has the capability to execute,” said Christopher Day, one of the judges and managing principal at the investment banking firm Navidar Group. “What’s their go-to-market strategy? Have they identified their market correctly? Where do they fit, versus their competition?”

Even clocking in at five minutes per pitch, the Startup Bowl is a lot to digest in one sitting. So, IBJ has boiled down the dozen presentations into three minutes in the video above. Condensing them reveals some vital common themes: the mammoth influence of mobile, an intense craving for consumer data, and the relentless pursuit of revenue.

There’s more info below on each startup.

— CoatChex, an Indianapolis-based firm that developed a ticketless coat-check system and gained national attention after turning down a $200,000 investment on the ABC show “Shark Tank.”

— Diagnotes, a service that retrieves patient information directly from electronic medical records and delivers it to on-call health care providers through their smart phones. The Indianapolis tech firm also is a finalist in the Hoosier Healthcare Innovation Challenge.

— PetBookings, an Indianapolis-based website that offers instant confirmed online reservations to the $3.5 billion professional pet care industry.

— SquareJive, an Indianapolis-created app that allows users to quickly and spontaneously find community and social events aligned with their interests.

— Lesson.ly, a yet-to-launch online marketplace based in Indianapolis that’s similar to iTunes, but offers lessons and courses instead of songs and albums.

— VisitApps, a nascent platform based in Indianapolis that enables convention and visitors bureaus from cities of all sizes to have their own mobile apps to engage visitors.

— Adproval, a tool for selling and manage blog sponsorships. Users can sell sponsorships directly from their blogs to sponsors they approve. Formerly known as DoubleStitchAds, the firm is based in Carmel.

— FoundOPS, a Purdue-born startup that offers route optimization, customer-relationship management, data collection and GPS tracking for field-service companies.

— Team Mash, a service based in Columbus, Ind., that sends daily e-mails to sports fanatics rounding up the latest news about their favorite teams.

— Lisnr, an app from a Cincinnati firm that "hears" the music users listen to and delivers exclusive content directly from their favorite artists.

— Modulus, a platform developed in Cincinnati that companies can use to host and scale their Internet-based applications.

— Bonfyre, an app from a St. Louis team that allows users to create private groups, or “Bonfyres,” around events to share chats and photos.