// competitions & awards

Run the award. We run the rest.

Startup boosters, pitch battles, innovation awards — launch a competition that recruits the right applicants, fills its own forms, scores every entry, and never lets a deadline slip. The work that sinks an awards program, handled by agents.

competition— jec composites startup booster 2027applications open · 9 days left
// application funnel
Invited5,120
Started1,284
Submitted486
AI-scored486
Finalists12
// live agent activity
autofill pre-filled Helio Robotics' application from CRMjust now
scoring ranked 14 new entries — top score 922m
reminders nudged 38 founders with drafts open6m
outreach invited 240 deep-tech founders, Series A9m
filtering excluded 1,900 off-criteria contacts12m
// powering competitions at
SXSWBIG DATA & AI PARISCOMEXPOSIUMRXINFORMAGLOBAL INDUSTRIEJECTUTTOFOODCOSMETIC 360IFASXSWBIG DATA & AI PARISCOMEXPOSIUMRXINFORMAGLOBAL INDUSTRIEJECTUTTOFOODCOSMETIC 360IFA
// why awards programs stall

A competition is a marketing campaign, a judging panel, and a deadline machine — all at once.

Thin, last-minute pipeline

Applications trickle in until a panic spike the night before the deadline — and half of them are off-brief.

Manual chasing & reminders

Someone on your team is personally emailing applicants and judges to finish, submit, and review on time.

Scoring in spreadsheets

Hundreds of entries, a dozen judges, inconsistent rubrics — and no defensible way to rank them.

Wrong audience, wide net

Blasting the whole list wastes reach and floods you with applicants who were never a fit.

Forms that scare people off

Long application forms are abandoned mid-way. Great companies drop out simply because applying is a chore.

No story to show sponsors

Backers want proof: applicant quality, reach, conversion. You lack one clean narrative of how the program performed.

// the capabilities

Six agents that run your competition end-to-end

Each one owns a stage — from inviting applicants to publishing winners — and reports back in plain language.

timeline agent

Timeline setup

Define your stages once — open, deadline, shortlist, judging, finals — and the whole program runs to the calendar automatically.

  • Milestone-aware stages with automatic gating
  • Time-zone aware deadlines, no manual cutoffs
1setup, runs itself
reminder agent

Automatic reminders

Behavior-triggered nudges to applicants with open drafts and to judges with pending reviews — so nothing stalls and nobody chases.

  • Fires on real behaviour, not blanket blasts
  • Escalates as the deadline approaches
+41%draft completion
filtering agent

Deep email filtering

Go far beyond tags. Slice your marketing audience by industry, stage, funding, geography and intent so invitations only reach a real fit.

  • Enriched, multi-signal audience segments
  • Suppresses off-criteria and duplicate contacts
3.2×on-brief applicants
scoring agent

AI scoring

Every entry scored against your rubric the moment it lands — consistent, explainable, and ranked. Judges start from a shortlist, not a slush pile.

  • Scores against your criteria with rationale
  • Auto-shortlists finalists for human judges
90%less review time
outreach agent

Outreach campaigns

Recruit applicants the way sales recruits pipeline — multi-step, personalised sequences that invite the right founders and follow up on their own.

  • Personalised, multi-touch invitation sequences
  • Auto follow-up until they apply or opt out
5k+founders reached / week
autofill agent

AI form completion

The agent pre-fills applications from a company's website, deck and CRM record. Founders review and submit in minutes instead of abandoning a long form.

  • Drafts answers from public & CRM data
  • Applicant edits and confirms — no busywork
4 minto apply, not 40
// the flow

One competition, five stages, zero busywork

1
// target

Launch & filter

Set the timeline and deep-filter your audience to the founders who actually fit the brief.

2
// recruit

Outreach

Personalised invitation sequences go out and follow up until the right companies apply.

3
// apply

AI autofill

Applications arrive pre-filled. Founders review and submit in minutes — completion soars.

4
// score

AI scoring

Every entry is scored and ranked against your rubric the moment it lands.

5
// award

Judge & crown

Judges review a clean shortlist, pick winners, and the program tells its own ROI story.

Automatic reminders run through every stage — keeping applicants and judges on track without a single manual email.
// running an award

Before and after mytradeshow.ai

Before: a manual scramble

  • A coordinator hand-emails applicants and judges to chase every deadline.
  • Long forms get abandoned; quality founders never finish applying.
  • Hundreds of entries ranked by inconsistent spreadsheets and gut feel.
  • Invitations blast the whole list, flooding you with off-brief applicants.

After: a program on autopilot

  • Reminders fire on their own; applicants and judges stay on track.
  • AI pre-fills forms — founders apply in minutes, completion jumps.
  • Every entry is scored and ranked instantly against your rubric.
  • Deep filtering + outreach bring in founders who actually fit.
// how we beat the competition

Most awards tools are a form and a deadline. Ours is a team.

Capabilitymytradeshow.aiGeneric awards platformsForms + spreadsheets
Timeline & stage automationMilestone-aware stages that gate themselvesStatic dates you police by handA calendar reminder, if you remember
Email remindersBehaviour-triggered, automatic, escalatingScheduled bulk blasts to everyoneManual one-by-one emails
Audience filteringDeep filters: industry, stage, funding, intentBasic tags and listsNone — one big list
Application scoringAI scores & ranks instantly, with rationaleManual judge forms, averaged laterSpreadsheet sums and gut feel
Applicant recruitingBuilt-in multi-touch outreach campaignsBring your own marketing toolPost a link and hope
Time to applyAI autofills the form — minutes, not hoursLong manual form, high drop-offLong manual form, high drop-off
// from a program lead

Twice the applicants. A tenth of the work.

“We used to run the startup booster on three spreadsheets and a lot of late nights. Now I set the timeline once — outreach, autofill, reminders and scoring just happen. We doubled quality applications and judges only ever see a clean shortlist.”

CR
Camille Rousseau
Innovation Programs Lead · JEC Composites
2.1×
quality applications
4 min
median time to apply
90%
less manual review
applications open · 9 days left

Set the timeline. Crown a winner.

Launch a competition that recruits, scores, and shortlists on autopilot — from first invite to winner announcement.

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