At ICE Barcelona 2026, Travis Geiger, CXO of WagerWire, joined other startup founders including Jonathan Gruber of Loserball, Desiree Dickerson of THNDR, and Josh Swerdlow of ChatBet for a Reverse Pitch session aimed at changing the usual dynamic between startups and industry power brokers. Geiger presented The Starties, an initiative intended to counter what he termed 'pay-to-play' awards that predominantly benefit established companies and wealthy participants. The Starties adopts a straightforward premise: startups judging other startups.
This initiative seeks to provide early-stage companies with much-needed visibility and validation without relying on traditional panels of judges or commercial endorsements. As Geiger pointed out, startups face significant challenges in getting noticed within the industry. The Starties addresses this by fostering a community that emphasizes shared exposure and mentorship, empowering founders who could otherwise remain overlooked.
Unlike conventional awards that often hinge on commercial success, The Starties focuses less on revenue and more on meaningful outcomes for its participants. 'We measure success by the success of the people that are a part of The Starties community,' Geiger stated.
As The Starties evolves, the panelists recognized the difficulty in maintaining a founder-first ethos while still inviting larger corporate sponsors to participate. Their solution lies in fostering a collective ownership of values, promoting distributed leadership, and organizing collaborative events, rather than seeking growth for the sake of it. Geiger emphasized, 'We all have a value system that we’re not willing to compromise.'
