Reviewr takes its application review platform beyond pitch competitions

“Pitch Burner” worked as a name at first. Founded in 2013, the Lincoln-based company Pitch Burner started as a way to soothe one of Joseph Knecht’s pet peeves. As a frequent judge in pitch competitions, he was tired of putting together feedback that seemed to just get thrown away afterward. So Pitch Burner began by targeting the…

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The Reviewr team (left to right): John Rissetto, Ellen Peterson, Kyle Fredrickson, John Haverkamp. Photo courtesy of Reviewr.

“Pitch Burner” worked as a name at first.

Founded in 2013, the Lincoln-based company Pitch Burner started as a way to soothe one of Joseph Knecht’s pet peeves. As a frequent judge in pitch competitions, he was tired of putting together feedback that seemed to just get thrown away afterward.

So Pitch Burner began by targeting the entrepreneurship niche. It got some traction, mostly by word-of-mouth.

Soon local business leaders who used the product to judge pitch competitions were calling to ask about using it for grant programs, scholarship contests, or other awards they were involved in.

By late 2014, a week at Venture Out NY helped them think through how to expand into these other verticals, and the “Reviewr” name debuted on January 1. CEO Kyle Fredrickson describes Reviewr as an “online platform for collecting, managing, and reviewing online applications.”

How Reviewr works

The company’s broader market is essentially any college or university, plus the 2 million nonprofits nationwide, Fredrickson said. And once a client uses Reviewr for one project (like a charity’s annual awards gala) they can become a repeat customer and buy additional SaaS licenses for other events, or can refer them to other departments or related organizations (like a university’s business school and scholarship department).

The Reviewr platform gathers everything involved in an application in one place: photos, videos, documents, and attachments. There’s no downloading required; everything is embedded in the web-based interface and users can even see an application and their scorecard on a split-screen view.

VentureTech power

New features debut about once a month, thanks to Knecht’s dev shop, VentureTech, where Reviewr also shares office space. Box integration is the latest, and payment processing for application fees is around the corner.

The new name, broader market and Fredrickson’s sales efforts (the company’s other two full-time staff, one part-timer and one intern mostly concentrate on onboarding, support, and lead generation) have brought Reviewr to a total of about 175 current clients. Entrepreneurship competitions have fallen from 90% to about 50% of their clients.

Fredrickson expects that proportion will fall to 30% with the “rocket growth” he predicts for 2016.

Patti Vannoy is a partner with Mattson Ricketts Law Firm in Lincoln, Nebraska, and a supporter of the local startup community. Before practicing law, she was a reporter and editor for local and regional newspapers.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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