It is with incredible pride (and about equal parts shock and bewilderment) that I report that Socialbomb is the winner of NYU Stern’s Business Plan Competition! Out of the initial 155 teams that entered, Adam Simon, Scott Varland, Mihir Dange and I took on the last three on April 25 at the competition finals and took home both the grand prize of $50,000 and the audience’s choice award.

(Photo courtesy of NYU Stern)

What this means is not just a nice chunk of change to kick-start our business, but also a virtual pod and access to the Berkley Center’s network of faculty and professional experts. We’re of course thrilled, and can’t wait to get to work on our first games (as soon as we finish our theses, of course).

(Photo by Anaid Gomez Ortigoza)

We owe a million thanks to everyone at ITP who’s helped us along the course of the past year with this, especially Red Burns for giving us the opportunity to try out a wacko idea like this and see it throuh, Tom Igoe, Clay Shirky and Amit Pitaru in whose classes we developed the original prototypes, Marianne Petit and Nancy Hechinger for their amazing guidance and support, everyone who came to watch and cheer us on before and after, and the zillions of fellow students who convinced us we could actually do this.

So — much more to come!