The latest brilliant idea to come out of the VC world is brought to us by Bang Ventures in Boston. The idea is that they will hold a popularity contest of sorts for budding entrepreneurs to compete and the general public will pick the winner. They are applying the ever popular American Idol format to investing, and for those that are die hard Idol fans, we know what the outcome can be (some are home runs, think Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood, and others are not in my opinion, Ruben Studdard or Taylor Hicks). Sorry for the digression into American Idol, back to subject at hand.

Bang Ventures will allow those budding entrepreneurs to submit their idea to an expert panel who will then decide which ones get put in front of the public to be voted on. The top 3 chosen will be given $15,000 in seed money and office space in the Boston area and incubation services (in other words, pitch refinement, product strategy guidance and a whole lot of introductions to other investors). For entrepreneurs looking to break in and get some funding, this seems like a viable option, not to dissimilar than applying to YCombinator or TechStars, and for Bang it is a very clever marketing and PR move.

Given the curious nature of our society, I would not doubt that this is going to gain a lot of attention. Whether or not the general public is any good at picking out good companies to invest in is another story. I would like to think that VCs in general have had years of practice at refining their craft and know typically what is worthy of investing in and what is not (well they do get it wrong sometimes and are even willing to admit it, like the firm that passed on investing in Facebook). Does the average person know these things, not sure. Perhaps the wisdom of crowds effect will be in play and the general public will actually pick a few winners. Only time will tell, I wish all the entrepreneurs that apply and the partners at Bang Ventures the best of luck.