In May, I judged a startup pitch event at Mercy College. Each startup had four minutes to present, and then faced questions from judges and the audience. At the end, everyone from the audience secretly wrote down their choice for the winner, and the judges went down the line to share their favorite presenter. It was almost unanimous. One presenter gave the best, most polished pitch. It was hard to pick any other option.

But I did. I picked all of them.

Now, no money was at stake here. This was pride, But I realized something unexpected about the presenters that night, what they had to offer, the nature of startup pitches, and my own values.

I was considering which criteria to go by, as none were specified:

• Biggest total addressable market (TAM)
• Most likely to make it to the next round of funding
• Highest current revenues, if applicable
• Best performance that engaged the audience
• Most polished slide design
• Most unexpected, original, or innovative

I went with none of those. I instead went with three questions, all closely related:

1. Does the company provide value?
2. Do I trust this presenter and team to deliver that value?
3. Would I call them if the need arose, or recommend them to someone with such a need?

By that lens, it didn't matter that one presenter was clearly the best. And it didn't matter that I had a hard time with one of the claims in a presentation (a founder said his company was the first to do something in a field I knew well, and I questioned his wording; he gave a much better answer during Q&A and wouldn't likely make that mistake again).

Instead, what surprised me was that all four presenters - representing CAI Labs (the favorite), eJust, Mazen, and Tinyclues - were addressing real challenges. They all had credible solutions. And I would give each of them a call if I had a relevant need.

I couldn't remember the time I've seen three or more pitches and wound up convinced that all of them provided value. All of those presenters should be proud. They've got a lot to learn, and someone investing in all four might not run the table with massive exits. It's so refreshing though to see so many people creating businesses whose reason for being feel so tangible, so meaningful, and so real.

I'd sit in on pitches like those every day if I could.

Thanks to the presenters, along with Mercy College, emcee Wazi, startup hosts Bpifrance and Business France, organizer Strtupboost and CEO Jason Malki, and fellow judges Mike Bergelson, Jed Corenthal, Gil Eyal, and Paul Kontonis. For those in NYC, you can see these startups and others present at Impact 2017's demo day on June 22.