Blog Posts by Erin Barry

Meet the man who says he’ll bring in almost $50 million this year, and he owes it all to cute pet pics. Every day, Alex Zhardanovsky posts tons of photos of cats and dogs that are almost guaranteed to put a smile on your face, and generate even more money for his company.

Zhardanovsky uses pooch pics to promote PetFlow.com, a start-up he co-founded to make sure your pet never goes hungry and you never have to lug a heavy bag of dog food home from the grocery store again.

CNBC gave Zhardanovsky 60 seconds to bark his big idea to the Power Pitch panel. Click the video to see his pitch and some of the cute pets that helped his company make millions.

Facebook (FB), Twitter and YouTube (GOOG) have revolutionized politics by enabling a direct dialogue between politicians and voters.

But despite all the new ways to communicate, political start-up ElectNext believes there’s a big issues information gap and aims to fill it.

CNBC gave ElectNext CEO Keya Dannenbaum 60 seconds to prove how she can inform and engage voters, disrupt politics, and make money while doing it. Click the video above to see if she can sway you to vote IN on ElectNext.

This school season, the battle between professors and social media distractions may be over. One start-up decided to join students where most of their attention ends up - on their smartphones! A startup called Top Hat has created a mobile platform that allows students and teachers to interact on their mobile devices during class. The mission: use mobile devices boost student engagement and improve learning. The company’s big idea has scored over 10 million dollars, and some big name universities are already on board.

“We believe the classroom is broken and we’re using mobile devices to fix it,” said Andrew D’Souza, COO of Top Hat.

CNBC gave D’Souza 60 seconds to prove it. Click the video and see if our judges pass or fail D’Souza’s pitch.

This story is about an entrepreneur who does NOT want you to read this article about his new start-up, he’d rather you let a cat read it to you instead. We’re not kidding! Freddie Laker is the CEO of Guide, a tech start-up filled with talking animals, from a panda to a puppy that can all read Web pages to you. Laker’s cute talking animals are no joke; they’ve helped him raise over a million dollars from some big-name investors.

Anticipating you’d find it all a little bizarre, we included a video so you can see the animals that read and talk with your own eyes. The CEO thinks his furry Web page readers are the start of something big. “We believe this disruptive technology is going to transform how people consume online news,” said Laker.

CNBC gave him just 60 seconds to prove it. Can he pull it off? Watch the video and judge for yourself.

Whether you’re searching for your next apartment or looking for someone to rent it, Anthemos Georgiades aims to make the process faster, easier and more mobile with his start-up Zumper. “We're changing the industry by giving renters far better data than they had before and a much easier search interface, giving landlords and brokers mobile tools to post their units from their car, from the vacant unit, on the go.”

Georgiades had just 60 seconds to convince a panel of experts his start-up has what it takes to disrupt the real estate industry. Will his mobile strategy win them over? Or is the competition too fierce for another player to enter the scene? Click the video to see if he can convince the panelists and you to be IN on Zumper.

Whether it’s snapping a cute baby pic, shooting people in sexy lingerie or starting a new business in Silicon Valley, Chase Jarvis wants to give you an edge, and he’s recruited the world’s best experts to help, for FREE. His startup is called creativeLIVE, and Jarvis hopes it will help make people better at just about everything from photography to burning fat and his business is already worth millions.

"The big idea behind creativeLIVE is to completely transform the face of education," Jarvis told CNBC.

At the core of his million dollar idea are FREE live workshops for anyone in the world with an internet connection. How on earth can he make money giving it all away for free?

CNBC gave Jarvis 60 seconds to explain, click the video to watch his Power Pitch and judge for yourself.

MIT grad Victor Wang has created a way to battle loneliness and improve mental health with a high-tech weapon: talking dogs and cats. His "virtual pet therapy" start-up is called GeriJoy. Wang thinks it will one day be worth millions and help change how we think about health care. CNBC gave him 60 seconds to prove it. Can he pull it off? Check out the video to see his talking dog in action and judge for yourself.

It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of updates coming at us from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, and it’s increasingly difficult to find anything worthwhile in all that social noise. But before you become digitally deaf, one man has a plan to help you tune out the noise and tune in to the stuff you really want.

Burt Herman’s plan to help you make sense of it all is Storify, a big idea he believes will disrupt how the world is informed. CNBC gave Herman 60 seconds to prove it. Can he pull it off? Watch his Power Pitch and judge for yourself.