DALTON, Ga. — Selecting eight semifinalists from 25 applicants to find Dalton’s next big business idea wasn’t easy, say organizers of the contest.

“We had a lot of great ideas, a lot of really interesting proposals,” said Barry Slaymaker, vice president of Barrett Properties, one of several partners involved with the contest, and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Dalton State College. Slaymaker is one of the organizers of the PitchDIA (Dalton Innovation Accelerator) contest.

“But these eight were the most developed in terms of their idea and their business,” he said. “These truly are the best of the best. They have made the most progress towards having an operating business at this point.”

Based on the television show “Shark Tank,” in which entrepreneurs pitch their companies to investors hoping to reach a deal, PitchDIA allows entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas to judges from the local business community who will select a winner who will receive $5,000 and other prices. This is the second year the contest is being held. Dalton Middle School student Tripp Phillips won the first Pitch DIA contest last year and went on to appear on “Shark Tank,” where he reached a deal with investor Kevin O’Leary to buy into his company Le-Glue, which makes a non-permanent glue that holds Legos and other building blocks together without damaging them.

The eight semifinalists, as described by PitchDIA, are:

• Baby on Board, “a mobile app designed to ensure caregivers never forget a child in the backseat of a car using specialized technology that alerts the caregiver to car seat activity from anywhere.”

• Blackwell Pastures, which “produces pastured livestock and poultry as well as vegetables for our community and the surrounding areas to connect the community directly to their local farmer.”

• Critterbox, which “created an IoT (Internet of Things)-enabled device to enable automated live bait feeding marketed toward reptile owners that comes with a mobile app allowing owners to feed their pets from anywhere.”

• Elite Lineman Training, which “aims to train people in our community for entry-level line work positions in the electrical lineman industry.”

• Musicbük, which is “building a hyper local mobile app that uses artificial intelligence to facilitate the connection between qualified music instructors and prospective students.”

• Rugxite, a product “used to sanitize and deodorize rugs, specially designed to keep bathroom rugs feeling clean while killing mold and bacteria and avoiding frequent rug washes.”

• Scrap Sports, “a sports scrapbooking media platform that allows parents to easily create, store and share their kids’ sports content.”

• Sweat Pack, a “mobile app and fitness technology company that allows users to join a group or start a team to motivate each other to meet up for group workouts and sports leagues.”

“We’ve got such great people,” said Marilyn Helms, dean of Dalton State College’s Wright School of Business and one of the judges of the 2018 PitchDIA contest.

“We didn’t have as many applicants this year as we did last year (when there were 61),” she said. “But the ideas were more developed and the businesses were further along, and I think that shows in the semifinalists.”

The pitch contest is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 8, at Stage 123 in downtown Dalton.

“We will probably meet about a week or so before the contest to narrow down the eight semifinalists,” said Slaymaker. “We don’t have any set number of finalists we are looking for. We may get in there and decide that all eight are such strong candidates that they all deserve to have a chance to make their pitch.”

Slaymaker said “one of the most exciting parts” of this year’s competition will be participation from students from Dalton Public Schools.

The school system is hosting its own pitch contest for budding entrepreneurs and inventors on Friday, Sept. 13, at Dalton High School. Fourteen teams from across the school system will take part. The contest will select four finalists, and those teams will make their pitch to determine a winner at the PitchDIA contest.