What is Startup Weekend?
Startup Weekend is for anyone that has an idea and wants to do something with it. Everyone has ideas and taking that next step and acting on that idea is what Startup Weekend is all about. We live in a time where anything is possible and anything can be built – as long as we can bring together the right people around the right ideas. Join us at the next Bloomington Startup Weekend May 4th-6th and take a step towards turning your idea in to a reality.
Want to know more? Check out Eighteen Eighty’s video about Startup Weekend.
Startup Weekend – Trailer from Eighteen Eighty on Vimeo.
STARTUP WEEKEND is a global challenge that takes place in cities all over the world – where entrepreneurs come together and turn an idea into reality within 54 hours.
This documentary short film follows the journey of two competing teams in Startup Weekend Toronto and explores what it means to start your own business.
FULL VERSION of the film can be viewed here: vimeo.com/32424882
And the Winner is…..
When the dust settled on Sunday evening, three teams emerged victorious at the third Startup Weekend Bloomington. First place honors and the top prize package were awarded to the team Lunker, a mobile app and social networking site linking the fishing community across the nation where fishermen can post their catches, share knowledge, and form communities around their favorite fishing locations.
The team received a grand prize package featuring goods and services from local businesses and organizations, including three months of office space at The Solution Lab, legal services from Mallor and Grodner, accounting services from BKD, a free marketing campaign from BizProps and a free business plan review from Localstake.
Second place was awarded to team EV Racing, who created tremendous buzz around an electric vehicle racing team that competes against gasoline and diesel vehicles. They even managed to get a professional driver interested in racing for them! Third place went to the Buddy team, who developed an natural language order aggregation mobile application that allows users to order from multiple vendors with a single input without repeating address and payment information for each vendor.
While all of the teams made fantastic progress toward realizing their ideas over the course of the weekend, these three stood apart to the judges.
All in all, it was a fantastic event for Startup Weekend Bloomington, with 80% of the attendees being new to the startup community. This kind of growth in the local community and interest has encouraged the local GOO (Group of Organizers) to expand the role Startup Weekend has in the community to help grow the local startup community and better prepare everyone to succeed in the startup world.
Startup Weekend Bloomington May 2012 Teams
Startup Weekend Bloomington has been jam-packed with great ideas, excited participants, and a plethora of speakers, mentors, and judges ready and willing to share their expertise and insights with budding (or seasoned) entrepreneurs.
On Friday night, the Top Six pitches out of the nearly thirty given were selected, and the teams set to work on projects and products for the remainder of the weekend. Industries represented include outdoor sports, racing, mobile purchasing, mobile gaming, and education.
MBA+ – An online education portal for practical lessons in business.
EV Racing – The first electric vehicle racing team to enter highly televised & well known races around the world to compete against gasoline and diesel powered vehicles.
Lunker – A social network for fishers to share photos, fishing reports, & more.
Phototag – A high tech game of hide and seek requiring players to capture pictures other player’s faces
Indiana.com – A Geo-Domain specializing in a curated knowledge based around all things Indiana.
Buddy – A voice ordering application that allows users to order products or services in natural language.
What Investors are Looking For – A Scalable Startup
Investors look for several key elements that come together to make a fundable company with the top factors being the Team, Coach-ability, a Scalable Idea, Competitive Advantage and the Product or Technology. Steve Blank has some great tips on identifying if your idea is scalable. Here are a few excerpts from the post:
A lot of entrepreneurs think that their startup is the next big thing when in reality they’re just building a small business. How can you tell if your startup has the potential to be the next Google, Intel or Facebook? A first order filter is whether the founders are aiming for a scalable startup.
A “scalable startup” takes an innovative idea and searches for a scalable and repeatable business model that will turn it into a high growth, profitable company. Not just big but huge. It does that by entering a large market and taking share away from incumbents or by creating a new market and growing it rapidly.
- Not all startups are scalable startups
- 6 initial conditions differentiate a scalable startup from a small business;
- Breadth of an entrepreneurs’ vision
- Founders’ personal goals
- Size of the target market
- Customer and Agile development to find the business model
- World-class founding team and initial employees
- Passionate belief and a reality distortion field
- Understand your personal risk profile/ don’t try to be someone you’re not
- Which one is “right” is up to you, not the crowd
Read the full post here.
Startup Weekend Preparation
Preparing for Startup Weekend can be a challenge, especially for the first timer and those new to the startup community. Luckily, there are some great resources out there to get you pointed in the right direction and help you figure out how best to prepare for the event.
Take a look at the following links for some great overall Startup Weekend advice, pitching guidelines, and some great things to avoid.
http://indianapolis.startupweekend.org/2011/11/14/advice-for-kickoff-t-5-days/
http://andrewgouty.com/entrepreneurship/startup-weekend-survival-guide/
http://startupweekend.org/2012/03/26/guest-post-10-things-i-learned-at-startup-weekend-singapore/
http://venturebeat.com/2009/11/04/4-ways-to-get-automatically-rejected-by-an-angel-investor/
How to Pitch at Startup Weekend
Have an idea you’re planning to pitch at Startup Weekend this weekend? We’ve got some great resources to help you prepare! Remember, you only have 60 seconds to convince others in the audience that your idea is a great one. Check out this great blog post from a Startup Weekend alum about how to prepare for pitches. Here is the CliffsNotes version:
1) Focus on the problem you want to solve
2) Mention how you think the problem should be solved
3) Talk about your secret sauce
4) Tell us what you already know
5) Showcase your winning personality
6) Show up with an idea that does something meaningful
Be sure to read the full post for more details.
