Startup Weekend Dallas #5 is a Wrap!
Startup Weekend Dallas #5 came to a close on Sunday after what the judges panel mentioned was an “extremely difficult” decision. Now I personally have known the judges for a while, and I don’t think they would say this just to pander. This demonstrates the high quality of ideas and teams out there in the DFW area, and we were glad to watch as they slaved for just over 2 days on their projects.
After brief talks by Joel Fontenot, Mike Merrill, and Jordan Jenkins, there were 33 pitches on Friday night. Nine teams were formed and got quickly to work on setting up their workspace, validating their idea, and strategizing their game plans for the weekend.
On Saturday morning, the Gravity Centre hosted local UNT college students in an Innovation Challenge. It was sort of a mini-Startup Weekend, all within our own event. Thanks to all the students and their supporters for attending. It was very well received, and more of these types of events are in the works for next year. Stay tuned.
On Sunday afternoon, all the teams were issued the “stop order” and began assembling in the main area for the presentations to the judges panel. Before the main awards, 2 prizes were given away. The Best Presentation award went to UserStage, who won a 9-class course at the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UT Dallas. The award for Best User of Gamification in their presentation went to Culture Plus, which won an XBox 360 Kinect game system.
And now on to our 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishers, all of whom won IP and patent protection attorney services by Hulsey IP Law. 3rd place went to GoneBooking (aka Adventure Book), which won $2000 in services. 2nd place went to Corollary, which won $4500 in services. And our 1st place winner was Bookedd, winner of $8500 in services and the chance to continue on this week in competing with all other SW winners around the world in Global Startup Battle. Vote for Bookedd in Global Startup Battle. The team is now hard at work devising a marketing plan to get the most votes.
Global Startup Battle (GSB) is a featured event during Global Entrepreneurship Week. In the spirit of friendly competition among all the winners this weekend, each winning team had to submit a 90-second video to the GSB site. Voting begins today (Nov 22) at 2pm Central Time and ends November 28th at 11pm PST. To vote, go to http://www.facebook.com/
A big thank you to all of our sponsors, including VelaKeller, Hulsey IP Law, the IIT at UTD, WorkZero, FireHost, CloudMine, JumpFish Mobile, LaunchDFW, Tech Wildcatters, and CoHabitat.
And an enormous thank you to the venue host sponsor, the NG Connect Gravity Centre in Plano, for being gracious hosts and helping whenever and wherever they could. John Reas, Jennifer Conley, and Steven Krnavek spent long hours helping to plan, clean, and making themselves available. We really appreciate all of you!
And now on to next year for our next Startup Weekend. But, don’t forget to vote for the home team at Global Startup Battle during this week! Voting closes on Nov 28th at 11pm PST.
The Teams At Startup Weekend DFW #5!
The teams have been formed and are working hard at Startup Weekend DFW. Of course the team names may change and they probably will pivot, but here are the teams that will be presenting Sunday evening!
Bookedd – Furnished vacation rentals. Replaces Priceline.com for vacation rentals
Adventure book - Interactive books merged with today’s reading devices. User chooses how stories end
Swappel – Website connects folks to barter their things, talents, labor etc.
Cause.ly – App to allow you donate instantly with your mobile device. Ties in collaborative website community
Corollary – Replacing current jobboards by mixing jobboards with dating sites to create a better jobseeker
Userstage.com – Tool that startups use to help engage with their users. Uses social platforms to pull in the information they need.
DiscRiver - Hardware system that logically connects SATA HDD into larger array drives at a substantial cost savings
Culture Plus – Building Culture & Encouraging Community.
Board4.me – platform-independent collaboration whiteboard
Startup Weekend #5 Final Details
A Mini-Startup Weekend During Our Event
During the Saturday of our event, we’ll be hosting an Innovation Challenge, where UNT students will pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. It’s sort of like a mini-Startup Weekend. Our SW registrants will be able to mingle with some of the brightest local college students. It’s very encouraging to see them getting involved in entrepreneurship at such a young age.
Pre-Event Event
To get everyone primed for our event, we’re partnering with local Google technical user groups to host a “pre-event” dubbed pre-Startup Weekend Google technical bootcamp. It will be held on Saturday November 12 from 1pm to 5pm at the same venue (ng Connect Gravity Centre) at 2900 Plano Pkwy, Plano TX. Part hands-on lab, part lecture and discussion, ”Getting Started with App Engine in Java” and “Android Idea Cookbook” activities are planned.
Prizes and Other Goodies
During the main weekend event, all teams will be provided with online collaboration and project management tools from local startup WorkZero to help you manage your weekend project more effectively. All teams can also take advantage of the generosity of MS BizSpark, which is providing each team with free access to the tools and resources of the BizSpark program. JumpFishMobile will be providing some cool technology for the SW team to communicate with all attendees. FireHost, the leader in secure cloud hosting, will be there to talk with, and will have some t-shirts, custom playing cards, and other schwag.
Additionally, IP and patent protection law firm, HulseyIPLaw, is generously offering prizes for the top 3 local teams…1st place $8500 in IP law services (excluding filing fees), 2nd place $4500 in IP law services (excluding filing fees), 3rd place $2000 in IP law services (excluding filing fees). The services offered may include strategic IP assessments and guidance, utility patent applications, provisional patent applications, and/or trademark applications.
As if that’s not enough, there’s more !!!
The BizSpark team is offering an XBox 360 Kinect system for one lucky winner. And the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UTD is providing an Entrepreneur Development Series Program (block of 9 classes) to one lucky winner.
World Domination
All local teams will also be competing with teams around the world in Global Startup Battle. The winning Dallas team will need to upload their video (a 60 second pitch) on the SW (global, not Dallas) FB page and the GlobalStartupBattle webpage by November 21st by 11pm Pacific Time. Prizes include a slot at the DEMO Asia conference in February, a table at the Launch Conference in SF, CA in March, a $5,000 legal incorporation package from Cooley Law, a PR Launch package from the Kauffman Foundation, and 40 hours of web design services from BTrax. The winner will be announced on November 30th.
Mentors
We have several mentors lined up to assist teams during the weekend. Scott Ticer (Board of Directors at Metroplex Technology Business Council and Advisory Board Member at University of Texas at Dallas, Institute for Innovation and Entreprenuership), Amir Morani (launched the first incubation center at Dubai Airport Freezone) and Taylor Cowan (BizSpark and Architect Evangelist at Microsoft) will be available during select hours over the weekend. Teams will be able to sign-up for office hours. More details will be revealed during Friday evening.
Parking/Security
There will be plenty of parking available on the north and east sides of the building. If you have a question about parking when you arrive, check with security about where you should park. The door you will enter has “AT&T Foundry” printed on it. Check in at the security desk and take the elevator up the 2nd floor. The door will open to the Gravity Centre break room where pizza will be served on Friday night.
Pitch and Team Formation Process
Pitches on Friday night will be in a “pitch-fire” format, which means you will have just 60 seconds to get the audience interested in your idea. You will have no slides or props – just a microphone and a smile. You won’t have time to go over features, so just focus on the core of the idea and make your enthusiasm contagious. Here is the format for pitches that we recommend:
- Who are you and what is your background? (5-10 Seconds)
- What is the problem that you product is solving? Or, begin with a story (10-20 Seconds)
- Explain the product and how it solves the problem (10-20 seconds)
- Who do you need on your team (a developer, marketing, designer?) (5-10 seconds)
Finally, make up a name for your startup so the facilitator can give it a title.
After pitches, you will have more time to mingle. If you pitched an idea, this is your time to start recruiting others that are interested in your idea. If you did not pitch, or if you are having trouble finding others to join your team, use this time to seek out those that pitched other ideas that you found interesting.
Next, the crowd votes on their favorite pitches. This is a simply a way to encourage quick team forming. This is by no means an exclusive process and if you pitch an idea and it is not voted as one of the top ideas, you are more than welcome to work on it if you find some other people who want to work on the idea with you. From there we will form teams and these are the startup ideas that will be worked on over the weekend.
Judging Criteria (Sunday night)
For those who are unfamiliar, Startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if their startup ideas are viable. A strong emphasis is put on how teams validate their idea and what they are able to actually get built over the weekend. The judges will consider 3 main criteria (weighed equally):
Business Model
- Who is your customer?
- What is your core value proposition?
- What are your key activities?
- What are your revenue streams?
- What is your cost structure?
- Who/what are your key partners/resources?
- What are your distribution channels?
- What is your roll-out strategy?
Customer Validation
Have you taken the proper steps to ensure that the people who matter (your future customers) support and reinforce your assumptions? Think of Customer Validation as ‘evidence’ to back up the core structure of your ‘theory’ (your Business Model). The more feedback you gather (quantity), the more this feedback comes from your specific target market (quality), and the more you’re able to actually integrate this feedback into the Business Model and product development (execution), the better.
Execution
The nitty gritty: What has your team been able to actually build over the weekend? Even the strongest of Business Plans are useless in the hands of those who can’t properly execute on them. Getting as far as possible in the development of your product/prototype not only helps give Judges a tangible vision of what the final product could be, but proves your strength and skills as a team. This is what truly matters: investors don’t invest as in ideas so much as teams.
Click here for more info and to register.
First timer? Click here.
To find out our schedule and what to bring, click here.
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/StartupWeekendDallas
On Twitter: @SWDFW
Startup Weekend Dallas #5 Details
Don’t forget, everyone. The 5th edition of Startup Weekend Dallas is coming to the Gravity Centre in Plano on November 18-20. This is your chance to compete not only with others in DFW, but with teams all across the globe. In parallel with Global Entrepreneurship Week, our Startup Weekend event will be part of Global Startup Battle. The prizes this year include 40 Hours of Web Design from BTrax, a PR Launch package from the Kauffman Foundation, and a presentation slot at the DEMO Asia Startup Pavillion in Singapore in February 2012!
Locally, we are lining up some great sponsors and prizes, including services offered by IP and patent protection law firm HulseyIPLaw.com. We will have mentors available during the weekend as well. More on all of this will be announced very soon!
Some of you have asked about security at the Gravity Centre. There is a guard desk that will require sign-in each time you enter. We are working with the security guards on making the ins-and-outs as hassle-free as possible, especially during late night and early morning hours.
For all you budding entrepreneurs, the SBA is hosting an Apps for Entrepreneurs Challenge. With a total prize pool of $20k, the contents runs for 3 weeks and ends on Nov 20. Don’t pass up this chance. See more here.
For you newbies, here is an inside look at what happens at our events, and here are some tips to being successful during the weekend.
Get your tickets today. You don’t want to miss out on all this excitement and chance to win some really awesome prizes!
What to bring to our event:
* Laptop
* Power cord
* Power strip
* Good attitude
* Business cards (or at least some way to share/collect your contact info)
* Camera
* Creative energy
* Anything else you want to bring to launch a cool startup.
(Tentative) Schedule of events:
Friday:
5:00pm – Registration starts
6:00pm – Kickoff & Speakers
7:00pm – Pitches Begin – (60 seconds per person)
8:30pm – Attendees vote for the top ideas
9:00pm – Teams start forming and discussing ideas
10:00pm – 1:00am – Teams begin to work
Saturday:
9:00am – Doors open. Breakfast & coffee
9:30am – Teams continue working. Mentors arrive and begin working with teams.
12:00pm – Lunch
12:30pm – Mentors arrive…(schedules will be finalized soon)
6:30pm – Dinner
7:30pm – Mid weekend check-in, status reports, call for help
12:00 midnight – Finished for the day. You may stay and work as late as the venue will allow.
Sunday:
9:00am – Doors open. Breakfast & coffee
11:30pm – Lunch
3:00pm – Gut check. Start prepping for presentations
4:00pm – Dinner
5:00pm – FINAL PRESENTATIONS
7:00pm – Judging & awards
8:00pm – Wrap-up
9:00pm – Go home!
Global Startup Battle & Global Entrepreneurship Week
During our event, we’ll all be part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. The winner of each SW city goes head-to-head in Global Startup Battle with the chance to present on the mainstage at the DEMO Asia conference in Singapore.
For more info, check out Unleashingideas.org and GlobalStartupBattle.com.
