Posted by swmi
We’ve moved to http://weekend.startupwmi.com. If you wait a second, we’ll send you there.
Startup Weekend West Michigan- program outline
Posted by johnrumery
To give you an idea of what to expect this weekend, the following is an outline of the program. It will be a bit fluid, as ideas ebb and flow, but for the most part we’ll work within this framework.
Friday, January 15
6:00 pm- Registration and networking. We’ll have plenty of food and drink available. A good time to introduce yourself to everyone. Pick up your t-shirt too.
7:00 pm- opening remarks by Sterling Cross (Startup Weekend facilitator) and Aaron Schaap. This will be the official overview of the program including pitch and final presentation guidelines, judging criteria, and your opportunity to get any unanswered questions out of the way.
7:30 pm- Pitches are scheduled to start. Open to everyone. You have two minutes to pitch your idea. No questions afterward, just two minutes to sell yourself and your idea.
Immediately after the pitches, we will “vote”. Depending on the number of pitches and participants, anywhere from 5-8 ideas will be selected to continue for development.
After that team formation and development begins.
The Factory will be open for awhile, but business building can continue at any location the team selects.
Saturday, January 15
Doors will open at 9:00am. Plenty of food for breakfast and good coffee. Work, work, work…
12:30- lunch and guest speaker, Pete Brand, co-founder of Mindscape at Hanon-McKendry. Pete’s an experienced entrepreneur and will share with his story about getting started and growing a business from only an idea.
After Pete is through, more work!
5:30- Dinner and guest speaker Seth Starner. Seth will talk on design thinking, rapid prototyping, innovation and much more.
After Seth is finished, more work.
Plans are to close up The Factory around 9:00pm, but teams will have many options to continue their work … over late-night coffee or a cold beverage of their choice.
Sunday, January 16
Doors open at 9:00am. More food and coffee then work, work, work.
12:00 pm. Lunch and guest speaker Garrick Pohl, founder of CrayonInterface and serial entrepreneur. After Garrick is done, we will be wrapping up your business models and preparing for the final presentations.
1:30 pm. Final presentations. Each team will have 5 minutes + 5 minutes for Q&A.
Depending on the number teams of pitching, we expect the judging to be between 3:00 and 4:00 pm with final announcements and wrap up coming soon after.
So that’s basically it. Expect to have several area professionals and entrepreneurs to stop by all three days to give you feedback and network. Expect to work hard and have fun. Expect big things.
Preparing for a Startup Weekend
Posted by johnrumery
I recently stumbled on this post on Quora.
Great information if you planning to attend the West Michigan Weekend, January 14-16.
A key take away:
“The #1 one best thing you can do as the business guy heading into StartupWeekend is mockups. It is the fastest way to get people on the same page. They should be really rough (ideally hand-drawn) with the sole purpose of illustrating the concept and set a general direction. The mockups are NOT a spec. Let your team decide how it should look and work in the end once the problem to solve has been agreed upon”.
Read all the advice. Good stuff.
What can be started over a weekend?
Posted by johnrumery
Check out these six ventures. All are the result of 54-hours of work during a Startup Weekend.
foodspotting.com
memolane.com
submate.com
score.ly
twitpay.com
skribit.com
Join us. January 14-16, 2011, The Factory, Grand Rapids, MI
Recipe for success. Startup Weekend West Michigan 2011
Posted by johnrumery
Marc Nager from Startup Weekend at the 2010 event.
The only thing missing is you.
If you are a developer, programmer, designer, professional (legal, finance), project manager or experienced entrepreneur we could use your talent.
Startup Weekend is pretty simple. You have a roomful of smart, connected, action-oriented and experienced people and a bunch of ideas.
The crowd decides which ideas to develop (maybe it’s yours or maybe you end up working on someone else’s idea) and over the next 54 hours the focus is on “getting going”.
Maybe you end up co-founding a business during the event or after the fact. It’s been done before.
The ingredients are in place: sponsors, speakers, venue, food, coffee…we just need you. Registration is simple. Just click here.
Current sponsors include Momentum-MI, Independent Bank, Atomic Object,GVSU Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Select Resources, GLEQ, The Factory and aimWest. We have many other sponsors which we are finalizing and we’ll highlight in another post.
Marketing expert, Pete Brand from Mindscape-HM is one of our featured speakers and we”ll be announcing others soon.
The only thing missing is you.
If you have questions please email john (at) johnrumery (dot) com
Back to the Future with Startup Weekend
Posted by johnrumery
Startup Weekend West Michigan- Before the pitch
We get many questions about “what happens during startup weekend”? Thanks to Mike Boyink, we have a great recap of last years events, both in words and pictures.
Please make sure you mark your calendars for January 14-16, 2011 and register for this years Startup Weekend West Michigan.
48 hours of pure business-building madness..;)
Posted by johnrumery
Startup Weekend is weekend event conceived by TechStars and first offered in 2007. Startup Weekends are now offered in cities around the world.
What’s it mean for West Michigan?
Starting on Friday, Jan 14th anyone with an idea for a startup business is encouraged to come pitch their idea at the event. But it’s not just talk – after the pitches the crowd splits off into teams and starts the work of actually building the product or company. The work continues through the weekend, interspersed with meals, speakers and special guests etc. The weekend culminates Sunday afternoon with presentations from each company covering what worked, what didn’t, any move-forward plans, etc.
The event needs two things: Attendees and Sponsors. You can do either (but ideally do both!). Many of you have been successful at running your own business, or have key positions in other businesses. These startups need you – no matter if your background is tech, business, finance, management, PR or something else. Or – you may have an idea for a new startup of your own. Cost for attending is $50 – which includes 6 meals and a t-shirt.
And yes – we need sponsors. We’re trying very hard to make this event happen as inexpensively as possible, but there’s no getting around some of the costs involved. We estimate our overall costs for putting the event on to be $7K, and we currently have sponsors for $1K of that.
If you’ll consider sponsoring the event we will do our best to give you as much value for that investment as we can – promoting your company on the event website, the organizers websites, and during the event. The people who show up for this will be a great audience to market to – they’ll tend to be engaged and passionate influencers in their communities. Sponsorship opportunities range from $100 up – contact us for more info.
So there’s our pitch -thanks for reading and by all means contact us with any questions or concerns.
West Michigan Startup Weekend 2011. January 14-16, 2011
Posted by johnrumery
It’s time! West Michigan Startup Weekend is only two months away.
If you did not participate last year here’s a little background: Startup Weekend is a global community of highly motivated developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more. It’s an amazing opportunity to connect, create and hopefully transform idea into a new venture.
The West Michigan weekend is a 54 hour event, that takes place at The Factory and is focused on building communities, companies, networks and projects. Last year, we helped launch both JaiPlace and MichiganFilmReel.
There are several ways to get involved: you can pitch your idea at the event, sponsor an entrepreneur, help organize, volunteer your talents during the weekend or all of the above. Please let us know how you want to help out.
Check out FilmReel From SWMI!
Posted by Startup Weekend Crew
A Special Message from Co-Founder Jason James from Michigan Film Reel on Vimeo.
4 Month Checkup / Reunion
Posted by swmi
Hey All –
Mark your calendars for Tuesday June 8th 6-8PM back at The Factory (38 West Fulton
Suite 320 Grand Rapids, MI 49503).
We’re planning a 4-month StartupWMI checkup/reunion – an excuse to get back together and see where people have progressed with their ideas.
And – we had some sponsor money left over. So we’re offering a $500 prize to the business who has shown the most progress since Startup Weekend.
Get cracking!