Startup Weekend

Posted by Startup Weekend Crew

The Oklahoma Dept. of Commerce is hosting its Oklahoma Entrepreneur’s Conference Feb. 23-24 in Norman, OK.  This conference is coordinated by okstartup.com

Last year was the first year for this event and they had around 250 attendees and this year proves to be bigger & better.

Come learn firsthand about the entrepreneurship movement in Oklahoma.  Gain knowledge about valuable resources, expand you network & hear from none other than Chris Brogan.  You read that right, Chris Brogan author of Trust Agents & the President of New Marketing Labs, will be speaking to the group about getting the word out and how to market your venture in the media channels of today.

To find out more info & for a registration form click here

Posted by swtulsa

Things seem to me moving slowly.

Wow! What a weekend!

More than 40 people came together Friday night and….

• 15 very inspired ideas got pitched
• 5 aspiring entrepreneurs got “funded”
• 5 amazing teams emerged

Lots of geek fuel got consumed in the form of pizza, subs, Indian, Mexican and the like. Not to mention the IV drips of caffeine that keep team members buzzing all weekend.

Before long 7 p.m. Sunday rolled around and 5 teams showed us that Tulsa entrepreneurs have “The Right Stuff.”

Our Tulsa teams really knocked it out of the park!  Leading the way- two teams that were voted by their peers as being the best of the best.

Second place: MyNotifyR.com with a unique system to allow utilities to easily notify customers by neighborhood, city block or box on a map about utility work and related activity that might impact them. The team was awarded $800.

First place: Menu-O-Matic with an automated restaurant menu creation and publishing system, that automates the production of menus online, in print, on mobile devices and on the phone. The team was awarded $1,200.

Menu-O-Matic leveraged technology from Twilio as part of their StartupWeekend Challenge. Two other Startup Weekend Tulsa teams utilizes Twilio in their projects.

Shout outs to our wonderful sponsors who made this incredible weekend possible. Leading the pack as a Premier sponsor is Oklahoma Department of Commerce, followed by Sun Startup Essentials,  Microsoft/BizSpark, Ping.fm (a true Tulsa startup success story,) McAfee&Taft, SevinRosen, and finally Isocentric Networks. Also, thank you for the The Collaboratorium for sponsoring our dinner Saturday night!

Thank you again to our participants, your creativity, energy and talent really inspired us all! In closing remember the best way to show us how much you liked Startup Weekend is to tell your friends about it.

Startup Weekend Tulsa has placed us on a global entrepreneurial stage we can only imagine how amazing Act II can be.

Posted by swtulsa

Putting a price tag on the first Startup Weekend Tulsa…

Event space:   $1,500
7 Meals & Snacks: $1,700
T-shirts: $200
Prize Money: $2,000

Launching 5 new companies in one weekend: Priceless

Posted by swtulsa

Presentations in less than five minutes be sure to follow our live tweets #swtulsa and @swtulsa

Posted by swtulsa

Day 2:

Amazingly 5 teams left last night and 5 teams showed up this morning.

There was a short period of concern when we thought there might have been a plane crash outside as we watched several disoriented people stagger in. Then we realized these were just team members who had stayed up all night and we breathed a sigh of relief.  Before long teams were popping up all over Twitter and Facebook and domain registrars were raking it in!

Follow our teams on Twitter:

RightHurr

TrailsToo

Menu-O-Matic

MyNoftifyr

GoalPrompt

Over a Subway lunch we heard a great presentation from McAfee&Taft on intellectual property issues as related to startups.  After lunch teams got back to work.

In true entrepreneur style we even had one participant sneak out for the McNellie’s pub run. Rumor has it that multiple pints of Guinness might have been consumed during that run, but we were afraid to ask.

Geek fuel in the form of Indian food from DesiWok, rounded out the day giving teams that last big push to get through the evening.

Posted by swtulsa

Posted by swtulsa

Lots of motivated people showed up on Friday, those present got to here 15 very diverse and unique pitches from aspiring entrepreneurs.

A fun new voting system was introduced and everyone got an opportunity to live the life of a Venture Capitalist – each person was given two crisp new $1 bills. With money in hand, everyone voted for the best ideas by actually putting their money where their mouth is.

From that emerged 5 entrepreneurs that had enough funding to get started.

Next came a very energized recruiting process where teams quickly absorbed the remaining participants. An Oklahoma style “Land Run” ensued when teams got to stake out their “office” space.

Within minutes large monitors, and related resources were sprawled throughout ONEOK Plaza’s cafeteria.  No time for idle chit chat teams jumped right in head first.  Before long it was time to call it a night.

Posted by swtulsa

Posted by swtulsa

Posted by Startup Weekend Crew

There has been some great interest in the Twilio contest, so the folks at Twilio have upped the prize!

“We have sweetened the pot to motivate the local organizers as well. The winning city will receive a sponsorship from Twilio that includes a meal of pizza, 2 FlipCam Minos, Twilio shirts and stickers AND I’ll fly to that city to hang out at the next event and build something.”

http://startupweekend.twilio.com/

HOW ABOUT THAT!??!

Keep building!