Startup Weekend

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!

Posted by Startup Weekend Crew

Hey everyone, this is a great tool to be able to check out during the startup weekend event. Although most people are not ready for funding, it is a good insight into what investors are looking for in the future!

Login at venture360.dontgosouth.com Username: SW.Tulsa

Ask your facilitator for the Password!

OFFER:

All Startup Weekend attendees receive FREE ACCESS to the Venture 360 software application for the upcoming event. Venture 360 is the only Web-based venture analysis software that is used by professional investors (Angels and VCs) to assess the viability of investment opportunities. By understanding the methodology behind the tool, SW participants can accelerate the process of turning their ideas into fundable businesses. Talk to Marc or Clint for more details!
Pre-Event Email:
All Startup Weekend attendees receive FREE ACCESS to the Venture 360 software application for the upcoming event. Venture 360 is the only Web-based venture analysis software that is used by professional investors (Angels and VCs) to assess the viability of investment opportunities. By understanding the methodology behind the tool, SW participants can accelerate the process of turning their ideas into fundable businesses.
There isn’t always a strong understanding between entrepreneurs and investors, which is a huge problem if we expect innovation to lead the economic recovery (which we do). Venture 360 was created as a response to the lack of transparency in the early-stage investment process, and the application is quickly becoming the industry standard for assessing new ventures using a structured and consistent methodology.
Log in and spend some time getting to know the different categories and elements a new venture is assessed upon. By familiarizing yourself with the key points an investor will look at, you and your team for this weekend will have a strong nucleus of information on which your ideas can be built. By knowing what you need, or where you can fill in, the weekend will be far more productive for everyone!
For more information about Venture 360, go to venture360report.com or follow @venture360 for exclusive offers during the SW event.
In addition, our Analyst support resource found here:

http://northventure360.wordpress.com/

Also, there is a brief video of the tool in action found here:

http://www.venture360report.com/?page_id=115