The Winners

Subcategories (winners of mugs from our sponsor Highland Capital Partners):

• Most Likely to be the First to Make $1 Million: Securehealing
• Best Demo: FunBun
• Most Creative Idea: Chefsperience

Top Three:

1. LRN2TXT: received $500, student members will take a free trip to the Bay Area to pitch their ideas and visit startups (thanks to our sponsor UM’s Center for Entrepreneurship), and a conference call with our sponsor Highland Capital Partners
2. FoodCircles: received $250 cash prize
3. FunBun: received $100 cash prize

Be sure to check them out!

The teams were spread out in the soon to be “TechArb,” a space that will be dedicated to start-ups needing an area to get their companies up and running. A contest was run to to try to come up with new names for the space, the crowd unanimously voted to keep the already existing TechArb branding.

After the crowd sourcing, Ben Kazez of Mobiata arrived and gave a presentation on his startup and now very successful company. He spoke on the origins of Mobiata, and both the struggles and achievements that got them acquired by travel search engine Expedia.

There was also a presentation by Michael Gaiss of Venture Capital, HCP who flew in all the way from Boston. He spoke on some amazing entrepreneurs and the path to their successful companies. Michael also spoke about the Highland Summer Entrepreneurship program and other programs and opportunities available through Highland, as well as some very helpful tips to the new start-ups.

Both Ben and Michael will serve as judges on the panel that picks the winning start-up. Stay tuned for the final pitches to see which team claims the ultimate prize….

Thanks to Audrey [@techsocialite] of Girls in Tech Detroit for the guest post!

Startup Weekend.       54 hours.         One Weekend.

Time flies for ten teams moving from concept to working model.  These working models include phone app mock ups plus corresponding websites and all supporting programs. In addition, each team will produce a business plan and prepare for the final pitches which begin at 5:45 PM on Sunday.

Most of the ‘surviving’ ten final idea teams have not deviated from the original concept at the end of day two. Based on the list of survivors here is what the groups are up to:

1.  Kyle: Product name:  Cofound.org

Premise: New business start ups are challenged in discovering needed complements to

their skill set. Cofound.org will provide a user friendly site and qualified matches.

2.  Amit: Product Name:  Securehealing

Premise: Hospitals are mandated to conduct audits which are difficult due to the

multiple systems operating within one hospital. Securehealing will provide an

interface enabling hospital systems to work together, prevent unauthorized access, and

provide alerts when issues arise.

3.  Toby: Product Name: Chefsperience

Premise: People desire to cook at home for the experience, for health, enjoyment

among other reasons. Customers can place an order for the quantity of diners and

Chefsperience will deliver the correct amount of specific ingredients, pictures,

detailed instructions and online support.

4.  Sachin: Product Name:  Alpha List

Premise: Tool where select business people will provide valuable early feedback to

Startups, assessing the value and viability of their plan.

5.  Jonathan: Product Name:  Food Circles

Premise:  A combination of social and location based application.  For example:

If you are a fan of Thai food you can find other Thai fans with additional similar

interests &/or existing friends to meet as a group at a Thai restaurant where you

will receive a discount or additional benefit from using the application.

6. Bhargav: Product Name:  Fun Bun

Premise: Produce a game, accessed through Facebook, that provides nutritional

information.  Gaming that is educational and fun.

7. Terry: Product Name:  Kidneyfriend.com

Premise: Dialysis patients are often scared and guarded. Kidneyfriend.com is a social

network community where patients can securely share information, support and

resources.

8. Dan: Product Name:  DrunkorChild.com

Premise: People submit stories and then vote on whether the story is one of a child or a

drunk.

9. Brandon: Product Name:  (pending) Location Based Reminders

Premise: Task list created on a phone will alert user when they are in the vicinity

of task location.  An example is your grocery list will alert you when you are near

the grocery store.  There are many additional features and possible uses with this

application.

10. Anuj: Product Name:  Lrn2txt

Premise: Android application that parents can set up on child’s phone. After a set

number of texts, the child must answer grade level homework questions to resume

texting.

One additional group The Color Picker will not be presenting but is using the Startup weekend opportunity to produce an easy to use led light tool that is similar to color picker in Photo Shop.

All of the teams have great ideas.  It will be interesting to see which is the ultimate victor!

Thanks to Debbie [@dbourgois] of Girls in Tech Detroit for the guest post!

2.  Amit: Web-based/app retrieving audit logs within different hospital systems

3.  Toby: DIY Cooking—home food delivery service with cooking kit and instructions

4.  Sachin: Crowdsourcing alpha users (aka early warning system for people to build something people want)

5.  Jonathan: FoodCircles=dating for best friends.  Aggregates food & life preferences—restaurants get to go after demand

6. Bhargav: Develop socially networked mobile game to help encourage applications to a school (e.g. UM)

7. Terry: Dialysis social networking site for patients + place for businesses to contact the patients

8. Dan: Drunk or child?  Vote on experiences—were you naked on that tricycle as a kid or as a drunk?

9. Brandon: Location-based reminders: e.g. pay this bill when I get home.  Or tag what you want to reminded of and send to others: e.g. Mom buy me good food at Hiller’s Market

10. Anuj: Parents don’t pay for bad grades—make kids answer practice problems before they text

Startup Weekend will be hosted at the future home of U of M’s TechArb:

500 E. Washington St.
Ann Arbor, MI

Parking
There is a parking garage right next door–parking is free on Sundays.

There’s also street parking all around the surrounding areas.

Event Schedule:
Startup Weekend begins Friday evening and ends Sunday evening. The hours of Startup Weekend are as follows:

Friday – 6 PM – 11 PM
Doors open + Registration: 5:30 pm
Kick-off: 6:30 PM
Pitches begin: 7:30 pm

Saturday – 9 AM – 11 PM
Doors Open: 9 AM
Lunch: 12:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM
Doors Close: 11 PM

Sunday – 9 AM – 9 PM
Doors Open: 9 AM
Lunch: 12:00 PM
Dinner: 4:30 PM
Guest speaker Ben Kazez of Mobiata: 5:00 PM
Guest speaker Michael Gaiss of Highland Capital Partners: 5:15 PM
Final pitches begin: 5:45 PM

Doors Close: 9 PM

This schedule is subject to change. Please note that if you arrive before 9 AM, you may not be able to enter the building immediately. The doors will be locked throughout Saturday and Sunday–be sure to exchange numbers with your team to get access to the building.  The organizers will also be able to let you in and out, so be sure to let someone know when you’re heading out.

What you should bring
Startup Weekend is an intense event. To get the most out of the event, here are a few things you should consider bringing:

Laptop
You’ll pretty much be spending your entire weekend researching, designing, writing or coding. Without a laptop, it might be hard to participate, but you can still play an important role on your team.

Chargers for your laptop and phone + Wifi Cards
All that coding and working takes a toll on your laptop!  Be sure to bring extra charger–we’ll be providing wifi onsite but it’s best to bring your own cards as well.

A product idea or concept
During the Friday night pitch fire session, EVERYONE has the opportunity to pitch an idea.

Questions? Email Nancy at nxiao@umich.edu.  See you on the 21st!

I’ve often heard the phrase “You get out of something what you put into it.”  And in most cases, that is true — if you put in some time, some energy and some effort you’ll get an equal amount back out of it.  With Startup Weekend, that phrase also applies — it’s just that you’ll get 5 times more out versus what you put into it.

I’ve had the opportunity to attend a half dozen Startup Weekends.  Some weekends have been a fun chance to meet people; some weekends have been a chance to build something cool; some weekends have been the opportunity to challenge myself to learn something new; and some weekends have left me with more to think about than at the start of the weekend.  But in each case, I consistently got much more out of the weekend than I put into it.

I may have hit the jackpot on my second Startup Weekend to be honest.  That was a Startup Weekend held at Microsoft where my team was the only one that built something on the Apple iPhone… and then we had to rock the boat and win the whole darn thing.  Next thing I knew we’d created a firestorm and our story spread like wildfire through the tech ecosystem — from Engadget to Mashable and everywhere in between on the twittersphere.  It was great… and we hadn’t even launched our app on the AppStore yet.  Three weeks later, we finally launched Learn That Name and the press continued… Wall Street Journal, Xconomy, TechFlash, ABA Journal and more.  We had a hit on our hands and all of it started at Startup Weekend.  Fast forward a couple months later and a meeting over coffee (spurred by Startup Weekend again) turned into a demo of our app, a partnership discussion and ultimately an acquisition of Learn That Name by Gist.  And the rest was history.  We’d gone full circle, from an idea pitched and built at Startup Weekend to a real live cash acquisition.  And that’s how Startup Weekend sometimes happens — an opportunity that pays it back in social capital a hundred times over.

But the really great part of the story isn’t that Learn That Name was acquired or we got covered in TechCrunch or our team won at Startup Weekend.  In fact, all of those things were pure bonus points for us.  Nope, the best part was the fact that I got the chance to work with a dozen team members to build something… and build something that I still have on my iPhone.  That’s the best part.  You take an idea or a problem or something you think that would be fun and just build it.  There’s no judgement; no risk; no downside.  That’s Startup Weekend… the chance to be an entrepreneur, a developer, a project manager, and a startupper for a weekend or maybe more.

So how can you get the most out of Startup Weekend?  Well, first off, don’t expect to build a company in a weekend.  That’s not what the weekend is about.  Here’s a few things I’d encourage you to consider to make the most out of your weekend:

• Be flexible. Startup Weekend attendees that come in with a set plan or goal for the weekend are often disappointed.  Not because you can’t meet those goals or build that product you wanted.  No, you are disappointed because you don’t build something as great as you could have.  My vision for the products or ideas I’ve had were blown out of the water by the collective thinking of the team.  So offer your idea and maybe it will be picked… but don’t forget to be flexible enough to listen to those around you and get the most out of the collective brainpower in the room.
• Build a product; not a company. Teams that focus on what happens after the weekend lose track of what happens during the weekend.  If you spend all your time dividing the pie that hasn’t even baked yet, you’ll miss out on all the fun that is had in making the pie.  So think about how you can build something to show off on Sunday night.  If you’ve got something worth turning into a company, the post-weekend challenges will really help solve themselves.
• What can you build in 54 hours? In each case, after the weekend it is hard to keep a team motivated.  If you’ve got a big idea, try and build a piece of that idea… or a feature… or a prototype.  Startup Weekend is about building something in the weekend so even if you don’t get your grand plan completed, get something completed.
• Build or join a team of people you want to meet. The best parts of Startup Weekends for me have been the relationships post-weekend.  It’s funny, but after the weekend, you share a bond that others don’t have.  It’s like we have a secret handshake, know the inside rituals, and laugh at the jokes that only the SW alums know.  So get a team of people that you want to meet and don’t worry about building the perfect team or excluding an extra designer or marketer.  Big teams are fun and teams with people you don’t know expand your social circle.
• Take risks. Are you a great back-end developer?  Try some UI or front end work.  Don’t know anything about coding?  Try to learn something or at least take a crack at some HTML work.  This is your chance to do something you don’t do at your job Monday through Friday.  It’s easy enough to take a risk at an open environment like this… so take it and you’ll be amazed at how much fun it can be.
• Have fun. At the end of the weekend, you should look back and smile or better yet laugh at a few of the funny things that happened that weekend.  If you are coding until your fingers bleed, if you are using the dry erase board until your forearms are black, or if you are so worried about the demo that you keep your headphones on all weekend, you’ve missed out.  These weekends are about the people and the process — not about winning.  So remember that when you are deciding whether to get a beer that night or stay up all night and code that extra set of features… be with your team and work hard, but at the end of the day have fun.

I’ve been to multiple Startup Weekends. Most don’t end like Learn That Name, so don’t expect that yours will either.  But every weekend has been a series of memories, stories and new friends.  Hope your Startup Weekend is a big success — and it can be if you meet new people, take a few risks, and build something together.  That is Startup Weekend…

Now go make your Startup Weekend!

The event is open to anyone interested in the local entrepreneurial community, and it puts them in a setting where anything is possible. In the past 3 years, 550+ startups have started, 22,000+ entrepreneurs have been inspired. Teams have even started to generate revenue during the 54hr event, and others have even gone on to direct angel and VC investment. None of these stats take into account the amazing networking, ongoing professional relationships, and amazing experience that happen at every event.