Congrats on surviving 54 hours of Startup Weekend! For those wondering what exactly does 54 hours of Startup Weekend entail, let me fill you in (with a Coles notes version of course!)
Startup Weekend is a 54 hour event for anyone curious about innovation and entrepreneurship. Whether you have an idea for a business or not, it really does not matter. Participants hit the ground running on Friday evening by pitching ideas, voting on the top ideas, and then forming teams around these ideas.
The rest of the weekend is spent conducting the following activities:
- Conducting market research
- Validating ideas
- Building websites and apps
- Developing prototypes
- Reaching out to potential customers
- Refining business and revenue models
- And so much more!!
It is a race to the finish because by Sunday evening, the teams have to be ready to pitch their final idea to a panel of judges in hopes of winning the grand prize of a $1000 in startup credits and an Innovator Membership!
This is the second year Startup Weekend was held in Thunder Bay. This year, a total of 60 individuals participated with 20 ideas pitched and 7 businesses developed. The seven businesses developed out of this weekend were the following:
- HUB Resource hub for teachers, parents & students to inspire females into tech
- BaySafe Harm Reduction Outreach Team
- Booker App for customers to schedule appointment with local businesses
- Beer Quest A mobile app designed to promote Ontario Craft Beer to enthusiast
- Eventful Platform for event planning and organizing
- TrailMix A pocket guide for all your trail needs
- WhatToDo An app that connects individuals based on activities
Now that you know everything there is to know about Start-up Weekend, we want to keep the momentum going! Start-up weekend may have ended, but we are just getting STARTED!
We know there was 20 ideas pitched, but I am sure there were a lot more ideas floating around that room. If those ideas and thoughts are still floating around your head and keeping you up at night, let us know!
Startup Weekend is really just a glimpse of what it takes to launch a startup and a crash course in entrepreneurship. So what’s next after those 54 hours you might ask? Well you still have access to all of those mentors, resources and the Innovation Centre!
I know this can all seem a little overwhelming (so is launching a business in 54 hours, but you already did that!) but whether your group was the winning team or not, the Innovation Centre will guide you through our innovative business development process (see the cool info graph below!), because we don’t want those ideas to stop after the 54 hours. So if you just want to bounce ideas off of someone, get some help with the business model, explore funding options, or attend workshops to gain new skills, we can help!
Posted by: Kendall Kerbashian