Credit: 83 Degrees
What an amazing event! Current student Reuben Pressman was a mentor at Startup Weekend last week. Another current student, Jeff Baird, took home second place with his project CityQuest. Also on his team was another current student, David Harres. They’re one of two teams who have since applied for funding and mentorship with the inaugural class of Tampa Bay’s local TechStars affilitate program, Gazelle Lab! We’ll keep you posted!
Startup Weekend Tampa: Synergy = Real Outcomes
A 54-hour mash-up of technologists, business minds, students and dreamers with a penchant for “doing,” Startup Weekend Tampa is a boot camp for people who want to develop entrepreneurial thinking (and doing) skills.
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“You will now receive three post-it notes so you can vote on the projects that you would like to work on over the course of the weekend,” an attention-getting voice tells more than 100 eager participants.
An assortment of sticker-laden laptops begins to fold and attendees start scurrying about the lobby of the Microsoft offices in Tampa, visually declaring support for their “that-looks-exciting” shortlist. As soon as group voting finishes, nine implementation teams — all top vote-getters — are established, and a strange combination of energy drinks and dining habits reminiscent of your college dorm room takes over.
(The keg won’t arrive till 10 the next morning.)
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Credit: 83 Degrees
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Credit: 83 Degrees
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Two days later, by way of entrepreneurship-in-action, each of the teams has built a fun and/or interesting product or service.
It’s difficult to quantify the impact that this event has on the individuals who participate, but the words of Ty Mathen, Dropost.it co-founder, seem to do justice: “Thank you for changing my life forever!”
Nick Kypriotakis, who worked on the City Quest team, says about the experience: “Startup Weekend is the ultimate test of a person’s knowledge, endurance and commitment. There are plenty of opportunities to challenge yourself, and I think the most successful contestants tried to take advantage of all of them. It was a grind, but I was rewarded with a ton of new friends, a lot of technical feedback from experienced professionals, and a winning venture!”
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Reuben Pressman, an entrepreneur living in St. Petersburg, agrees: “Startup Weekend was a huge opportunity for Tampa Bay, More than 100 movers and shakers at one event all ready to make something happen. The connections and relationships built at SUW is exactly what will make Tampa Bay a startup hotspot.”
Only a week after Startup Weekend, dozens of people who didn’t know each other before are already working on new projects together; they are following each other on Twitter, they’ve connected on LinkedIn, and they’re now friends on Facebook (these are early adopter types, so we may as well throw in Google+ as well). All of this boils down to more sharing. More doing.
Event organizer Susie Steiner believes the connections are important for people as well as for the ideas they have: “There are advantages to connecting people with resources that they may not have had access to on their own. This event really pulls the community together and allows for a melting-pot effect for ideas to happen.”
Jeff Baird’s startup CityQuest is a city scavenger hunt that brings new customers to local businesses using a mobile application. You can follow them on Twitter at @city_quest.
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Tampa Startup Weekend team is already working on next year’s event! We hope to see even more students there next year!
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