Entrepreneurship Club of USF St. Petersburg

Great article about the WaVE of novice entrepreneurs in Tampa & St. Petersburg who are changing the way we think about technology. One of the WaVE members featured is Entrepreneurship Club member Jeff Baird!

Geeks And Drinks: Creating A Technology WaVE In Tampa Bay

The Tampa Bay region is known for many things. Internet technology entrepreneurship isn’t one of them — yet.
 

Credit: 83 Degrees Media

…. However! The entrepreneurial community here is growing, both in size and spirit, as evidenced by the emergence of local college and university degree granting programs in entrepreneurship: SPC, USF Tampa, UT, and USF St. Pete come to mind (disclosure: I teach entrepreneurship classes at USFSP), startup-oriented events such as StartupBus, Startup Weekend, Barcamp Tampa Bay, and the recent launch of Gazelle Lab, a technology accelerator and early stage fund.
 
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After three years of lean operations and no permanent home to hang their hats, [WaVE has] landed some new digs to grow into in downtown Tampa, 401 South Florida Ave.
 
From a knowledge and resource-sharing standpoint, a shared space is highly important to ventures and their founders; having a go-to space means intellectual concentration, and not the kind that you lose, easily.
 
That’s where YOU come in…
 
The WaVE crew has teamed up with the Roosevelt 2.0 to throw a co-working kick-off party, dubbed: A Splash Bash to End “High Tech Homelessness” on Thursday evening, Sept. 15.
 
Live music, food and drink, free valet parking and a worthy cause — all from 6 to 11 p.m. at 1812 N. 15th St.

 
Read the Full Article at 83 Degrees

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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.)

Credit: 83 Degrees

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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Entrepreneurs in action! Check it out and get inspired!

Nathan Schwagler, creative in residence at USF-St. Pete, teaches creativity in entrepreneurship at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, where he is responsible for the integration of creative thinking skills into entrepreneurship curricula. He wrote an article in 83 Degress recently about his experience on the Miami StartupBus. Ten young professionals from the Tampa Bay area were on board the StartupBus as it made its way from Miami to Austin in early March. Three of the ten are part of the Entrepreneurship Program at USFSP!

Nathan Schwagler was also part of the winning team that created MyNewman.

My Newman: Tampa Team Rolls To SXSW Finals On The StartupBus

Excerpts:

On March 7th, 2011, a motley crew of entrepreneurially inclined web designers, developers, marketers and business strategists from the Tampa Bay region combined with 19 other entrepreneurs from the Southeastern United States and boarded a bus in Miami, FL.

 

The mission, should each “buspreneur” choose to accept it: brainstorm business concepts with complete strangers, converge upon the best ideas, form implementation teams, and then turn the most promising ideas into functioning businesses — in 72 hours. Oh, and by the way, you must do this on a bus, enroute to the South By Southwest festival in Austin, TX.

 

As the bus approaches Austin, a panel of experts will evaluate your technology and business model. If everything checks out, you’ve earned yourself a slot in the semifinals. Great job. Now get back to work! The finals are in three days.

 

Three Rules of StartupBus:

•    There are no rules

•    Don’t expect to sleep

•    Don’t rely on the on-bus wifi

 

On The Road

The Miami bus fielded seven extraordinary teams: BookmarksFor.tv, FulFilld.com, Grupii, Isitgood4.me, Online Supply List, Story Set Go, and MyNewman. The judges picked BookmarksFor.tv and MyNewman to make it through the first round and into the semifinals.

 

MyNewman, the world’s first anti-social social network, drew equal parts love and hate from the audience and judges, and made its way into the final round. The genius of MyNewman resides in the compatibility engine it uses to match individuals with other users in their network, or “nemisphere.”

 

Think of the people that you love to hate. You don’t necessarily know why they annoy you, but behavioral scientist Sean Lux and software architect Greg Ross-Munro, the creative geniuses behind MyNewman, think they do. And they’re banking on the idea that given an opportunity, you will engage with your nemeses (anonymously) online. The business model involves targeted ads to the highly sought after 18-34 year old male demographic, and also a marketplace for the digital prankster – dubbed the crAPP store. Clever, isn’t it?

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Buspreneurs Unite

St. Petersburg buspreneur Reuben Pressman appreciated the dynamism of business building with strangers and time pressure: “It’s an incredible opportunity. I learned about the importance of adapting to new scenarios and working with new people fast.”

 

So, what’s next?  Well, the ripple effects of the StartupBus experience are already being felt in the community. Some of the teams on the Miami bus have continued development on their projects, and, two Tampa Bay buspreneur alumni just received a license to host a local Startup Weekend!

 

It’s this kind of passion and drive that Florida’s entrepreneurial ecosystem so desperately needs (an early stage investment fund wouldn’t hurt, either). All in all, I leave this experience confident in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Tampa Bay, and excited to know that the region will be well-represented and competitive in next year’s StartupBus challenge. Godspeed.

 

Tampa Bay Region Buspreneurs:

Jessica Barnett – USFSP Entrepreneurship Club Member
Kyle Eschenroeder
Sean Lux
Will Mitchell
Mitch Neff
Kirsten Peck
Reuben Pressman  - USFSP Entrepreneurship Club Member
Greg Ross-Munro
Nathan Schwagler  - USFSP Entrepreneurship Club Mentor
Susie Steiner

Read Original Article At 83 Degrees

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