What Is Startup Weekend?

What is Startup Weekend?

Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. Come share ideas, form teams, and launch startups.

Startup Weekend Global Site

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Ever wondered what it takes to be an entrepreneur? The professional and personal challenges, the high and lows, the failures and the success? Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.

The non-profit organization is headquartered in Seattle, Washington but Startup Weekend organizers and facilitators can be found in over 200 cities around the world. From Mongolia to South Africa to London to Brazil, people around the globe are coming together for weekend long workshops to pitch ideas, form teams, and start companies.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.

Whether entrepreneurs found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new, or learn a skill far outside their usual 9-to-5, everyone is guaranteed to leave the event better prepared to navigate the chaotic but fun world of startups.

Schedule

Friday

Sep 14
  • Registration Starts
  • Dinner & Networking
  • Welcome & Speakers
  • Pitches Start
  • Attendees vote for the top ideas
  • Teams start forming and discussing ideas
  • Start to formalize teams and take an inventory of skills. Be honest, and direct about what resources and skills are needed for the weekend. You may stay and work as late as the venue will allow

Saturday

Sep 15
  • Arrive, simple breakfast & coffee
  • Teams formed and setting up workspace for the weekend
  • Lunch
  • Call for needs & skills
  • Coaches help teams one-on-one. They are here to help!
  • Dinner
  • Mid weekend check-in, status reports, call for help
  • Finished for the day. You may stay and work as late as the venue will allow

Sunday

Sep 16
  • Arrive, simple breakfast & coffee
  • Call for help (this is self motivated, so don’t be shy)
  • Lunch
  • Coaches arrive… ASK QUESTIONS
  • Gut check. Start prepping for presentations
  • Dinner
  • FINAL PRESENTATIONS
  • Judging & awards
  • Speaker
  • Wrapup
  • Go home!
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Speakers

JB Brown

Nordstrom Innovation Lab manager   |  LinkedIn

JB Brown is the Director of Innovation at Nordstrom and founding member of the Innovation Lab – a Lean Startup inside of Nordstrom. During 2011 the Innovation Lab experimented towards 20 new products while hiring a team and discovering a process and a product market fit. Since then the lab has continued to move through ideas quickly, using whichever technologies make sense within a discovery process that incorporates methodologies and practices from Design Thinking, Lean Startup, agile, and lean thinking.

Bo Lu

Co-Founder, FutureAdvisor

Bo Lu is the co-founder of FutureAdvisor, a seven-person team based in Seattle that's bringing the wealth management experience rich families enjoy to the rest of us via software. The company was founded in 2010 and incubated at Y Combinator, and is backed by investors such as Jeremy Stoppelman (founder of Yelp) and Sequoia Capital.

Maurice Lopes

CEO & Co-Founder, EarlyShares   |  LinkedIn

Maurice Lopes is an expert in building successful businesses. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of EarlyShares.com. Conceived out of Mr. Lopes’ frustration in the lack of resources afforded to the small business owner, EarlyShares.com is dedicated to bridging the funding gap for small business entrepreneurs through the application of Crowdfunding.
Under Mr. Lopes’ leadership, the organization came to the attention of the Start Up America Partnership, which made EarlyShares.com the featured company on their website on April 5, 2012, the same day President Obama signed the JOBS Act into law. Mr. Lopes’ enviable successes in the development of small businesses has prepared him develop a company that will assure the stringent vetting of small business applicants as well as solid investor protections.

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Judges

Bill Bryant

Venture Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson   |  LinkedIn

Bill Bryant has had early and instrumental involvement in over 25 leading software, Internet, digital media and mobile companies, as a founder, senior executive, investor and Board Member. Companies include Visio, Netbot, Qpass, Medio, Isilon, Swype, Winshuttle, Loudeye, Jabber, Opscode and Z2Live. He is currently a Venture Partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Greg Gottesman

Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group   |  LinkedIn

Greg joined Madrona in 1997 and currently serves on the boards of AdReady, Bocada, BuddyTV, Cheezburger, Decide, Intrepid Learning Solutions, Nimbic, ThisLife, ThinkFire, and WildTangent. He is the founder, current board member, and former CEO of Rover.com.

Greg managed the firm's investments in Dantz Development Corporation (prior to its acquisition by EMC), Rendition Networks (prior to its acquisition by Opsware), Singingfish.com (prior to its acquisition by Thomson Consumer Electronics), LiveBid.com (prior to its acquisition by Amazon.com), and AdRelevance (prior to its acquisition by Media Metrix). Before joining Madrona, he worked as an Associate of the Boston Consulting Group.

Greg serves on the boards of Startup Weekend and the Evergreen Venture Capital Association. He is an advisory board member of the University of Washington Technology Transfer Office. Greg was previously a board member of the Mercer Island Schools Foundations and the Seattle Repertory Theatre. He is the author of three books. Greg is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Washington Business School, where he teaches a class with fellow Managing Director Matt McIlwain on entrepreneurship. When not working, he spends time with his wife and three kids, watches too much reality TV, and regularly injures himself playing non-contact sports.

Greg graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors and distinction from Stanford University, with honors and distinction from the Harvard Business School, and with honors from Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Rebecca Lovell

Chief Business Officer at GeekWire   |  

Rebecca Lovell, GeekWire’s Chief Business Officer, is the former executive director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network and prior, director of the Alliance of Angels. She teaches a class on Venture Capital in the UW Foster MBA program, serves as a mentor for TechStars and Founder's Institute, and is endlessly devoted to startups, tech, and karaoke.

Gillian Muessig

Co-founder of SEOmoz   |  LinkedIn

Gillian is the co-founder of SEOmoz, providers of the world's most popular Search Marketing applications, SEOmoz.org and CEO Americas for E2 Publishing. As a board member in companies across four continents and CEO Coach on WebmasterRadio.fm, Gillian mentors and supports thousands of entrepreneurs.

Rahul Sood

General Manager, Bing Fund   |  

Rahul Sood is the General Manager of Bing Fund, an angel fund with an incubator program that is backed by Microsoft’s Online Services Division.
Sood joined Microsoft in January of 2011 as a GM in the interactive entertainment business at Microsoft. He created Bing Fund in February 2012.
A serial entrepreneur, Sood spent 16 years in multiple startups prior to joining Microsoft. He founded luxury and gaming computer manufacturer VoodooPC, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in September of 2006. Voodoo brought the ENVY product line to HP, contributing advanced technologies, such as commercial liquid cooling, and an increased focus on design.
Sood is a co-founder of BrightSquid Medical, a unique collaboration platform for medical professionals, which was subsequently acquired by NetworksMD. He co-founded BrightSquid Dental, which was spun out of the medical business in 2010. Sood also created BullsOnWallstreet, a trading and education platform for retail investors and traders, and he is an active angel investor in a number of small Canadian-based energy companies.

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Coaches

Mark Butler

Seattle-based consultant

Mark Butler specializes in strategic planning and idea development, helping entrepreneurs transform inspiration into reality while navigating the myriad challenges ahead.
He pairs strategic brainstorming with detailed, measureable implementation plans – and brings years of experience in product and content development to help create compelling, easily communicated offerings to customers.
His clients have included entrepreneurs, growing businesses, and organizations like the Kauffman and Lowe Foundations. At IDG Books, he oversaw many of the best-selling …For Dummies business titles. A graduate of Kansas State University’s business school, Mark can be found at www.butlerbeyondbooks.com.

Sandira Calviac

Entrepreneurial Social Executive   |  

Prior to joining Front Seat as a Catalyst while curating the Seattle chapter for New Media Ventures, a national network of angel investors supporting political tech startups, Sandira Calviac started Ridehack.com, a carpooling site endorsed by Burning Man & featured on the Rachel Maddow Show, as well as the Wall Street Journal and The Observer.
In NY for 9 years, she developed an expertise for the emerging mobile industry and was one of the first people to evangelize and pioneer QR codes in the US, while spearheading the marketing for Baracoda and Scanbuy.

Rob Dalton

Karass Creative partner, marmot-herding raconteur   |  

Rob Dalton is the progenitor of Karass Creative, a Seattle agency that bonds brands to tribes by telling stories that matter. For two decades, he has woven compelling campaigns across myriad media — from Addy-winning websites to short films and poetry — for a long list of artistic, nonprofit, and corporate clients ranging from Starbucks to TEDx. He lives in the woods on an island with his wife and two boys.

Zane Groshelle

Evangelist, Prezi.com   |  

Zane Groshelle is the Evangelist for Prezi.com- the zooming presentation software. He works with inspiring speakers, conferences, organizations, and individuals to help them share their ideas visually using Prezi. He is based in New York and San Francisco.
Prior to joining Prezi, Zane practiced strategic communications and marketing with numerous early-stage technology companies internationally. He was Director of Communications of digital-music startups AmieStreet.com and Songza.com, and a founding member of the GRND ZERO arts collective in Lyon, FR.

Andrew Kinzer

Co-Founder of GroupTalent   |  

Andrew is a designer and entrepreneur. He co-founded GroupTalent, a marketplace for software projects, and attended Seattle's TechStars 2011 program. With a background in branding, UI and UX, today he has focuses primarily on customer development, user experience, and marketing. Prior to GroupTalent, Andrew was the product and design director for Seattle startup Whrrl, and (later) San Francisco startup JustShareIt.

Thibaut Labarre

Computational Linguist, SDE at Amazon.com   |  LinkedIn

Thibaut Labarre is a computational linguist: he loves to work on any hack that involves processing text or voice! If you have questions related to setting up an Amazon Web Services account, building a pipeline for your natural language processing application or choosing a state of the art voice recognition system, Thibaut is your man.

Gabe Pelegrin

Designer at Startup Weekend   |  

Gabe packs a lot of punch in a small frame. With a background in marketing and design, it's no wonder he has a penchant for building cool things in the physical world and online. He can tell you how to position your brand, how to implement your message strategy, and possibly build your site. Gabe previously used his powers for good at the Ablola Group online agency launching SEO client’s strategies and helping InternMatch launch a westcoast rollout. These days, he can be found at Startup Weekend HQ designing cool tools for organizers and attendees and helping make Startup Weekend a house hold name for anyone with an idea.

Carter Rabasa

Sr. Developer Evangelist for @twilio   |  

Carter Rabasa is a 12-year veteran of the consumer web with experience in product development, product management and developer marketing. He graduated with Computer Science and Economics degrees from the College of William and Mary and holds an MBA from the University of Texas. He is currently a Sr. Developer Evangelist at Twilio, a cloud communications company. Prior to Twilio, Carter spent 3 years at Microsoft and helped launch Internet Explorer and the first previews of Windows 8. He is an ardent believer that coding is the new literacy.

Media & Contributing Sponsors
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Organizers
Marion Desmazieres
Luis A. Mercado
Ben Gilbert
Photos
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Blog
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Upcoming Events
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Jun 7-Jun 9 2013
Past Events
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Apr 5-7 2013
Nov 16-18 2012
Sep 14-16 2012
May 18-20 2012
Jan 13-15 2012