Startup Weekends are an international phenomenon, with events in more than 200 countries around the world. They’re all founded on the same basic idea: anyone is welcome to pitch their idea to a team of participants. Together, the participants will select their focus idea for the weekend and will spend the next 54 hours transforming it into a viable company.
“The point is to create that environment,” says Jeff Smith, co-director of the New Economy Division at the Lansing Area Economic Partnership (http://www.purelansing.com/index.php), or Leap, Inc. “Even if the company doesn’t come to fruition and it doesn’t carry on past this weekend, these individuals have learned a lot in 54 hours.” Together, serial entrepreneurs Ken Szymusiak, the other co-director of the New Economic Division for event sponsor Leap; Paul Jaques, director of student and community engagement at
Spartan Innovations and Tom Stewart managing partner of the NEO Center, organized the event. Between them they have nearly a dozen business ventures and plenty of startup experience.
Throughout the course of the frenzied weekend, the organizers and a
set of coaches prepared the teams of four or five for the event’s culmination: a set of business pitches to judges Jeff Siarto of
Loud Pixel, Mark Hooper of
Capital Community Angels, Maria LaLonde of Bizdom and Steve Bennett of Prima Civitas Foundation, one of the other event sponsors.
“So they’re pitching in front of a panel of judges that are made up of investors, small business owners and general business individuals,” says Smith. “They pitch and depending on how good of a job they do, they convince they judges that, ‘Yes. That’s a really good idea.’ And the one that has the best idea with the best pitch and the best team ends up winning the judges’ vote.”
That vote earns them a membership at business incubator NEO Center and support from a host of professional services designed to help the company grow and thrive.
Jesse’s Shoes
Of the companies launched at Startup Weekend (Tangifi, CoachYou, CarInSharence and The Grappler Media) it was
Jesse’s Shoes who walked away with the big prize. Michigan State University student Jeremy Lindlbauer brought the idea to the event.
“I decided to start taking this idea of Jesse’s Shoes a little more seriously. I got the email about Startup Weekend from my entrepreneurial class and I decided to sign up. It’s an opportunity to come, they feed you, you go all out for a weekend and you get cumulative thinking.”
The team of five not only shared ideas, but Jesse’s floor during the event.
“They crashed at my place,” Jesse explains. In addition to another MSU student on his team, Jesse’s collaborators were from Poland, the Czech Republic and Turkey. “It’s been a cool opportunity to see some culture and build team chemistry.”
Ozan Sonmez is an entrepreneur in Turkey who is actively involved in the National Business Incubation Association and has attended Startup Weekend’s around the globe. He came to Lansing Startup Weekend to experience how entrepreneurs do things in the U.S.
“I feel there are lots of similarities between entrepreneurs,” he says. “An idea is very safe, nobody argues about an idea but when you go to the market you get scared. Experience is important. Coaching and mentoring is important.”
Ozan lent his coaching, mentoring and business experience to Jesse’s Shoes and intends to stay involved when he returns to Turkey.
Win or Lose
Win or lose, the Startup Weekend model has proved valuable for all participants. Shelley Jeltema is an IT professional who wanted to learn about the business side of startups.
“I’ve really learned to deal more on the entrepreneurial levels,” she says. “It gives you a perspective of what other people think, how other people work. When you work in the business world, it’s very easy to get put into a silo. It’s so important to learn about other people, how to communicate and how to work with them.”
And that work carries on beyond one weekend in October. Kyle Pollock launched
Booklify, an online platform to connect college students to buy and sell textbooks directly to one another, at last year’s Lansing Startup Weekend.
“It’s an amazing experience where people can come together from all over the world,” he says. He was on the winning teams at the Chicago and Toledo Startup Weekends while he was a student at Michigan State, then attended last year’s Lansing event. Booklify didn’t “win” the Lansing Startup Weekend, but it didn’t matter to Kyle.
“Just coming to these weekends, you can learn anything that goes into forming a business, from design, business, content creation, marketing.” Together with one of his team members from Lansing Startup Weekend Kyle continues to work on the company now that he’s graduated. Booklify is currently in Beta testing with MSU students.
“One of the misconceptions about starting these ideas is that you have this great golden idea and once you pitch it you just start working on it and that’s going to be it. The good thing about Startup Weekend is it’s a platform to jump off of, but the real work comes after.”
Photos ©
Dave Trumpie
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of
Trumpie Photography.