Startup Weekend Salt Lake City

Gotta give props to Trevor over at Startup Flavor, wrote a great summary of the teams we had come out of Startup Weekend. Still blown away at how great of an event this was, good work everyone!

Take a look - LINKY

Winners are in

jmattle — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:53:00 +0000

We’ll do a bit more detail tomorrow, but the winners are -

WeShop
RateMyTenants
Unicorn Sex Appeal

The polish on design and progress in code was evident in each one of the presentations. I’ve seen incubator companies that didn’t accomplish in 3 months what these teams did in 2 1/2 days. Seriously impressed.

WHAT A WEEK!

jmattle — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:35:47 +0000

We’ve been building. Here’s the final presentation order for tonight -

FB Wedding Address Helper
Tasquach
Divorcify
Tweet Graph
Afterthought
Cinch
My Kart
Price my MRI
Unicorn sex appeal
Geeksperssion
Hack ladder
Cool points
Rate my tenants
Buttermilk

Photo courtesy of @austinmcraig

Get ready!

jmattle — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:00:37 +0000

Hey everyone, very excited to be rocking this tomorrow. Great support all around, have some awesome folks flying in to represent their APIs and help people make huge progress.

I’ll send out an email tonight, but a few things to remember -

| Parking |
Parking at the school is free, just come park where there is space, no permit needed.

| Tickets |
Be sure to print and bring your tickets for a quick check-in.

| What to bring |

Laptop
Charger
A good attitude
Business cards (or at least some way to share/collect your contact info)
Camera
Creative energy
Anything else you want to bring to launch a cool startup.

| Keep it social |
Twitter: @SWSaltLake -be sure to use hashtag #swslc in your tweets

| Bandwidth |
We’re trying to make sure the internet will support us, they assure us we’ll be fine, but they’ve never seen this level of geekery in one room, so I’m planning for the worst. Help us keep speeds to a maximum by:

Downloading large files before the weekend
Bringing you own hotspot or 3G or 4G broadband cards

Can’t wait to get this thing going, gather ideas, mull over them intently, nimble your fingers and prepare to rock.

Google Android / HTML5 bootcamp

jmattle — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:20:55 +0000

If you’re thinking about brushing up on your skills before startup weekend, join us for a bootcamp hosted by the good fellas over at Google where they’ll spend a few hours showing off Android / HTML5 and answering any tech questions you may have around it. If you want to jump in, it’ll be at the SLCC campus here the saturday before SW, sign up here - http://slcswbootcamp.eventbrite.com/

Meet your Judges – Ron Porter

jmattle — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:54:21 +0000

As the time gets closer and closer, I’ll try and throw out bios and blips of our judges. Also as a side note, T-shirts printed today, they will be coveted, I promise.

Now, Meet Ron -

Even in Ron’s earliest corporate experience programming COBOL on an IBM 4341 for Tanner Southwest, entrepreneurial tendencies were evident. Along with another software programmer, they started a “skunk works” project programming applications on a personal computer using C as their development tool. Recognizing the potential power of networking personal computers, Ron began moonlighting with an established construction firm, McGee Walpole Inc. as their Network Specialist.

Ron eventually joined At McGee Walpole as the IS Director and transitioned their manual accounting system, forecasting, and job bidding process onto networked PCs. From pulling cable to building servers to installing operating systems and applications, Ron implemented a successful transition. This experience fired his desire to work for the company responsible for developing the finest network operating system on the market at that time: Novell, Inc.

Ron’s tenure with Novell began as a front-line support technician and concluded as the Director of worldwide premium services. Beginning with just the idea, Ron assembled a killer management team which eventually hired over 250 employees world wide and enjoyed unprecedented success in services. The creation and implementation of Novell’s Premium Services resulted in a multimillion dollar success under Ron’s direction.

In late 1999, Ron was invited to join a startup company, Altiris, Inc. His opportunity was to build a worldwide professional services team. As Vice President of Worldwide Services, Ron grew training, consulting, support, and testing teams from a few employees to over 200 worldwide and a P&L running at 35% profitability. In 2004 Ron left services
for a short stint as Vice President Business Operations. But the lure of building a business for himself was ever present, especially during long, drawn-out executive staff meetings. In late 2005, after multiple acquisitions resulting in counter-productive redundancy, Ron was laid off and took the opportunity to dive into entrepreneurship.

Since 2005 Ron has co-authored the book; “Bootstrap Business: A Step-by-Step Business Survival Guide.”, created, grew, sold (Exit Strategy – chapter 19 of the book!) a startup company, co-founded two technology companies and certified as a facilitator for The Work Itself (Strategy->Alignment-> Execution).

Update and discount for Startup Weekend SLC

jmattle — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:39:07 +0000

So we are back from the holiday travels and Q4 drama and are running full speed on Startup Weekend. We have the tshirts being designed and made, food being lined up, internet drops being run, and my tetrinet skills being honed (any challengers?). We have quite a few registrants already, and it looks like it will be a pretty full event. Keep spreading the love, let’s make sure everyone knows how great SW is and that it’s happening, finally, in Salt Lake City.

Two quick notes, the price of $75 (early bird special) will stay in tact for another few weeks thanks to generous donations. So seriously, don’t waste $25 bucks by waiting, register now. Also, the folks over at BoomStartup are talking about how great Startup Weekend is, and in one of the later paragraphs have generously offered a few scholarships for the developers in the crowd. Take them up on the offer, drop Andy a note if you’re interested.

Can’t wait to see you all, expect quite a bit more twitter activity #swslc and posts here on the blog.

Best,

@drbillnye

Salt Lake City Startup Weekend! We got a venue!

jmattle — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:07:43 +0000

Hey everyone, we’re excited to have the SLCC off 9000 South hosting us. We’re working out the details, but should be plenty of room and interwebs, so get excited

Startup Weekend is coming to your city!

Startup Weekend Crew — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:41:09 +0000

Startup Weekends are 54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups!

Startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if startup ideas are viable. On average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees have technical backgrounds, the other half have business backgrounds.

Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees are encouraged to bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams design and develop business plans while constantly streamlining their startup vision. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes, listen to judges’ feedback and in some cities, win prizes.

Startup Weekends are specifically designed for entrepreneurs interested in receiving feedback on an idea, looking for a co-founder, or who want to learn a new skill. We also welcome anyone looking to test the entrepreneurial waters. Startup Weekends are risk-free environments where everyone is expected to roll up their sleeves and dive into the exhilarating world of startups.