Startup Overnight with 48 Hour Launch Weekend
How fast can you get your new business started up? With 48 Hour Launch, it can be a matter of hours from concept to commercial prototype, corporate ID package, website, business plan, market research, and much more. The community of dedicated participants that attend this intense and fun entrepreneurship event provide the man power to make startups a reality.
48 Hour Launch is one of the most powerful and unique entrepreneurship programs in the country. It promotes the development of local economies and the implementation of innovative ideas with new launched startups. Simply put, creative individuals from all industries unite their talent in one location to launch new enterprises in a 48 hour period.
All your food, drink, wifi, and other needs are met by organizers. All you need to do is bring your brain (and a coffee mug and/or laptop). We take care of the rest while you take care of the startups.
Bring your own idea to launch or lend your expertise to another idea. It all begins on Friday 6pm at EmergeMemphis.
Grab your ticket here: http://48hour.eventbrite.com
Contact us if you have any questions: info (at) launchmemphis dot com
Special thanks goes to our sponsors: Center City Commission, Red Bull, Rendezvous, and Mouse Foundry Media.
Startup Weekend Memphis Reunion on Thursday August 27th
This past Thursday at the Startup Weekend Reunion, at EmergeMemphis downtown, five new enterprises presented the progress they’ve made in the first 3 months since Startup Weekend. Two of these businesses have managed to achieve revenue and all five were able to report on valuable lessons learned. Furthermore, at the reunion, several members of the group were recognized for their contributions to Startup Weekend.
The Roll Play allows users to collaborate in interactive storytelling. It was awarded the title Business Most Likely to Succeed.
Other distinctions from the night were awarded to Mark Dinstuhl, Caitlin Woodward and Kevin Yancy celebrating their enthusiasm and contributions to Startup Weekend and their respective teams.
Kevin Yancy, the founder of The Roll Play, who was recognized as the Participant of the Weekend stated, “The most inspiring thing about the Startup Weekend experience is the incredible pool of local talent.” Yancy credited his team’s successes to the relationships he formed with his fellow participants.
Beyond the recognition, many of these entrepreneurs used the Reunion to share their ideas and build publicity for their growing concerns.
Mark’s Menus provides a searchable online menu database for local restaurants. They outlined their use of Twitter and Facebook to promote their enterprise. On one occasion, a single tweet scored 43 hits to their website by offering free dinner to Twitter users who came to a tweetup.
CheezyWeezy, a photo-sharing site that allows users to upload and rate pictures of cute kids, discussed their plans for recruiting users at local festivals this fall, like Cooper-Young Fest, Germantown Arts Festival and the River Arts Festival. Nnaemeka “Meka” Egwuekwe of CheezyWeezy offered free advertising on CheezyWeezy to all Startup Weekend projects.
Kevin Yancy of The Roll Play has been using Startup Weekend participants and their families as boosters and beta testers. He noted that they will be introducing premium features in September with their 2.0 version. “It’s great to see families around the community come together and support one another’s entrepreneurship.”
Events like Startup Weekend are popping up all over Tennessee. Chattanooga will host a 48 Hour Launch in November, and Memphis will host a 48 Hour Launch in the spring. Interest in entrepreneurship continues to grow in the Mid-South and these events promise to bring phenomenal participants and teams together for collaboration – and, of course, cold Red Bull for participants also helps.
SUW MEM 2.0 Update
Hi All,
I just wanted to give an update on the projects that came out of SUW Memphis 2. Again we had a great weekend with a lot of strong ideas coming out of the 48 hour event. Marks Menus pitched at the LaunchMemphis Investment forum and the roll play is really taking off. As a recap, we had 70 participants and we ended up with 5 projects. All projects are still progressing. Below is a summary of each idea and a recent update. Please get involved and join one or a few of these ideas. We are going to have our reunion on August 27th.
The Roll Play (www.therollplay.com) is a new web system to allow students, writers, and others to build stories collectively with other members by assuming the role of a character of their own making. The members in effect make a “rolling” play or even a debate. The site is up and running with new differentiating functionality coming out weekly.
The Roll Play is still progressing well. We have been live for 45 days and are up to 59 users. To date, 20 roll plays have been created, with the most active consisting of more than 200 posts.
59 Users
20 Stories
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Marks Menus
Mister Menus changed to Marks Menus (www.marksmenus.com) is a site that allows a user to upload menus of their favorite restaurants and to rate menu items. This enables other users to search where to eat using criteria like dish ingredients and menu items. This way if you need to find the best vegan dishes in the city you can easily locate them and know where to go.
At this time, Mark’s Menus has 30 registered users and, this week, we got our first restaurant manager to enter their OWN menu on the site!
CheezyWeezy (www.CheezyWeezy.com), another project that built a beta launch product and business plan in 48 hours, encourages the world to “Take a Smile Break” by heading to their site to view and rate photos of cute kids. Grandparents unite and rate your grandchildren to the top!
We’ve completed our alpha testing and starting a private beta last week. Expect to see a public beta by the end of the week. After that, my team will be meeting on how best to market and get the word out.
Rezzie focused on designing an innovative business model for the real estate and print news industry. By providing previously unavailable data to consumers on agents and brokers on print news web sites, all parties can benefit with revenue and savings. This idea easily could provide large returns to investors and the team is moving forward with technical specs.
Interest declined after SUW and a few parties trotted the idea out to potential customers and there was interest but they wanted to see something. We’ve got a meeting scheduled Thursday evening at the Launchpad to discuss technical requirements and team members roles and responsibilities.
GameWavMedia focused on providing a new cross functional gaming platform to change the way games are designed, distributed and played. At the center of the idea is object oriented gaming independent of game functionality. Sound complicated — it is — but the idea has some merit, especially since the average age of a gamer is over 35.
Memphis Startup Weekend Version 2.0 May 29th-May 31st
We are only two and a half weeks out for start up weekend (May 29-31). We will start at 6 PM on Friday and end Sunday evening. There are still some tickets left and you can get yours here: http://memphis2startupweekend.eventbrite.com/.
This year we will have a pre-event gathering to present ideas. We will video record them and post them to a face book group page. Don’t worry, if you can’t make that you can still present your idea on the first day of the event. No decisions will be made until Friday, May 29th.
Memphis Startup Weekend Reunion: BIG SUCCESS
The reunion for Startup Weekend was a great success this past week. Launch Memphis, a conglomerate of individuals and organizations dedicated to helping entrepreneurs find the tools they need to market their ideas to the Memphis area, was the driving force behind the event that was held at the Emerge Memphis building.
The evening was centered around sharing the success stories that came out of the Startup Weekend event that was held several months ago (May 31- June 1). There were big wins across the board ranging from new ideas to help already existing businesses to the eventual launch of a new social networking application called Spynnr. The application will be designed to create an interactive online community for ultimate frisbee players.
The impact of Startup Weekend was apparent throughout the room and it looks like there are more great things to come from everyone working with Launch Memphis. Check out www.launchmemphis.com and get involved!
Developing the Launch Ramp to the Future
As we have talked with entrepreneurs and investors over the past couple of months, one theme comes up quite often. It’s often subtle, but the essence is “This isn’t Silicon Valley. What do you hope to achieve?” The answers, respectively, are “nope–it’s not” and “a lot.”
What we are striving to achieve through the networking events, speaker series, Startup Weekend, and (most directly) the investment forums is a ramp. A ramp that will allow a person with an idea and talent to launch a business. For this ramp to work, we have to make sure that those with capital can connect to those with the ideas. This includes the whole range of investment, from small loans and financing to Angel investors to institutional investors. This ramp needs to allow institutional investors be on the front row as companies develop from ideas to outstanding investment opportunities. The ramp needs to include resources for young companies, such as those provided by EmergeMemphis and BioWorks. When this ramp is in place, talent will remain in Memphis, and the investment rewards will also reside in Memphis, providing a powerful multi-faceted attack on some of the issues we have in the city.
Optimistic? Sure. A big goal? Yep. Going to happen tomorrow? Nope. But, we believe it can. It requires the work of multiple organizations–we applaud the activities of BioWorks and Memphis Fast Forward, and we know that what we are doing is only a part of the overall puzzle. It’s going to take work. And it’s going to be worth it.
Hopefully you are wondering what you can do to be a part of making this happen, so here are some thoughts:
Entrepreneurs (a.k.a., anyone with an idea they believe in): Participate in the various LaunchMemphis events and talk to us about participating in the Investment Forum. Get to know others involved in LaunchMemphis and maybe find a partner or an investor who can help you turn your dream into reality.
Angel Investors (a.k.a., those with money to invest): Let us know you are interested in attending the Investment Forum and/or the types of companies you would be interested in investing in. We’ve heard some very interesting ideas and concepts recently, and we want you to have a chance to hear them and help make them a reality.
Businesses (a.k.a., those with resources and an interest in the health of Memphis): Help us by sponsoring some events. Help spread the word to employees and contacts to participate. We had a lot of very talented people come together at Tech Fuel.
Institutional Investors (a.k.a., smart people with resources to help companies): Participate in the Investment Forum. Talk to us about what you think we could do to make sure you can find great ideas in your own back yard now or in the future. Let us know of interesting concepts, trends, and companies in the area that we may not have heard of.
Finally, a big thank-you to all those who attended the networking event last week. It was great to see that there are so many people who want to see great things happen and who are willing to be part of the effort to make it happen.
Memphis Business Journal: Next great company could be in Memphis
Memphis Startup Weekend was recently featured in the Memphis Business Journal. Check it out here . . .
Memphis Business Journal
Friday, February 22, 2008
Next great company could be in Memphis
After beating out such cities as San Diego and Indianapolis, the city of Memphis was selected to be the next site for Startup Weekend — an event that aims to bring together local entrepreneurs with the goal of creating a real company in just 54 hours.
Memphis will join cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., which have all hosted Startup Weekend events.
“Over 600 people in Memphis have said we want Startup Weekend here,” says Eric Matthews, Mercury Technology Labs founder, who is helping organize the event. “It is a real testimony to what people want here as far as building an entrepreneurial community.”
Matthews says Memphis Startup Weekend will be held May 30-June 1 and will be hosted at EmergeMemphis at 516 Tennessee St.
EmergeMemphis is helping organize the event along with Matthews and Harry Brown, a local entrepreneur.
At the event, participants will decide on an idea for a company the first night.
After a decision has been made on a company, participants will split up and work on all the issues that come with starting a company — from branding to public relations.
Participants will be rewarded with shares of the company, which ideally could become operational in the future. Matthews says five of the original Startup Weekend businesses are still around and 10 more don’t have the funding, but could be viable businesses.
From staff reports
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Daily News: Biz Startup Event Slated for Late May
Memphis Startup Weekend was recently featured in the Daily News. Check it out here . . .
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Biz Startup Event Slated for Late May
ROSALIND GUY | The Daily News |The possibilities are endless.
With a group of 100 people, experts in various fields and many different visions, there’s no telling what ideas will come out of the weekend event that br….
Startup Weekend Comes to Memphis: May 30th - June 1st, 2008
Startup Weekend has select Memphis, TN as it’s latest city to visit — basically, 100 community members (those that register to participate, even you), come together over the course of a weekend to found a new technology startup company in Memphis — yes, you can walk away with founding level equity for your effort.
More Details . . .
Startup Weekend brings motivated individuals from the community together as company founders to decide what to make and earn an equal share of stock in the developed business. Attendees are responsible for bringing the ideas, desire, and passion to the project and walk out of the room with a brand new business by Sunday night. In this short 52 hour period, there will be entrepreneurs, lawyers, marketers, business developers, designers, technology developers, and many other individuals all working together to build a business from scratch. Think about it: 100 people times 52 hours is about 1-2 years of a small startup crew working full time. The outcomes are great, building not only a company in a weekend, but also further binding our entrepreneurial community together. We need all sorts of skills and we want you on board.
Memphis Startup Weekend will be held from May 30th at 6pm through June 1st at midnight. Hosted by EmergeMemphis and the Mercury Launchpad you will need to register in advance at http://memphis.startupweekend
Jump starting your mind for Startup Weekend
Someone recently recommended the show Startup Junkies as a good show about the startup life. If you have never seen it, I have to highly recommend it. Having been through one funded startup and having started 2 other companies, I have to say that it brought back memories (some of which I wish had stayed forgotten). This show can really give you a feel for what goes on in terms of the pressure to execute, get funding, sell, etc. as well as the constant awareness of the cost of failure to achieve goals. If you’re joining us for the weekend, I highly recommend watching at least a few episodes of this show–it’s on Comcast HD in Memphis (851 for you lazy people out there), but you can watch some episodes online, too.
There’s also a good show on the same channel called Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist, but that’s a little less up my alley, personally. Still, it’s a good way to see some ideas that get shot down and more of a turnaround story, but mainly you get to see another point of view. Enjoy and looking forward to seeing and meeting everyone.
