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Startup Weekend 2012!

Published: 10 Jun 2012 by Jeff | Comments: 4

It's been a seriously busy couple of months!

There have been so many things happening that we haven't had a chance to update everyone properly. Over the next few entries, I'm gonna slowly go through all the things that have been going on!

One of the most significant events that has happened is our entry into an international competition called Startup Weekend. The Adelaide event ran on 30 March - 1 April. It was such an incredibly amazing experience, it felt like we were on a TV show!

For those that are not familiar with Startup Weekend, here is their website: http://startupweekend.org/. It is like Dragon's Den cross The Apprentice. The event ran over 54 hours, and was filled with people from all different backgrounds. There were entrepreneurs, business experts, lawyers, accountants, graphic designers and programmers to name a few. On the first evening (Friday), anyone with a creative technology based idea could stand in front of the group and pitch their idea. They had one minute to do this and then it was up to the next person, and so on. Altogether, there were 46 ideas pitched to the group.

After that, each person was given 3 votes to cast among all the ideas, and the most promising ideas were shortlisted to run in the actual event. Out of the 46 ideas, 19 of them were selected and teams were formed that night. Then it was an insane race to flesh out the idea, do some market validation, set up all the back-end foundations, and create a prototype of the final product, all within 54 hours!

Helping out all the teams were mentors and experts from many large, successful companies. With the guidance and direction from these brilliant minds, everyone scrambled to set up web pages, identify market niches and create a final pitch that would be presented to a panel of judges. The panel consisted of representatives from Microsoft, InnovateSA and business Angels.

It was a grueling weekend with almost no sleep,  but our team pushed on and did everything we could to prepare our prototype and presentation for Sunday. The idea we presented was a 360 Magic platform, where magic lessons could be viewed through a mobile application through a number of different angles, changing at any point to best aid with the learning process.

It was almost unbelievable, but we somehow managed to WIN the final pitch and came out FIRST PLACE!!!! We did add a little magic to our presentation, which I am sure helped! The prizes we ended up with were awesome! Help with legal advice, accounting services and mentoring sessions with key business people. The people we managed to meet there were absolutely incredible, and have helped us tremendously since then. There are many new and wonderful things we have planned based on their suggestions, and we are so excited to start implementing everything!

Definitely an experience of a lifetime! I would strongly recommend anyone join a Startup Weekend event, if there is one held in their local city!