Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets - primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people - to build applications and develop a commercial case around them.

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What’s Being BUILT @ Startup Weekend Tallahassee

Ideas were pitched, teams were formed and this is what is being built this weekend at the inaugural Startup Weekend Tallahassee. Join us @ 6pm EST at Tallahassee Community College’s Student Union Ballroom see listen to the final pitches and watch each team’s demo.

Fast Candidates – Application for voters to research candidates & amendments based on their voting district - www.fastcandidates.com

Club Hero - Your social Jukebox - www.clubhero.fm

Point Catcher – Universal rewards program for merchants - www.pointcatcher.com

ShuffleU.com – Making the process of finding your ideal roommate more fun and social – www.shuffleu.com

Try My App - Usability testing site for mobile apps – www.trymyapps.com

Wordio – Listen to the web – www.mywordio.com

CalSpark – Smart multi-platform calendar – www.calspark.com

Card Sync - Augmented digital business cards – www.rencard.com

Nightlys - A way for bars and restaurants to offer instant deals/notifications to a target audience – www.nightlys.com

Collegiate Entertainment - The ultimate source of entertainment for students

Buildmyparty.com - Party planning and bookings made simple – www.buildmyparty.com

Gotcha - Mobile security system for vehicles

Tips for a successful pitch at Startup Weekend Tallahassee

The following post was written by John Chason, managing director of Metrix Ventures and co-organizer of Startup Weekend Tallahassee.

So you’ve worked on your business idea at Startup Weekend Tallahassee for 54 hours straight, powered on nothing more than copious amounts of Red Bull and a dream. Now it’s all come down to 5 minutes of “face time” in front of your friends, peers, and more importantly…potential investors. It’s the time to tell the world about your idea and turn that dream into a reality. We are talking about, “The Pitch”.

At this point nerves set in, your legs are shaking, and your heart is pounding like the double bass drums in a heavy metal song. But DO NOT WORRY because you are prepared!…Well, you will be after you read this blog.

A successful pitch is based on three simple steps: first, you must write down your ideas and fill out a template, listed below. Second, based on your knowledge of the business, you should be able to specifically answer questions directed towards each of the categories in the template. Finally, practice, practice, and practice some more on delivering your pitch. All steps are equally important in the process so don’t skip any. Pitches that fail did not answer the right questions in the mind of the investor.

The template for the pitch consists of seven items that you must absolutely know before you try to separate an investor from their wallet. The seven items are as follows:

1 — Your Business. State the name of your business, describe the products or services that you offer, and include the vision of your idea. What do you do? Make it quick, to the point, and don’t use jargon or “big words” to describe your business. Make it simple enough so that a kid or your grandma would understand it.

2 — The Problem. Describe the problem, or pain, experienced by your target market that your product or service will solve. What is the problem in the market, industry, etc? Your goal here is to get the audience nodding their heads in agreement that a problem does in fact exist.

3 — Your Solution. Describe the solution that your product or service provides given the problem previously stated. How will you solve these problems? If you have screen shots, or better yet, a working product you should show it during your pitch. Investors prefer “seeing” much more than “hearing”.

4 — The Competition. State your competition and most importantly, describe how you are different from them. Be specific about the differentiation because you will be asked about it. What makes you different from your competitors? Do your homework here. Investors have superior BS detection systems and telling them you have no competition would be “frowned upon”.

5 — Your Business Model. Describe the ways that your business will make money. How will you monetize the business? If you launch and receive revenue during Startup Weekend Tallahassee, let the judges know this because it has happened before!

6 — Your Customer Acquisition Strategy. Describe your customers and how you will get them through sales and marketing. How are you going to get people to buy your product or service? You can have the best product or service in the entire universe but if you can’t sell it, it is totally worthless.

7 — The Ask. Briefly tell how much money you are seeking and the percentage of the company that you are willing to give up for that amount. How much do you need and how will you use it? For Startup Weekend Tallahassee you might not need to present this in your pitch but you should be ready and able to answer the question if it is asked.

If you follow the steps above by filling in the template, preparing to answer questions, and practicing ad nauseam, you will be successful in delivering a stellar pitch. You will also be able to experience that wonderful feeling when an investor shakes your hand, pulls out their checkbook and asks, “How do I make out the check”?

Remember, you are not delivering a eulogy nor are you hocking cheap crap on late night infomercials. This is your dream and vision. Bring your “A Game” with energy and enthusiasm to show your audience that you are confident that your idea is a fundable game changer. Prepare and best of luck!

Event Agenda – Saturday Night & Sunday

Saturday
6:30pm – Dinner from Newk’s Express Deli
6:40pm – Speaker Bill Clerico – WePay
7:00pm – Speaker Paulo Da Silva – GrooveShark
Sunday
9:00am – Breakfast
12:00pm – Lunch Jersey Mike’s Subs
2:00pm – Bill Dorman available to act as a “Pitch” coach for teams.
4:00pm – Tech checks starts
4:45pm – ALL Presentations are DUE!
4:30pm – Dinner – Sonny’s
5:25pm – Speaker Seth Levine – Foundry Group – Part II
5:45pm – Speaker Alex Sink
6:00pm – FINAL PRESENTATIONS
9:00pm – After party

What to bring, and how to get to Startup Weekend Tallahassee

Today’s the day! So far, we’ve had many requests asking “what should I bring?” or “how do we get to the TCC Union?” Well, we’re going to answer all of those questions for you in this post.

Q: What should I bring to SWT?

A: Well, that’s going to depend person to person. But here are some of the basics:

Laptop
Computer charger
Cell phone charger
USB flash drive
Caffeine (optional)
Vitamin B12 (optional)

Q: How do I get to TCC’s Student Union?

A: First, make your way to Tallahassee Community College. If you don’t know how to get there, click here. Once your there, make your way to the ______ side of campus, where you will find the Student Union. Park in any available non-marked spot, then follow the signs to Startup Weekend Talllahassee!

Map of TCC Campus

Close-up of TCC Union

If you do have any additional questions, please contact us.

How to get ready for Startup Weekend Tallahassee

The following post was written by Adam Kaye, an entrepreneur and organizer of Startup Weekend Tallahassee. This comes from the official Silicon Tally blog, a local tech incubator founded by Adam.

Many of the participants are emailing us and asking us, “What should we do to get ready for Startup Weekend?”

Well, if you don’t plan on pitching an idea, then you should just relax and spend “quality time” with your friends or family during the evenings this week, because they will not get much attention from you this coming weekend at Startup Weekend Tallahassee. At most, I would reccommend reading a few articles on TechCrunch or watching a few episodes of TechStars Reality Show Series on Bloomberg TV here online.

However, if you are do plan on pitching your own idea to work on then I recommend doing these two things:

1) GET CUSTOMER VALIDATION AHEAD OF TIME!!!

It’s not cheating to work on your startup before the weekend, but know you aren’t going to win if you are pitching an existing business or launched company. What you COULD & SHOULD be doing now is getting customer validation on your idea or concept. Get out there and ask people what they think of it, if it solves a problem that they experience, would they use your product/service, and what would they pay for it. Perhaps even get these recorded on video. Perhaps send out a survey from SurveyMonkey or Wufoo. If you can prove that “demand,” then it won’t only impress the judges but it could also help your case when pitching other participants to work on your idea that weekend.

2) WORK ON YOUR PITCH! YOU ONLY HAVE 60 SECONDS!!!

So, many of you are concerned about only having 60 seconds to convince a group of people to like your idea so much that they spend their next 3 days working on it exclusively instead of watching college football or spending time with the family! Below is a slide from the Powerpoint presentaioin which the event’s facilitator will show you on how to do it. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse… Please do not be one of those people who spends the first 45 seconds talking about their background to then get cutoff from the mic 15 seconds later when they haven’t even stated what their idea/product actually is…

ALSO, DO NOT WORRY ABOUT PEOPLE STEALING YOUR IDEA… some people are scared to share their idea because they believe it is valuable. The truth is that ideas are worthless and execute is everything. This is your opportunity to EXECUTE on your idea in one weekend and get it to a “pitchable” state. Don’t worry about people taking your idea, instead focus on executing on it faster than anyone else can. Your competition is not going to be in that event venue, they are in Silicon Valley, New York, Beijing, Eastern Europe, or some other place full of “hungry” entrepreneurs and developers.