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Wellington Startup Weekend well pitched

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According to John Holt, the brainchild behind the San Francisco located Kiwi Landing Pad , the final pitch presentations at the Wellington Startup Weekend were better than 75% of those he’s seen in the USA.

Given that those State-side entrepreneurs are pitching for real money for ideas they’ve beenworking on for months, the former director of Sonar 6 reckons thefledgling companies in Wellington did a fantastic job of getting their ideas across.

The WSW attendees only had 54 hours to prepare their pitches, from an absolute standingstart.

Unfortunately, I missed the first and winning startup presentation by WagonShare,a web-oriented means for mobile home owners to make a bit of money by renting out their vehicle. InNew Zealand, as in the USA, these campervans and caravans are usually sitting around unused – butwould be perfect for rental.

Apparently WagonShare were the unanimous winners – evident in that the judges didn’t need tospend too much time deciding their favourite new business.

The other 11 pitches showed varying degrees of market validation or ways of assessing whetherthere is a market for their perceived product or service. A couple of the teams pivoted theirbusiness on the basis of such market assessment during the two and a half days of intensedevelopment – something that could and should happen during the creation of any new venture.

The pitches that took my fancy were:

mySmartGrid

  • App/web-based way and tool for consumers to make betterinformed electricity use decisions

  • A bit ofgamification, a bit of compare yourself with other individuals and interest groups

  • Apparently, PowerShop and other electricity retailersexpressed interest in being part of such an offering


eMammogram

  • A means/way to standardise the images from mammograms takenacross years to see change/difference in breast tissue

  • Could sit alongside Matakina Technology (which converts any digital breastmammogram into quantitative numbers in which tissue properties are characterised anddifferentiated)


Arrangr

  • Indian-subcontinent oriented web-based matchmaking servicebased on Facebook’s friend recommendations


STVA(SmartTVart)

  • Marketplace for digital art images

  • A way to protect and make money for artists whose work isdisplayed on a screen


As a couple of WSW mentors both mentioned, theidea of the event isn’t necessarily to come up with a new idea or company that drives through tothe market – though that’s not considered bad.

More, it is to inspire, educate and provide a template for entrepreneurs and would-be startups tohave a go.

One thing Startup Weekends do really well is demonstrate, vividly, the value of a team andindividuals’ skills within that environment.

As Melissa Clark-Reynolds said recently in a sticKblog, trying to do everything yourself in a fledgling company poised for growth just slowseverything down and is easily sub-optimal.

In other words, teams work.

And, on a final note, a piece of WSWirony.

Even before the WSW started, the organisers felt that they were abit light on the number of participants expected to turn up with developer skills (people who cancomputer code).

This was compounded (for the other teams at least), when –during the phase that the initial 12 winners have teams formed around them – many developers optedto join the 3Dmakersworld.com team.

You probably can’t call it the law of unintended consequences, but it is something similar!

Wellington Startup Weekend well pitched

Wellington Startup Weekend well pitched
 
 
 
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