Two videos about Startup Weekend Wellington

Helen Baxter does a great overview on Startup Weekend Wellington in the following G33kshow clip:

And 90Seconds.tv were in the thick of it in this entertaining high-protein low-fat segment:

Startup Weekend Team Summaries

These are the teams that presented at Startup Weekend Wellington in November 2011:

Auti (honourable mention)
The interactive toy for autistic children.

Autism can be isolating and socially hard for kids. They struggle to understand other peoples social cues, and learning about these things can be hard and frustrating for them.

Auti is an intelligent toy that teaches positive play characterics and rewards the child with a programmed response, while shutting off if negative behaviours (like hitting or yelling) are detected.

Budgie Smugglers (honourable mention)
The BudgieSmuggler makes the man!

Socks and undies are trivial things that men don’t have time to buy. Now men can buy trivial goods like undies and socks without sacrificing time.

BudgieSmugglers is an online site where men can set themselves up to get a pair of undies and a pair of socks delivered every 3 months for $49. They get to choose their preferences, then set and forget about their socks and undies and focus on other important man things.

Classie
Easy online admin for dance classes.

Dance teachers are often in the dark ages when it comes to admin. They use excel spreadsheets to enroll their students and send invoices via snail mail. Consequently dance studios have a high ratio of admin staff to dance teachers.

Classie solves this problem by provide a web-based service with 3 key features:

• Enrol- single online database to managed enrollment
• Manage- taking attendance, record progress, payment
• Comminicate- send out info to parents

This product enrolls students in seconds, tracks attendance, integrates with Xero at the backend and reduces paperwork for the dance studio.

Conscious Consumer (2nd place)
The ultimate tool for the Conscious Consumer.

If you are a committed vegan or vegetarian, it’s very important to know about the products you buy, and it’s very hard to get this information at the point of sale.

Conscious Consumer is a Mobile app that enables the user to scan the product, and get confirmation that a product either meets or doesn’t meet your value criteria. For example, the App will confirm that a product is genuinely vegetarian.

Groundfacts.com
Better crisis information powered by smart crowd-sourcing.

Crises are underpinned by insecurity and uncertainty- for example:

• How do I get across town?
• What petrol stations are open?
• When will the power be back on?

Groundfacts provides a solution by crowd-sourcing information from social media, then filtering and clustering it and providing the end result to those in need.

The product works by automatically filtering of most messages, then using

Key people to refine and collate the resulting information.

I Dream of Space
The online competition for space travel flight.

So many people like the idea of going into space, but don’t have $200k for the opportunity. Imagine instead, buying a chance to go into space for just $10.

I Dream of Space is very simply a competition for a chance to win a ticket into space. If you’ve ever dreamed of going into space, or know someone who does, that dream can come true.

Mobile Kombat
The battle for mobile supremacy

Mobile Kombat is an online gaming platform that detects what kind of user you are (e.g iphone, Android) and pitches you against a competitor of your choice from another platform.

A variety of games will be available on the platform for free, and you will be able to battle it out with players around the world to prove that your device is the ultimate.

MorePork
Stay in your happy place by avoiding the supermarket.

Most people feel that grocery shopping and the associated queues and chaos is a chore they would rather avoid. MorePork solves this problem by enabling customers to shop for groceries anywhere, anytime via a mobile app.

MorePork is a mobile app that enables a customer to scan products, create lists, and order directly from their chosen supermarket. Groceries are delivered, and wobbly shopping trolleys are a thing of the past.

Rate My Flat
The rating service for finding the right flat.

Tenants have to make decisions on what flat to choose, but they are left in the dark in knowing the pitfalls and issues of specific flats- like the shower doesn’t work and it ‘s really damp in winter.

Rate My Flat provides a user driven platform enabling users to reduce their risk by checking out the ratings from people that have lived in that flat or house before.

Consumers are familiar with rating hotels and restaurants, now is the time for rating flats!

StarStock
StarStock is a web based tool for measuring organizational culture in real time.

A key problem HR departments in larger organisations face is that while factors like culture, values and engagement drive performance, it is very difficult to measure and monitor these things in real time.

StarStock is simple web based tool to gift stars to fellow employees to show your appreciation. These stars are linked to the company values, are limited and anonymous.

By monitoring the gifting flow, HR departments can monitor “goodwill” flowing across employees in the business, giving them a wealth of insight into how the business culture is performing.

SimpleTrust
The simple way to manage and administer your Trust.

1 in 18 New Zealanders have a Trust, but over 75% of these Trusts are at risk due to trustee mismanagement.

SimpleTrust solves this issue by providing an online service that proactively administers the Trust for you, reducing the compliance risk. The online service includes unique features such as minute taking, and is accessible any time, any where

USnap.US (1st place)
Guest-sourced wedding photo aggregation.

Wedding parties are faced with 2 issues on their wedding day:

1. Photographers cant be everywhere at once
2. Some people cant make the event

USnap.US solves these problems through a simple and innovation solution where, guests upload an app to their smartphones, take photos during the event and upload them. These photos are instantly collated and available in a livesteam.

For $200, the bride and groom can run a steaming slideshow of the photos at the wedding, and have a single site that has aggregated all the guests photos.

WeCreate Maker Gym
Think Les Mills with tools.

WeCreate is a creative workshop space, where you can use tools you want without buying them, have skilled people at hand to help.

For $39 per month, you will have access to woodworking, metalworking, 3D printing and other workshop essentials, to create anything you like.

The great kiwi shed is coming back, and it’s here for everybody.

Well Done (3rd place)
The new app for parents and kids to achieve things together

Many parents struggle to help their motivate and reward their children to learn new skills like toilet training. Well Done is a Smartphone app to reward and motivate pre schoolers to toilet train.

For $4.99, parents can download an App that rewards their child for achieving small steps to bigger milestones, through some instant gratification on the app, and a longer term incentive once they meet the toilet training milestone.

uSnap.us wins Startup Weekend Wellington 1st place

Local startup uSnap.us, which provides a mobile and web application for guest-sourcing wedding photos, has won Startup Weekend Wellington.

Wedding parties are faced with two key issues on their big day:
1. Photographers can’t be everywhere at once
2. Some people can’t make the event

uSnap.us solves these problems through a simple and innovation solution where guests download an app to their smartphones, take photos during the event and upload them to uSnap.us.  These photos are instantly collated and available in a live stream.

Priced at $200 for a wedding event, the bride and groom can run a streaming slideshow of the photos at the wedding, and have a single site that has aggregates all the guests photos.

uSnap.us will collect their prize booty, which includes:

• $1000 from Startup Weekend Wellington for their company, once they have registered at the Companies Office with at least three team members as directors
• A full-time desk at the Wellington BizDojo for three months
• A marketplace scan from Grow Wellington and MSI
• 1/2 day free consulting each from CreativeHQ and WebFund/HyperStart
• A Microsoft Kinect controller
• A copy of The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

The team comprised:

• Owen Evans
• Veronica Pitt
• Nick Malcolm
• Luke Brown
• Jacob Creech

Congratulations to the uSnap.us team and all of the Startup Weekend participants!

And The Winner Is…

After 54 hours of hard work, intensive learning and overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges, we have an outcome.

USnapUs secured the top prize in this weekend’s Wellington Startup Weekend event. USnapUs is an application that allows wedding guests to immediately post photos to a repository set up by the happy couple.

Second place went to Conscious Consumer, an application that helps consumers make purchasing decisions in favour of healthy and ethical products. Third place went to Well Done. Their app helps parents influence their kids’ behavours in a positive way. Well done indeed!

Two teams also received commendations. These were Budgie Smugglers and AutiToy.

Congratulations to all the teams for putting in a huge effort and thanks so much to all our mentors and event partners. Stay tuned for more Startup Weekend events around New Zealand.

Presentation Tips

Alexei Dunayev has prepared the following Q&A for teams presenting at Startup Weekend Wellington.

What are the judging criteria?

• Customer Validation (Interviewed target customers, feedback integrated into product, built a base of fans and would-be customers)
• Business Model (Differentiation from competition, customer acquisition/rollout strategy, clearly articulated revenue model)
• Execution (Have functional protoype, executed well as a team)

How much time do I have to present?
You have 5 minutes for the presentation, and 5 minutes for questions and answers.

How many slides should I have?
Follow Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule – 10 slides, 20 minutes to present, minimum font size 30. As you are only presenting for 5 minutes, consider having fewer than 10 slides. It’s okay to have backup slides at the end that you don’t present, but can refer to during the Q&A session.

What should my presentation include?
At the very minimum, you must include answers to the questions listed in the judging criteria. You can do more, but make sure you cover the basics first. Make sure that your slides tell a story. One of the ways to do this by using PowerPoint is to structure the lead-in sentence of every slide as a standalone sentence. For example, instead of titling a slide “Market size” it’s much better to use “Our market size is $100m” as the title. You should be able to read every lead-in sentence of your slide in sequence, and it would tell a story. The contents on the slides should support the lead-in sentence.

Should we have a live demo of our product/service?
You can do a live demo of the product that you are developing, providing all the minimum requirements of the judging criteria are already met. As a backup, take screenshots of a walkthrough for your demo, and revert to them if and when the demo doesn’t go to plan. Usually, demos don’t go to plan, so invest time into a plan B.

How do I make my presentation appealing to the audience?
First and foremost, do not read the slides to the people in the audience. They can and will read faster than you, and your message will be lost. Remember that every time you change the slide, the audience will divert their attention from you and will focus on reading the slide. You can do a quick pause to let them absorb the contents of the slides, and resume talking to get their attention back. Remember that you are selling the sizzle, not the sausage – excitement, energy and enthusiasm will go a long way to connect with the audience.

What technology could I use?
PowerPoint is the most common way to present a business, but text alone can be bland. Use lots of pictures and visual aids. An alternative way to present is to use Prezi.com, an interactive zooming tool. The educational version is free if you have a University-related email address.

How many people should present?
You have 5 minutes to do the presentation, so ideally a single group member will cover the whole story. Changing speakers mid-way will distract from your message and eat away at valuable time. The 5 minute Q&A session is the best opportunity for all the team members to contribute. Make sure you know which team member is handling which questions, and practice in advance.

Should I practice the presentation before doing it live?
This isn’t really a question, but a reminder to practice, practice and practice again. Set aside an hour or two to go through the presentation in front of your team over and over again until it’s polished and perfect. Good luck!