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

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.

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!

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.

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!

The Bizdojo recently opened a spacious new office in central Wellington. Apart from providing a wonderful venue for Startup Weekend itself, Bizdojo are generously offering one part-time desk spot for three months to each of the top three new ventures selected by the judges. That’s a big plus if you work better in a collegial environment and need a secure space to park up for a while. However, the winners won’t be left to their own devices.

Seed fund WebFund will be supporting the winners with coaching sessions and business incubator Creative HQ is backing the top teams at Startup Weekend with a package of business growth mentoring to continue their startup journey. “Startup Weekend wraps entrepreneurial people around great ideas and puts them in a pressure cooker. We know this can produce great results, and taking those early stage ventures and helping them to establish a growth strategy beyond Startup Weekend is key to their sustainable success,” says Creative HQ venture manager Nick Churchouse. “We are delighted to be sponsoring the first Wellington Startup Weekend and having our advisor team in the room during the event. Helping the top ventures stretch further from Sunday is the natural next stage to achieve what this weekend is all about.”

Grow Wellington are providing marketplace scans for the two top finalists. This involves a high level competitive analysis and a quick look at the patent landscape where applicable. The service is facilitated through the Ministry for Science and Innovation. The marketplace scan report provides companies with a first look at areas relating to competition and intellectual property, before they invest valuable time and resources into a new project, says Matthieu Carrere, technical business manager at Grow Wellington.

There will be some fun giveaways throughout the weekend from Bizdojo plus a free domain name for every team from iWantMyName. The winner gets a US $200 voucher from Amazon Web Services, and the other participant teams each get a US $50 voucher to get them started with their hosting needs. It’s a testament to the value of Startup Weekend that so many contributors have come forward, says event organiser Dave Moskovitz who is also a director of venture accelerator programme Hyperstart. Perhaps one day in the future this weekend’s winners will themselves be in a position to give something back to the community.

For me the memory of my Startup Weekend is still fresh; a compelling memory that continues to move me. It was a defining weekend and a choice to take a path I had not anticipated. When I crossed the threshold into the Startup Weekend foyer I walked over the precipice and into the unknown. The pulse of energy in the room was palpable and it immediately began to jar my nerves. I grabbed a beer and made for the periphery to assess the lay of the land.

Most of you will be fairly well prepared for this experience. You will have received your instructions and notifications, you will be armed with a brilliant idea and an outstanding set of skills and you may even recognise a few friendly faces in the room. If not, if like me you stumbled across the event, dove in head first and now feel like you’re screwed I totally empathise. You might even be considering not going along tonight or not pitching or worse, leaving.

The first part of the weekend is the eat, drink and mingle part. It was not obvious to me this was when the best, smartest and kindest people you will ever meet are talking to each other to see who they might work with, so I stayed on the outskirts of the crowd. I was hugely relieved when the pitches started and we got down to business. By the end of the pitch session I had three clear winners in my mind and so bowled over to the first guy with a good idea, introduced myself and explained that I was a writer; I was willing to work hard and I required no equity. He shrugged me off. I was mortified. I was now alone in a room full of strangers the exit on my left and another choice of great idea on my right. My instincts screamed run. I turned right, made the same introduction as before and I was welcomed!

54 hours later my wonderful team, Talk Transcriber (nee AudioScribe) won Startup Weekend Auckland. I am now a founding shareholder in a transcription company. Who’d a thought? As a team we are building a successful multinational company and a unique product. I have a bunch of new friends and colleagues who are super smart, ambitious and kind.

Life is about choices. Sometimes you make the wrong one and the consequences are terrible. Sometimes your choices don’t matter and sometimes they change your life in ways you never could have imagined. For me Startup Auckland was the latter.

Talk Transcriber has gone from a Startup Weekend concept consisting of a rudimentary app, general assumptions and market validation and the bones of a business plan – to the real deal. The ecentre is driving us relentlessly through ever greater market validation and our product is looking pretty damn sexy as we tweak it further and further toward perfection. We have completed a fundraising round and anticipate our first beta users to be actively enjoying our product by Christmas. Our team are finding our niche roles and we’re embracing others into the fold. While I personally had not dreamed of a career change it seems to be happening and I’m going with the flow and loving the ride.

My advice to those attending Wellington Startup Weekend is give this weekend everything you’ve got. Don’t hold back but hold strong to your courage and fortitude and call upon your reserves, because this weekend has the potential to be one of those choices that changes the course of your life in wild and wonderful ways. Go New Zealand Idol for Geeks!

Helga Sonier

Most importantly, please keep an eye on this website for updates from now on. It’s jam packed with everything you need including special guest bios, articles, cool links and a live #SWWLG Twitter feed.

There’s a lot to get through, so here goes…

Timings – Friday 4th November – Please be prompt!

Registration from 4.30pm @BizDojo, 38 Vivian Street, Wellington
5pm Drinks courtesy of iWantMyName
Event officially opened by Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown

The BizDojo will be open late on Friday. Once we get through the pitching and team formation process there will be plenty of time for talking and planning.

Pitching – Be Prepared

An important aspect of Startup Weekend is the initial pitching session on Friday evening, where people with ideas do a one-minute pitch to everyone in the room.  Pitching is optional, but open to anyone with an idea. Teams tend to coalesce around the most intriguing ideas, attracting the critical skills needed to go ahead and develop their ideas over the remainder of the weekend. Here are some examples from a recent Startup Weekend event.

Please be aware that sometimes ideas do not go forward, in which case you are encouraged to contribute your skills to another team.

If you are considering pitching one or more ideas yourself, you may choose to prepare a poster describing your idea that will make it stand out and help attract team members. Your poster can be any size, but not larger than A1.  If you have an idea and haven’t prepared a poster, don’t worry – we’ll have paper and markers at the event, and one of the Startup Weekend staff will be writing a summary of your idea as you pitch, making an instant poster for you on the night.

What To Bring

Ensure you have all the stuff you’d like to use at Startup Weekend ready to go the week before the event. Make sure you’re laptop is loaded with all the stuff you need, and that you have any other tools ready to go.

Wi-fi will be provided at the BizDojo venue for low bandwidth general web browsing, Skype, chat etc. Unapproved use such as Bit-Torrent downloading or other high bandwidth streaming will result in immediate expulsion. Please respect the generosity of our hosts. If in doubt – ask.

Healthy food and drink will be provided during the weekend, but it would be helpful and environmentally sensitive if you brought along your own water bottle. If you crave additional snacks such as chocolate or chippies, please bring these yourself.

You will receive an ID tag at the registration desk. Please wear it when at the venue.

Intellectual Property – ImPortant

A number of people have asked us, “How can I protect the idea that I bring to Startup Weekend” and “If I’m a team member contributing to something that becomes a successful business, do I get equity in the company?”

This is really up to each team to decide at Startup Weekend, but we would suggest that you think about this in advance of the day.  If you’re the person with the idea, how much of the resulting company are you willing to share with your team?  If you’re one of the team members, are you happy to contribute to the project without getting something back in return other than the experience?  We recommend you resolve these questions during the team selection phase, but please be prepared to be flexible and generous – Startup Weekend is all about getting on and learning, networking, collaborating and having fun.

We do not recommend that you bring a well-developed or existing business to Startup Weekend looking for a team to build around it. Startup Weekend is more about developing new ideas.  Use your time at Startup Weekend to develop new stuff and meet capable people with whom you can build these ideas with, and potentially work on other projects in the future as well.

Similarly, we do not recommend that you bring ideas to Startup Weekend that you want to have extensive secrecy around. You’ll be presenting to large groups of people, and no-one is likely to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Mentor Programme & Other Resources

There will be lots of support available throughout the weekend including an organised mentor programme, so we can maximise the benefit to all teams from having outstanding mentors on board such as U.S. based games guru Mike DelPrete and others. More about this later. Keep an eye on the event website and Twitter feed for entrepreneur tips and advice. For additional background reading, here’s a list of ten great start-up articles.

Judging

Teams are required to prepare a final pitch for judging by 4.30pm on Sunday, 6th November. We should be all done by 8pm. The judging panel includes Richard MacManus, Founding Editor of leading tech blog Read Write Web. No pressure!

Special thanks to our sponsors – Microsoft BizSpark, BizDojo, WebFund & Hyperstart, The Bio Commerce Centre, CreativeHQ, iWantMyName, 90seconds.tv, Unlimited Magazine and Global Entrepreneurship Week.