Startup Weekend is coming to RVA!

8/1/2012

by: Larkin Garbee

What happens when you fill a building with 120 of the best designers, developers, marketers and entrepreneurs our city has to offer for 54 hours? Well, it's called Startup Weekend. We have a venue, tickets are on sale, and Richmond is getting ready to experience its first ever 3 day startup event.

So, what is Startup Weekend and how does it work? Startup Weekend is a nonprofit organization that is based out of Seattle, Washington. It starts on Friday night and involves 3 days of some of the best team building and brainstorming you will ever experience. Anyone that attends the event can pitch an idea, but keep your idea short and sweet, because you only have 1 minute to entice others to vote for your concept as one of the projects for the weekend. If you don't have an idea to pitch, no worries! The top 10-12 ideas will be voted on by the 120 attendees and then each person will get to choose which of these projects they want to spend their weekend hacking away on or brainstorming. After pitch night, each person self selects their project and then it is on to an exciting weekend of collaborating, writing business plans, building apps or websites, defining the market and creating a 5 minute pitch. Throughout the weekend, 20 experienced tech and startup leaders are on hand to answer questions and help the teams as their pivot their ideas from a fleeting thought to a full fledged business plan. On Sunday night, a panel of judges comprised of investors and business leaders listen to the pitches and respond with a five minute question and answer session.

So, if spending a weekend filled with a room full of startup fanatics, designers, developers and marketers sounds like fun to you, sign up before all the seats are filled! There are only a limited number of tickets available for each category and early bird tickets are on sale now. If you have never attended a startup weekend event, beware-- you might get addicted. The event will be held in the CRT/Tanaka building in Manchester (across the street from the Corrugate Box building!)

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