Memphis Startup Weekend was recently featured in the Commercial Appeal . . .
One idea, 54 hours: Startup Weekenders build real company
By Daniel Connolly
Commercial Appeal
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Michael Synk was crying quietly as people left the Emerge Memphis building Sunday night.
Two days earlier, he had stood in front of an audience and pitched a vague idea for company based on Ultimate Frisbee, a sport like touch football but played with a flying disk.
His peers chose his idea over alternatives, and made it the focus for Startup Weekend, an exercise in which entrepreneurs try to build a real company in 54 hours.
Over the next few days, some were so consumed with the project that they spent the nights in the converted warehouse near the river. He said he was overwhelmed by their cooperation.
“It’s just a whole bunch of people took an idea and created something out of nothing,” said Synk, a 51-year-old business coach. “And it’s inspirational.”
It’s too early to say if the fledgling company will survive, but the event and the social events that led up to it appeared to have met organizers’ main goal of strengthening links among local entrepreneurs.
“I met a lot of people I didn’t think existed in my area,” said Jonathan McCarver, a 25-year-old Web developer for Signature Advertising.
Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Startup Weekend LLC holds the events in cities around the country, and the Memphis event had the backing of several local organizations that promote entrepreneurship.
It attracted 100 participants from as far away as Madison, Wis. They paid $40, which covered supplies, food and beverages, including beer, and used the offices of Emerge Memphis, an organization that provides services to startups.
The participants included attorneys, entrepreneurs and tech experts. They were mostly men and mostly white, though there were also many black participants.
The first task Friday night was selecting an idea for the company. Participants presented more than 20 concepts, including several for computer games and one for a solar energy products distributorship.
Speakers who ran over two minutes were cut off by consultant Spencer Dillard, who shouted an unprintable word that means “nonsense.” The practice reportedly comes from a CEO who uses the technique to keep meetings in check.
A preliminary round of voting led to three finalists. Dan Marks pitched a program that would use handheld devices to help golfers measure the distance from the tee to the green.
Meka Egwuekwe, a 34-year-old senior software architect for the marketing and branding firm Lokion, suggested using in-home cameras to transmit images of intruders to customers’ handheld devices.
Synk suggested making gear such as shoes and uniforms for Ultimate Frisbee players. He said the suggestion came from his 16-year-old son, Peter, who plays the game, and later said he had decided to make the pitch only at the last minute.
There was a show of hands, and the Frisbee idea won in a close vote. After more discussion, the groups set up groups to handle everything from legal matters to marketing.
Some people left early, but others threw themselves into the project.
McCarver said he stayed until 1:30 a.m. Saturday, and returned in a few hours and stayed up almost all the next night. He left around 5 a.m. Sunday, slept a few hours and returned to find two partners in the same spot, one programming and the other asleep.
“Everybody was passionate,” he said. “Even people who would obviously be unhappy about the project they had to work on still took a passionate approach to it and did everything they could to make it work.”
He and other participants made heavy use of Internet technology to communicate.
David Barger, president of Internet consulting firm LunaWeb Inc., walked around the room with a laptop computer, using its built-in Web camera to transmit the proceedings live via Internet.
By Sunday, the Frisbee concept had changed radically. It now had a name, Spynnr, pronounced “spinner.” Instead of making gear, its primary focus was creating a software tool for use on Facebook.com, a social networking site that lets people post information about themselves and find people with similar interests.
The software tool would allow players to find local games and rate one another’s skill levels. It could also be applied to other sports and could make money through advertising, Synk said.
By Sunday, participants had created the Web site, Spynnr.com, and a motto: “Is your game on?”
They had even printed up T-shirts with a company logo and brought in local Ultimate Frisbee players for market research.
They had chosen people to turn Spynnr into a reality, though they hadn’t yet incorporated the company or set up a formal leadership structure.
Entrepreneur Don Samulack, 49, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience, will work with McCarver to lead the effort in the short term. They said the company is likely to change in the next few days.
“You can only do so much in 54 hours,” Samulack said.
Contact Daniel Connolly at 529-5296.
Moving forward
Startup Weekend is over, but organizers hope to keep the momentum going for LaunchMemphis, a larger series of events.
Participants are forming interest groups around several concepts that didn’t make the final cut.
An event where startup firms will meet with venture capitalists and other investors is scheduled for June 9 at the FedEx Institute of Technology on the University of Memphis campus.
A “boot camp” to help entrepreneurs turn ideas into plans is scheduled for June 14 at the Emerge Memphis building Downtown. It will be held in the offices of Mercury Technology Labs LLC, an organizer of the LaunchMemphis events.
A reunion for Startup Weekend participants is scheduled for Aug. 7 in the same space.
For more information, call Lori Turner at 266-2662, or visit launchmemphis.com or startupweekend.com.
To hear the sounds of Startup Weekend for yourself, listen to an audio presentation at commercialappeal.com.
© 2008 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online