At 6 pm on Wednesday Oct. 3 in the 1871 Auditorium four startups will put 14 weeks of hard work on the line and compete for $25,000 in cash and $50,000 in prizes. This is the culmination of the 2012 Chicago Lean Startup Challenge, The Finals Event.
Four startups took an idea and turned it into viable business model in just 14 weeks with 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Join us for the Finals Event to see how you can do the same.
These startup teams were not the only people putting sweat into their endeavors. The teams received help along the way from some amazing, selfless, and gifted people.
Troy Henikoff gave each of the teams an unprecedented amount of time to help them polish their presentation for Wednesday night. He met with each of the teams every week for a month and improved their presentations with his unparalleled expertise. One of the worlds best startup presentation coaches working with four startup teams because of purely altruistic motivation... amazing but true.
The Groupon Design Union was gracious enough to take remarkable time out of their busy schedules to meet with The Challenge finalists over the last month. They met with each team multiple times, and used their world class design prowess to guide our early stage teams user experience design. We are eternally grateful to Steven Walker, Jason Semall, Shay Howe, Jordan Fulghum, Ryan Scherf, and Darby Frey for their avocation. The Design Union team from Chicago's greatest Lean Startup success story giving Chicago's newest class of lean startups support, how cool is that?
Let’s not forget the Chicago lean startup thought leaders who worked with teams in The Challenge from the beginning as our Challenge Mentors. Working with teams to help them stay on the lean startup path, and helping them stay focused on what's important. These mentors are all amazing people that give back to the Chicago startup community. They include: Nik Rokop, Mike Cole, David Culver, Kevin Taylor, Neil Kane, Mike Fisher, Moses Hohman, Deborah Hill, Eduardo Fernández, David LaBorde, Maria Katris, Irina Fursman, David Vinca, K. Thomas Stevens, Arabella Santiago, Jay Meyers, Dietrich Kappe, Steve McPhilliamy, John Smolen, Rodney Leger, Mike McGee, Neal Sales-Griffin, Dave Mulder, John Pytel, Randy Horton, Seth Kravitz, David Gardner, Jasmin Phua, and Subbu Arumugam.
Last but not least, the founders of the Chicago Lean Startup Challenge, Bernhard Kappe and Todd Wyder. It has been an absolute pleasure organizing The Challenge with Todd and Bernhard. They have a passion for the Chicago startup community, and exert themselves tirelessly to help others. It’s actually crazy to watch how many startups they freely give their advice and precious time to.
Don’t take my word for it though, check out these testimonials from the contestants themselves and join us Wednesday night to see how four startups took an idea and transformed it to a viable business in just 14 weeks.
Here are some testimonials from the Finalists:
Jeff Harrington & Colin Robertson | Cardoona
Working with Groupon Design Union:
Steven Walker from the Groupon Design Union was a great advisor. Although he was brought in to give us advice on user experience and visual design, his advice extended way beyond those topics. He had great insights on our business model and had great ideas on how to engage and communicate with customers. Not to mention he was a fun and interesting guy! Overall, we had a great time working with him.
Working with Troy Henikoff:
Working with Troy Henikoff of Excelerate Labs was an awesome experience. He was able to quickly understand our business models and offer us better ways to communicate who we are and what we do. Furthermore, he opened up our eyes to the art of "the pitch" and offered resources and advice that helped us author a pitch that we are confident about and proud of. Overall, it was a privilege working with him.
Working with Bernhard & Todd:
Meeting with Todd & Bernhard every week for class definitely helped keep us on the right track. Not only were they great teachers of Lean and Customer Development, they were great facilitators of discussions and debates. They kept us honest and helped us ensure that we were interpreting what we learned properly. Overall, we owe them a huge debt of gratitude in regards to this competition. It literally made our company.
Working with Edward Rensi:
Through following Customer Development, we were able to meet and start a relationship with Edward Rensi, the former CEO of McDonalds. Throughout the process, he turned out to be one of our most influentials advisors. He poked holes in every part of our business model and drew on his experiences in both running a $30 Billion corporation and a $4 million small-business. Furthermore, he helped guide us on who to talk to and how to approach them. Overall, meeting and talking with him helped give us the confidence that we were on to something big. We are honored and proud to be working with him.
David Anderson & Kadesha Smith | Care Content
Working with Groupon Design Union:
“I’ve been working with Ryan Scherf, UX Product Designer at Groupon. My first session with him was amazing. We had done solution interviews to understand how CareContent can help solve hospital’s pain point with not having enough web content. But Ryan showed me how to focus our website features on what will convert visitors to users. He also challenges me to defend every link, every button, every page, and every paragraph. If it doesn’t convince people to use the service, take it off. He has given me a ton of simple, brilliant ideas that I was able to do myself without hiring a front-end designer. It’s all about lean!”
Working with Troy Henikoff:
“Troy is Chicago’s king of startup pitches. He knows how to get attention and get funding. Troy gives great techniques to make sure pitches are focused and engaging. Gold-standard coaching!”
Working with Michael Cole:
“Michael Cole, National Vice President of United Healthcare, was nothing but friendly, helpful and super cool when we met. After I explained CareContent’s concept and business model, he took out a pen and paper and said, ‘here are the introductions I can make.’ He was eager to be helpful and very knowledgeable and I look forward to learning from him long after the Challenge.”
Joseph Sheahan & Dominic Blank | Unwined
Working with Groupon Design Union:
We worked with Jordan Fulghum. It has been absolutely amazing working with Jordan. He was able to provide a depth of knowledge and unique perspective on our design that we would have never been able to ascertain on our own. We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with him!"
Working with Troy Henikoff:
"Troy pushed us and our presentation to the max in a very short amount of time. We had so much we wanted to say, but he showed how to tell a captivating story in a way that the audience will be able to remember the next day. Not an easy task!"
Working with Tom Churchwell:
"Tom took time out of his extremely busy schedule to meet with us every week. He was instrumental in helping us to see what was in front of our faces the entire time, and pushed us to think big. We can't thank him enough!"
Sameer Dohadwala & Samer Saab | Unbanded Designs
Working with Groupon Design Union:
"Shay and Darby from Groupon Design have been an awesome resource. They helped us think through how users would actually interact with our website, pushed us to hone our message, and offered general best practices and great ideas. Our new website design is heavily influenced by their input, we can't thank them enough!"
Working with Troy Henikoff:
"It is incredible how much our pitch presentation has evolved and progressed through our meetings with Troy. There's no way we would be at the point we are without his guidance!"
