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The Parts Press team (above) won a full company formation package from Venture Law Advisors.
Well, it’s over, people! The 54 hours of sweat, tears (and beer and coffee) that is Startup Weekend Boulder is now behind us. The weekend’s big winner? Parts Press, an API enabling global on-demand 3D parts printing for enterprise manufacturers.
Second prize went to MyApply, a Common App for private scholarships, while third place went to APIXchange, a company helping with API integration. The pitches were judged by Bart Lorang of FullContact, Matt Bernier of Technical Integrity, Frank Mendicino of Access Venture Partners, Jamie Hollier of CommerceKitchen, Bryan McKae of Venture Law Advisors and Brian Gryth of OpenColorado.
Out of the 62 attendees, about half pitched ideas on Friday night and 13 teams formed from these ideas. Participant Andrew Homeyer said his idea for BetaQ, a hype-builder for launches, wasn’t originally picked on Friday, but he was able to get enough support from others to continue anyways.
“I wasn’t super passionate about other ideas and I sort of always held this pitch in my back pocket,” Homeyer. “If I don’t find anything else I love more then I’ll do this and that’s how I pitched it.”
Overall, about a third of the teams formed during Startup Weekend stay together afterward, but (at least during the hype of pitches Sunday night) many SW Boulder teams seemed prepared to further pursue their ideas together. Participant Michael Lockwitz, for example, said his team plans to continue their idea of local apparel brand Coloroyale by meeting with prospective distributors this week.
Other groups formed during the weekend include Unbox Zero, MassageToday, Holocon, PetPulse, ReciPower, SwiftCase, Alchemy Group, OptiBridge.
The variety of ideas from the variety of people at Startup Weekends is never surprising, facilitator Jon Rossi, co-founder of StartupDenver, said. Participants came from as far as New Mexico and Nebraska and spanned in age from seasoned professionals to high schoolers such as Tai Walker, a junior at New Vista High School in Boulder. Walker said the 54-hour competition was “pretty brutal” considering he had to go to school Monday.
Despite the grueling work, all seemed to be in agreement by Sunday night that the coolest part of the weekend was connecting with completely new local people. Andy Cary, who came from Denver for the weekend, said the first person he met Friday night as he walked in the door ended up being his BetaQ team member Homeyer.
So when’s the next chance to do Startup Weekend? Rossi said entrepreneurs can look forward to a possible Startup Weekend Denver directly before or after Denver Startup Week!