Summary

Virginia's Inaugural Startup Weekend was a huge success! Thank you all for helping make it so.

Press

Here's some of the impressive press that this event generated.

Economic Development News: Startup Weekend Charlottesville A Hit

NBC29: Switchbook wins Charlottesville Startup Weekend

NBC29: Startup Weekend At Charlottesville Technology Incubator

Work It Cville: Organizers hope to hatch ideas at inaugural Startup Weekend/

The Daily Progress: Startup Weekend seeks tech-hungry entrepreneurs

UVa Today: Startup Weekend Charlottesville Aims To Foster New Businesses

Startup Weekend Facilitator Joey Aquino blogs his Charlottesville experience.

The Winning Teams

Congratulations to all the teams. It was an impressive Sunday Night Showdown. Here are the winners:
1st: SwitchBook – The ability to pick up in an audio book where you left off in an e-book
2nd: PostalDrop – Send a physical letter from the convenience of your Dropbox
3rd: MongoCrypt – Encrypted storage and transmission for MongoDB on Heroku

Future

We intend to keep what we built here alive rather than have this be a one-off event. Please join us on our facebook group: http://facebook.com/groups/startupcville

We're aiming for the next Startup Weekend Charlottesville to be during Global Entrepreneurship Week in mid-November. We'll let you know once we've firmed up details.

Quotes

We got a lot of great feedback from the weekend. Here are a few things attendees told us:

-It has already changed how I approach my career. I always thought starting a business was way too risky for me, but I've learned how to retire those risks early without as much investment. I'm not ready to quit my day job, but I'm already planning my escape.

-The mentors were great, and I think really made the event the success that it was.

-The single most important thing I learned was how much a really focused team can get done in a short period of time. The process definitely made me more interested in being involved in entrepreneurial projects.

-I can't believe how amazing my team was. The whole weekend was truly stellar. There's an awful lot of talent in this town. I wish these had been going on here for years, and I can't wait for the next one. The networking was phenomenal, the concentrated, shared focus was exhilarating, and the whole weekend was really just a wonderful experience.

-It was fast paced, exhausting, stimulating and very worth it.

-The entire experience was awesome and I would like to do it again.

Latest Article

Next Time: More designers

While Virginia’s inaugural Startup Weekend was an unqualified success, there are always ways to make it better. One thing we would have liked to see was more designers at Startup Weekend! Talking about this with our facilitators, they pointed us at the video The Rise of the Designer. If you’re a designer and even the least bit interested in what we are doing at Startup Weekend, you owe it to yourself to watch this video!

Congratulations to our winners

Wow, were the demos impressive Sunday evening. What a great showdown. No wonder it took the judges so long to deliberate. In the end, they had to come to a decision though and decide they did. Congratulations to our three winning teams:

SwitchBook – The ability to pick up in an audio book where you left off in an e-book

PostalDrop – Send a physical letter from the convenience of your Dropbox

MongoCrypt – Encrypted storage and transmission for MongoDB on Heroku

Facebook Transition

Interested in entrepreneurial events in Charlottesville? Startup Weekend in Charlottesville is coming to a close, but that doesn’t mean the end of the conversation. We’ve created a Facebook group for you to join. StartupCville is intended to coordinate entrepreneurial events in Charlottesville. Join us!

Working Working Working

We just had a mentor roundup at Charlottesville Startup Weekend. The general consensus is that the teams are doing quite well. Especially working well together. People are building technical solutions, validating business models, designing interfaces and making things happen. The energy is fantastic. Here’s what we’re building this weekend:

Flash Karma – Online platform that connects local community services with volunteers in real-time

Giv2Giv – Give what’s comfortable. The money is invested. Your favorite charities receive a check. Every three months. Forever.

PostalDrop – The quickest and easiest way to take an electronic document and postal mail it to anyone in the country.

ConfiDB / Mumblify – Secure, regulatory-compliant data storage and transmission for any personally identifiable information.

Trends with Friends – The fun and excitement of legal betting with the reach and monetization of social gaming.

Neighborhood Match – A matching service to help you fall in love with your new neighborhood.

Book Mux / Match Book – A tool that synchronizes your ebook and audio book so you can switch back and forth depending on your activity.

Trailer Joey - takes the pre-trailer movie trivia to the next level. When the previews start, you become the reviewer. React live to the trailers, tweet, post, get stuff, write reviews.

Event Nab – Post a description of your event and what you need. Have local businesses bid to provide you with services.

And we’re off to the races!

We are off to a great start with Virginia’s first Startup Weekend. After some introductory remarks, and some Pizza, we were treated to a very interactive and dynamic keynote by Saras Sarasvathy. Startup Weekend facilitator Joey Aquino kept things moving along with some ice breakers that really helped the crowd interact.

Then came the pitches. 30 people pitched. Then they worked the room. They wheedled and bribed. They pitched and pivoted. Then came the voting. People lost their marbles (into the bins of the teams they wanted to work with). In the end, only 9 were chosen. The teams gelled around those 9, found some space in the Charlottesville Technology Incubator and work started. Of course, we did have to end for the night. Unlike the founders, the organizers needed some sleep.