What Is Startup Weekend?

What is Startup Weekend?

Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. Come share ideas, form teams, and launch startups.

Startup Weekend Global Site

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Ever wondered what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

The professional and personal challenges, the high and lows, the failures and the success?

Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.

The non-profit organization is headquartered in Seattle, Washington but Startup Weekend organizers and facilitators can be found in over 200 cities around the world. From Mongolia to South Africa to London to Brazil, people around the globe are coming together for weekend long workshops to pitch ideas, form teams, and start companies.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.

Whether entrepreneurs found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new, or learn a skill far outside their usual 9-to-5, everyone is guaranteed to leave the event better prepared to navigate the chaotic but fun world of startups. If you want to put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur, register now for the best weekend of your life!

Charlotte Startup Weekend IS proceeding tonight at 5:30PM.  

There is NO weather delay and NO weather cancellation!  

We look forward to seeing you there, please do drive carefully!

Schedule

Friday

Jan 25
  • Registration Starts
  • Dinner & Networking
  • Welcome, Speakers, and Format
  • Pitches Start
  • Attendees vote for the top ideas
  • Teams start forming and discussing ideas
  • Start to formalize teams and take an inventory of skills. Be honest, and direct about what resources and skills are needed for the weekend. You may stay and work as late as the venue will allow
  • No guaranteed reentry to Packard Place.

Saturday

Jan 26
  • Arrive, simple breakfast & coffee
  • Teams formed and setting up workspace for the weekend
  • Lunch
  • Networking Activity
  • Dinner
  • No guaranteed reentry to Packard Place.

Sunday

Jan 27
  • Arrive, simple breakfast & coffee
  • Lunch
  • Start prepping for presentations. You should probably stop coding.
  • If you have a demo ticket, a good time to arrive.
  • Dinner downstairs. Don't introduce bugs here.
  • PENCILS DOWN, CEASE WORK
  • Demos Begin
  • Award ceremony and wrapup
  • Postlude
  • Go home!
Speakers

John Bradberry

Author and Co-founder, ReadyFounder Services

John Bradberry co-founded and leads ReadyFounder Services, a provider of tools and services for entrepreneurs and investors. He has improved the performance of more than a thousand leaders and hundreds of teams in companies such as Novartis, ITW, Sun Microsystems, Coca-Cola, Avon and Bank of America, as well as a range of seed- and early-stage ventures. In 2006, John launched an immersive study of the entrepreneurial process, resulting in his book 6 Secrets to Startup Success: How to Turn Your Entrepreneurial Passion into a Thriving Business, (AMACOM, 2011). Prior to starting an independent consulting firm in 1997, John worked with First Union Corporation (now Wells Fargo) and Kepner-Tregoe, a global management consultancy based in Princeton, NJ. He is a graduate of Davidson College and earned a master’s in psychology from the University of Richmond.

Jeremy Olson

Founder and Lead Designer at Tapity, Inc.

Jeremy is founder and lead designer at Tapity, a tiny Charlotte-based company that built apps like Grades (an Apple Design Award winner) and Languages (selected by Apple as Editor's Choice and Best of 2012). His work has been featured on national television, dozens of prominent tech websites like Mashable, TheNextWeb, and TechCrunch, and in print magazines, newspapers, and books. As a UNC Charlotte Senior, he is super interested in inspiring entrepreneurship in the Charlotte area.

Igor Jablokov

Entrepreneur in Residence, Blackstone EN

Founded Yap Inc. in Charlotte, NC in 2006. The company was the first to develop a fully automated voice messaging and voicemail-to-text platform eventually raising over $10 million in venture funding. The company was sold to a Fortune 100 Tech Giant in 2011.

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Judges

Igor Jablokov

Entrepreneur in Residence, Blackstone EN

Founded Yap Inc. in Charlotte, NC in 2006. The company was the first to develop a fully automated voice messaging and voicemail-to-text platform eventually raising over $10 million in venture funding. The company was sold to a Fortune 100 Tech Giant in 2011.

Devin Collins

Manages the Charlotte Venture Challenge. The start-up competition recently awarded $113,500 in prize money to early-stage companies. Devin currently does entrepreneurial development and technology commercialization at the Charlotte Research Institute at UNC Charlotte and the North Carolina Research Campus.

Terry Cox

Founder, BIG Council

BIG is a non-profit membership organization, founded in 2006, and comprised of like minded high growth entrepreneurial companies in this region who share similar challenges in growing their businesses. We provide education, content, and best practices for a growth oriented company as well as access to resources and capital. The value of BIG is the peer to peer exchange that develops from being in the group.

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Organizers
Brett Bumeter
Tyler Williams
Jim Van Fleet
Bridget B. Sullivan
Nathan Hammond
Blog
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Past Events
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May 4-6 2012