It’s been some time since we last covered Startup Weekend, a series of events that bring a roomful of developers and entrepreneurs together to develop new startups in only 54 hours. When the program originally launched last year, each weekend was geared towards building a single application, of which every participating member was a cofounder. Since then the format has changed – multiple companies are created at each event, and they don’t have to incorporate at the end of the weekend. Here’s a handful of the companies founded at last weekend’s event, which was held in Phoenix (you can see the event’s blog here).
ReserveChute
With so much of our essential data making its way to the cloud, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to quickly make a local backup. Reserve Chute, an open source web app that will be available for use in the next few weeks, will automatically make backups of popular cloud based services including Gmail, Twitter, and Basecamp.
It’s unlikely that any of these services will be going out of business in the foreseeable future, and they almost certainly have redundant backup systems in place. But the prospect of having my entire photo collection or Email history wiped out is unnerving – having an easy way to back up these services would definitely give users some peace of mind, even if they never had to use it.
My Shelter Helper
My Shelter Helper is web page builder aimed to help animal shelters establish a presence on the web. Shelters can logon and after entering some basic information like their address and telephone number will be presented with a functional and good looking website. It’s a great idea, and I love the tagline: “Helping save animal’s lives.”
For now the service is generating some pretty barebones sites, but will introduce support for donations so that shelters can easily collect from benevolent animal lovers worldwide. I hope the team keeps working on this – anything that helps animals is a good thing, and plenty of people (like my mother, for example) would love to donate to their local animal shelter along with the national organizations.
Twitrratr
Awful domain name aside, the Twitrratr team has actually built a pretty cool Twitter site. After entering any keyword, Twitrratr will find related tweets and attempt to figure out if the subject is being spoke about in a positive or negative light. It’s a good idea but unfortunately it doesn’t work very well – oftentimes words that Twitrratr associates with a negative tweet aren’t being used to describe the keyword that was searched for. The team acknowledges that the system isn’t perfect and is open to suggestions (it’s still pretty impressive for 54 hours from conception to launch).
Thanks for the coverage TechCrunch – I was there and part of the Reserve Chute team.
well if this article does’nt rally the tech troops i dont know what will. yee haw.
twitrratr.com is my personal favorite. you know how i love those premium domain names that need no explanation.
i think tc should plug it in for all the startups and commenters that come here, gain a liddle better insight as to whos who? and who knew?
RatingLocator.com
So this is how to create a lasting company which a VC will invest in? In 2 days? Jesus chris what is wrong with this web 2.0 crowd. None of these “applications” have any value. A company is more than just the technology. None of these ideas will succeed or be bought out.
Yep we have web people and startups happening in Phoenix. Good to see it being mentioned. Gangplankhq.com is where it was held.
WOOOW HOOOO!
Nice converage. I am so happy to be part of the great event and knowing those great people!
Cheers!
Thanks for the coverage! Gregg Drennen, the guys at Gangplank, Jeremy Tanner and all the local organizers are to be congratulated on pulling off a killer event. Will be interesting to see what comes of the projects created this past weekend.
Sean
So cool to have made TechCrunch! Twitrratr.com was actually squashed as an idea on Friday night, then we actually went back to it on Saturday around noon!
Nice! Phoenix is HAWT.
Startup Weekend was a great opportunity to meet and work with other aspiring entrepreneurs in Phoenix! If there’s a SW happening near you, I strongly recommend attending.
Also check out Gangplank in Chandler, AZ for co-working and Wednesday hacknight (http://hacknigh...gangplankhq.com), a.k.a, mini startup weekend.
I was also a member of the Reserve Chute team and I had an *awesome* time. Thanks to everyone, especially to StartupWeekend ( http://startupweekend.com ) and Gangplank ( http://gangplankhq.com ). It was so much fun meeting new people and working to create a new product and helping out other teams, etc.
If anyone reading this is in Phoeniz, AZ, check out other awesome events hosted by Gangplank, including a Hacknight ( http://hacknigh...gangplankhq.com ) every Wednesday night.
I flew out to Phoenix to facilitate this event. I was blown away by the Phoenix enterpreneurial / tech community. Gangplank (Phoenix tech incubation / cowork) is an oasis in the desert. I’m looking forward to seeing these projects develop and for more suprises from the Phoenix tech community. Be dangerous!
Jeremy
Hit the link on my name for my flickr stream with more photos of the event.
Adam in Phx
Awesome for the coverage! I was there and was part of the MyShelterHelper.com team. We are keeping the project, and will be revamping it, allowing for greater customization and more features. For a 54 hour project, I think we did pretty well.
My first Startup Weekend and certainly not to be my last. Props to SW founders for creating a great program, props to the #SWPhx team for planning a great event, and props to all the participants behind the projects.
Wasn’t this what spawned VoSnap which failed miserably and was never technically completed in a weekend?
Or am I thinking of something else?
Photos of the closing ceremony of Startup Weekend Phoenix!
http://www.face...mp;id=508503526
Startup a new company isn’t that difficult at all.
Thank God for Gangplank (http://www.gangplankhq.com) and finally a space into which to channel all the energy in Phoenix for software startups. Now I can stop screaming that we’re not chopped liver and some of our companies should get noticed. Thank you so much, TechCrunch. And Stealthmode plans to help all those teams that do want to make their products into businesses.
I was a part of the ReserveChute team, and the entire startup weekend was an awesome experience; just one of many at http://gangplankhq. If you’re in the Phoenix, AZ area, and haven’t been down to see what we’re doing at Gangplank, you owe it to yourself to come down and take a look.
Thanks Tech Crunch for the coverage. I was privileged to be part of the myshelterhelper team, a lot of smart, passionate people, who just flat out get stuff done! Congrats to gangplank as well, great event and many more to come! Now let’s get the screen hung before somebody gets hurt. If you have the chance to do a start up weekend- do it. If you are in AZ, head to Chandler, and visit Gangplank- you will be inspired, I promise.
Thanks for the coverage TC — the new format is really spawning some great projects like those developed in Phoenix and we’re excited about all our future events.
These were the good ones? So they made: a downloader that doesn’t work at all (”Sign up to be emailed when the alpha is ready”), a doggy blog template (you know for animal shelters), and a twitter search (you know sorted by emotional charge.) Cute projects, maybe, but startups?
Looks like it was a fantastic weekend!
The first goal of Startup Weekend is to build community. It looks like the great community in Phoenix is full of the talent and passion that makes up a vibrant startup scene.
I’m excited to see what comes of the relationships built during the event.
Too bad I found out too late about this event (I’m living in Phoenix). I hope it’s not a singular one.
I am sad to see TechCrunch posting about Reserve Chute. And I am even sadder that you guys have an unnerving paranoia about the financial situation. It’s indeed weird to think of a day without GMail. I depend on that application and Google cannot do any such thing. If they are even planning to Shut Gmail down, they should inform us beforehand. On the top of that, shutting down GMail means quite a billion dollar loss for Google and not gain, I guess. Anyway, there is no use thinking about it now. I suggest you click more and more Google ads in Gmail so GMail becomes more and more profitable for Google (;-))
What I suggest is never to be paranoid about anything. I have seen rises and falls in my life and it has taught me that. We will survive any calamity if we are destined to that’s it.
Lenin
huh? smoking what?
Lenin, appreciate your concerns but the project isn’t just focused around companies going out of business completely. Sometimes online services are inaccessible because they are maintaining their servers, or perhaps you backed up because you knew you would be without internet access, or you have decided to switch to another service completely, maybe you simply converted to the Amish way of life and wanted to backup one last time in case you were to ever stray from your newfound path. We are not suggesting Gmail will be out of business, we are merely providing ease of mind services.
Agreed, though you could just use an email client (i like thunderbird+lightening+daemon for calendars). I don’t know anyone that uploads pics without saving a local copy, etc.
Startup weekend attracts some real retards that wouldn’t know an opportunity from a revenue suck hole. I know, I’ve been there, done that.
Was the entire web 2.0 site associated with each startup created and functional in the 54 hour period ? or just the idea born in 54 hours ? if its the former, I am curious what software was used.
The ideas for Twitrratr.com, ReserveChute.com, and MyShelterHelper.com were completely thought up and created from Friday night to Sunday night…
Twitrratr.com runs on the CodeIgniter MVC framework, MyShelterHelper.com runs on WordPress, and I’m not quite sure what ReserveChute.com is built on…
The “Keep It Simple Stupid” concept FTW!
ReserveChute.com was done in Ruby on Rails.
54 hours? Amateurs. We do it 38 hours.
Thanks for feeding my curiousity.
38 hours? Pff. We have experimented on this a long time ago and created the S.U.C.K. (Start-Up Can-make-us Kings), a revolutionary device that we connect to our heads and -poof! the moment we think of a start-up, it creates a time-space warp into the multi-dimensional universe, utilizing resources from other dimensions (as well as what we came to call UAD – Unidentified Alien Developers, we don’t have a clue of what they are but they code well), tapping into infinite energy and knowledge thus manifesting the start-up in what appears to be no time at all.
But then we noticed that the new start-ups were too unsteady; they would cease to exist a few nano-seconds after they were created (actually we couldn’t even see them, but we managed to take snapshots of them using an ultra-fast-screenshot-taker machine we also developed). We didn’t know why this was happening, but eventually (because we’re great scientists of course) we figured it out!
The reason was simple: once the acceleration was taking place (to instantly make the start-up), we couldn’t stop it. So the start-up was made public and it’s whole life was also accelerated, thus ending in a couple of nano-seconds. In other words, what would take a few months for these start-ups to end in the deadpool, was occurring in a split second (got it?).
The morale of the story: these start-ups will always end in the deadpool, no matter if it takes one second or one year. We dropped the idea and destroyed the machinery. Now we’re focusing on real start-ups that have a higher probability of existence. You know, stuff that takes time to develop.
(Sorry, couldn’t help it. Animal shelters? Seriously? And we still talk about the dot.com bubble?)
I think you are wrong, though i love to bash startupwknd ppl cause they are dumb (for the most part). I like the animal shelter company and here is why:
-animal shelters are part of the group of organizations that still dont have websites. They are listed in shitty directories that are outdated and mostly “click arbitrage” operations
-animal shelter’s won’t be a revenue boon, but this site will help.
-there is no reason My Shelter Helper can’t stay small and keep costs low, they can slowly and continually add fewatures like slideshows and videos, and make the CMS very easy for animal shelter workers t use.
I am gonna have to side with Eric on the shelters. Every point he made (minus startup weekend people being stupid) is dead on.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Thanks Eric and Thanks Phil. You both nailed the reasons why we felt MyShelterHelper.com was a good idea. We aren’t trying to retire on the idea or live off of it. It’s free to shelters and we ask for donations but it’s not necessary. We hope to maintain our low costs and donate remaining funds to no-kill shelters. Our goal is to help shelters save animal’s lives by offering an internet presence.
I’m proud to be a part of a group that is trying to do something good (pro-bono) during our free time. Thank you for taking notice.
Clearly the lateness of the hour is taking its toll on some in the form of creative ramblings.. good thing I’m still operating on Central African Time
Michael, it’s still morning here in Europe!
ah. oops!
so its a case of a mind numbing day job then ?
that kind of creative thinking could get you.. ummm.. er.. a start up!
I agree that speed companies have issues. I do think however brain storming can pull many a good ideas out into the light. These events should be looked at as the spark that starts the fire. If you get a good one it will burn, if not…poof…gone with the wind.
So If you get these ideas and work them to see real market potential after the fact you will eventually get one that sticks. Sure a lot of site ideas have been tested and failed, but if no one is trying we would all still be living in the world of big corporate machines.
I hope these events are not just us tech geeks and have real people with no code experience in them. Real users that can bring ideas that challenge us to create. Our techy minds tend to take us down rabbit holes into no where and we always need real world people to help keep realilty in check when it comes to web development.
Widgets on sites are cool, but simplicity to the user is the answer. No matter how complex your code, it must be simple to use. Google’s home page is an example of the simplicity to complexity I am talking about. Would not we all loved to have come up with that web site portal to dollars combo!
Setting the framework to protect these ideas is a good thing even if they are never used or fail in short order. But they must keep in mind when they do these events not to treat them like sweat shops or get rich quick schemes. It is important to remember that the dream is usally short lived and reality is the wall we must get over to succeed.
I can’t speak to all Startup Weekends, but in Phoenix there definitely some of us who are not techies. I am a brand strategist first, marketer second, and social media fanatic whenever I find the time. I have become engaged with the web-tech community in Phoenix just this year. In truth, I didn’t know what SAAS or ‘the cloud’ meant when I started the weekend, yet I can tell you the Reserve Chute application address concerns I had when I made my forray into blogging, and now as I begin using Freshbooks and other services to help me manage the administrative side of my own business. And the idea was always to make it easy for a non-techy to use.
I’m excited about what the Reserve Chute team accomplished and look forward to staying enagaged with the project. And regardless of what comes of it, the learning experience was phenomenal.
ebay v 1.0 = weekend project w/ one developer.
Jason:
You might have meant, 54 hours to build a feature…not a company…It takes years to build a company…
Miller
Some of the commenters here piss me off. These ideas seem great to me! I am already eagerly awaiting an invite to reserve chute, and I think the animal shelter site is a wonderful idea! Lots of these shelters pay good money for really crappy sites, so this would be a great alternative. What you people did in one weekend is incredible, so don’t listen to the angry computer nerds ranting on this site.
Goodluck, I don’t know how viable this model is.
what sort of framework do you use to protect these ideas?
I personally love the idea of the open discussion coming from programmers and non-programmers too. Theres nothing like someone who knows nothing about your industry to challenge the limits of your industry without even thinking.
We’re still early into the “Internet Winter” and all around the blogosphere we read about the recession, layoffs and the end of Web 2.0, how the boom in the economy will “clear” the market from those yet-anotheruseless-idea start-ups. Mr. Arrington himself created quite a hype about the end of Web 2.0 (and that video in Cyprus).
When Yahoo is laying off 10% and John Calacanis or Le Meur is in the news about firing people, when experts fear that many companies that are already successful are about to go to the deadpool because they have not yet found a way to monetize, when Wall Street analysts are expecting big M&A from now on as the only way for big companies to survive, I wonder what chances do such weekend projects stand.
I like the idea of promoting innovation and surely such seminars could be a good opportunity for brilliant minds to find each other and start a start-up, but that’s it. 54 hours are ok to build a quick “prototype” (without much thinking or paying attention to any detail) but it takes a whole lot more to create a company (which makes the title of this article quite funny).
All this time, new entrepreneurs kept finding out that there are thousands of business plans submitted to VCs every year, but only a few dozen or so are getting to be funded. And then, almost 1 out of 10 of them are about to succeed. If the web scene changed that drastically overnight and all this is not true anymore, I bet I missed it. But if this is still the way things work, and the economic crisis indeed makes things worse, then I think that it takes more than an agile web framework, a bunch of developers and a poor idea to make a company that indeed has chances to succeed.
this shit looks like a douchebag convention. sure do feel positive about the economy with winners like ‘Twitrratr’ on the scene.
@Tbone @Paker @Whatthe @Sift @Eric @Flashie Flash @loltard- why do you guys hate? I don’t think anyone represented that the projects that were built were intended to be successful companies in a weekend. It was the exercise of working with people to rapidly build something real and to that end, it was successful (and the “54 hrs” included 2 nights of sleep so it was more like 30 Eric). Andrew Hyde hit on the key thing here- it’s not the projects that emerged that are important, it’s the quality relationships established while making real stuff from scratch. Try it before you knock it.
Re: the reason there is no shippable product for ReserveChute yet- we decided to refine it before releasing so it’s something people like rather than scrambling to have a half-assed product released by the end of the weekend. Having a beta signup form on the site to collect emails from interested visitors in the interim is a common practice. Maybe you guys should stop being trolls on TC and go build something real yourselves…
As far as “whatthe’s” comment on “none of these applications have any value” – you don’t think having a local backup all the remote data stored in your online applications has value?? Gimme an f’in break. We’ll be giving this capability away free at first and I guarantee you there will be people willing to pay for this when it’s a refined product. Man there are some acidic characters on this forum… Thanks Brandon and others for the encouragement.
And thanks again Mark Hendricksen and Jason Kincaid – we’ll keep you guys posted as these projects evolve.
sean
To every word of this comment Sean I say, “hear, hear!”