Entrepreneurs across Madison had the chance to turn their business ideas into reality in a weekend-long workshop focused on the nuts and bolts of creating a startup.
Startup Weekend Madison is part of a national nonprofit organization that encourages entrepreneurs to collaborate and create their own startup companies with the help of mentors and businesspeople in the area, according to Chris Meyer, one of the organizers of the event and the director of local company Sector67.
The event was designed to help participants learn how to navigate from an idea to a business, Allen Dines, assistant director of the University of Wisconsin Office of Corporate Relations said.
The weekend starts with registered participants from the Madison area pitching ideas for an innovative product or company and other participants voting on the ideas they would most like to work on, Meyer said.
The participants then choose which of the top-rated ideas they would most like to work on and collaborate together to implement the ideas and turn them into a concept for a startup company by the end of the weekend, Dines said.
“The idea behind the event is giving someone who is not an entrepreneur and who has no idea how to build a business a way they can go about that,” Meyer said.
While participants do not have to come with an idea, Meyer explained there is no detriment to pitching a topic. If a participant’s topic did not get chosen to continue, they could either join a team or continue to work on their own idea anyway and recruit people to help, he said.
However, not all the companies created over the weekend continue beyondd the workshop, Dines said.
“This is a 54-hour experience,” Dines said. “Although the objective is to come up with a viable company concept from an identified problem, creating a viable sustainable business requires a sustained effort.”
Dines said several of the companies created during last year’s event are still in development, including Trinker, a mobile app.
Despite this, Meyer said the event provides a good learning opportunity for UW students.
Students made up about 30 to 40 percent of registered participants, Meyer said. Students were able pitch their own ideas, get involved with one of the projects or simply watch and learn how to build a business, he said.
Meyer, a UW graduate, explained the event is important for students because it provides access to resources to make businesses ideas a reality, something he did not have starting out.
Startup Weekend Madison is also beneficial to the Madison community because the people who are successful in formulating a plan for their startup company can stay in the area and hire people to help start their business, Meyer said.
It is a risk-free workshop that connects seasoned and new entrepreneurs and is a good event to help promote economic development, Dines said.
“Startups are the lifeblood of a viable exciting community,” Dines said. “We have the basis for an exciting tech sector here that makes Madison attractive for young creative professionals and others who want to be near them.”
