Startup Weekend is a community event where business ideas are pitched on a Friday evening, teams are formed for some of them, and the teams work all weekend to launch a viable company and present the results on Sunday evening in front of the community and a panel of judges.
I participated in Kalamazoo’s Startup Weekend event in November 2013 on a team with three other people. One member had pitched the idea of creating a short url for events that are located in multiple places. The information for these events tend to be long emails with multiple links, making it challenging to navigate. “Sheepdog,” the final name of the website, could “herd all the locations to one place.”
As the least technical person in the group, my role was providing feedback on the design and use, researching what was already out there, conducting interviews, and being a cheerleader. Since all we had was a total of 54 hours, staying focused and upbeat was important, which made the role of cheerleader an essential part of the team. On Saturday it looked like we might not have more than demo screen shots. By Sunday evening, we were able to provide a live demonstration. The judges placed Sheepdog in second place. The website is currently offline and is being revamped to get launched in 2014. You can follow what happens with Sheepdog on Twitter or Facebook. If you would like to view the presentation, please click on the image below:
Stacy J. Belinsky 