GRAND RAPIDS ? Eighteen teams pitched on Friday night at Startup Weekend, and by Sunday afternoon that number had been culled to just eight. The eight left standing ? considering some were just ideas two days before ? represented a range of web-focused concepts that had morphed into potential start ups.
?I?ve been to 16 of these previously, and I can?t remember any that were as cohesive as this one has been,? said Startup Weekend co founder Marc Nager. ?Plus some really good ideas came out on the other side.?
Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects.
Startup Weekend was founded in 2007 by Andrew Hyde, but is now run by Marc Nager and Clint Nelsen. Global Headquarters in now in Seattle. The program has already met with success in over 52 cities and 12 countries. From Feb. 26-28, it came to downtown Grand Rapids.
Organizers were Michael Boyink of Boyink Interactive and Aaron Schaap of Elevator Up. Both develop web sites. Now because of their efforts to bring Startup Weekend to West Michigan, they have helped startup eight new technology companies in Michigan.
Those include:
24/7 Healthnet.Com ? Allows patients to book health-care appointments online
Michigan Film Reel.Com ? News portal site for Michigan Film Industry
PennyPlanner.Com ? Personal financial calendar/planner
Jaiplace.Com ? Community marketplace for Lifestyle/Sustainability
LocalGR.Com ? Searchable downtown bar, restaurant, parking guide
EchoTask.Com ? Online business/personal task organizer
LegallyBlog.Net ? Ghost write legal articles for law firms web sites
Mars Global Initiative (hutm.com) ? Global initiative to crowd source funding for a Mars space mission.
To learn more, click on WMI.StartupWeekend.Org
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