Boos Design Group

Cleveland Startup Weekend

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November 25, 2009 3 comments

When I signed up for Cleveland’s first Startup Weekend, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The thought of grouping up with strangers to start a business in a weekend reminded me of some kind of reality show competition. I wondered what I would work on and with whom.

I arrived at the Idea Center at PlayhouseSquare to find a room of enthused entrepreneurs, including some friends from the Cleveland Web Standards Association. Soon the pitches began. The line of people with pitches was dwindling down when Jonathan Penn, who was sitting next to me, jumped up. Next thing you know, he was pitching his idea for a web application that his wife wanted him to create two years ago. The idea was to create a web site where users of the site could find and add prices for groceries. Users could go to the site to find which store in their area has the cheapest milk and other groceries. After Jonathan gave his pitch, Doug Craver stepped up and requested to merge with Jonathan since he had a similar idea. It was Cleveland Startup Weekend’s first merger.

After the 39 pitches were presented and the eight winning pitches were selected, I stood with Beth Dean. We looked around the room. Then Beth said, “let’s work on Jonathan’s team”. We both have design backgrounds, but our skills would compliment each other on this project. Two developers, Jon Sustar and Chris Sinchok joined the team and we were ready to roll. We had a team of six people ready to work in minutes. We all felt that we had a great team from the start.

We didn’t waste anytime planning our next steps. We headed to the bar across the street at the Wyndham Hotel. We determined how the application would work, our responsibilities, and the developers determined what development language they would use for the site. We also decided on the name Pricefixr. We all had so many ideas for the application, but we had to narrow it down to what we could accomplish in a weekend. Then, we were off to dream about Pricefixr.

The next day we arrived bright and early for work at the Idea Center. Beth and I worked on wireframes for the site. Then we moved on to branding and design. Beth worked on front-end development for the site, while I worked on the logo and branding. I decided to create a brand based on ads from the 1950s. Jonathan, Jon and Chris were coding all day and coming up with solutions for the back-end development of the site. Doug worked on marketing and business planning. It was a long day and we had the deadline of 6pm the next day looming in our minds. Each of us worked late into the night after leaving the Idea Center. We kept in touch with Google Wave while working remotely.

Sunday was crunch time. We were the first group to arrive at the Idea Center. We were all running on adrenaline and caffeine. None of us could sleep very well since we were so excited about the work to be done. We all met and then began plugging away at the design and development of the application. We also set up a blog and accounts on flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

Soon it was 6pm. Jonathan was prepared for the presentation and we made the final refinements to the site. Jonathan said, “should we say how this will be funded?”. I confidently said that it would be funded with our winnings, not knowing what was to come. The team with the most votes after the presentations would be awarded $2,500 from Startup Weekend to invest in their new business.

There were nine teams presenting and Pricefixr was going last. Everyone in the room was energized. There were some great startups presented that ranged from 3D printing and web applications to a company growing fruits and vegetables in local greenhouses. It was soon time to vote on the startups. Three teams were eligible for a $5,000 prize from Microsoft for using Microsoft technologies in the development of their companies. 140match.com, a Twitter matchmaking service, won this award. The next award was for $2,500. After the voting was complete, it came to a tie. Everyone decided to split the prize before the winners were announced. I then heard “Pricefixr”. Our team jumped up. We were so excited! Jonathan even did a little dance. We tied with Local Food 365, who created a plan for growing fruits and vegetables year-round in local greenhouses.

It is now four days after Cleveland’s Startup Weekend, and the Pricefixr team is still elated over the win. We have continued work on the site since Startup Weekend ended. Our energy and enthusiasm has not slowed down. Follow our blog to see how we grow this Cleveland startup. I had a great time at Cleveland’s Startup Weekend. I am so glad that I attended.

Back row: Lori Boos @loriboos, Beth Dean @bethdean, Doug Craver @dougcraver, Chris Sinchok @chrissinchok, Jonathan Penn @jonathanpenn, Jon Sustar @jdstar27. In front: Clint Nelson @clintnelsen from Startup Weekend is holding the check.

Pricefixr Demo Site

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