London Startup Weekend » damiensaunders

Happy Valentines Day – if you’re interested in organising London Startup Weekend

damiensaunders — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:59:36 +0000

I like London in the spring time … and for the past week it really has felt spring like! A lot is happening this year – if you’re following the social media and startup news then you’ll know that the Government is hoping Big Society will be the Answer and that a Tech Hub centre in East London is being mooted as something to do with an Olympics venue – other than pulling it down and making it into a football stadium.

I’d like to apologise to those people who really want to help out with the next Startup Weekend … I forgot that the 14th is Valentines Day … so anyway … Happy Valentines.

And if you’re reading this … and want to help organise the next London Startup Weekend, or be a sponsor. Then please get in contact damien at startupweekend.org

Thanks

Damien

What are you doing in November?

damiensaunders — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 08:00:07 +0000

London from November 7 will be a hot bed of startup and internet activity

What will you be doing for Londons EU Internet Week and Global Entrepreneurship Week?

Good to see you at London Startup Weekend July Drinks & Networking

damiensaunders — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:19:21 +0000

Great to see so many people make it to the London Startup Weekend July Drinks & Networking on Thursday night. With reports of a heatwave in London, those that turned up enjoyed the jugs of cocktails and the cool comfort of Bar Detroit.

It was great to see so many new faces come along curious to find out more about Startup Weekend. Hopefully the new faces will be back next month and for the next London Startup Weekend later this year. A few familiar faces were on hand to answer questions about the Weekend and there was lots of good chat about everyones latest projects.

See you all next month!

London Startup Weekend 8 July for Networking & Drinks Event

damiensaunders — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:00:28 +0000

London Startup Weekend will be holding its monthly drinks and networking event on Thursday July 8. The monthly catchup is the perfect opportunity to meet with people who have previously been to Startup Weekend and find out more about the projects we all worked on.

Tickets for the event can be order online at http://londonstartupweekendjuly2010.eventbrite.com/

As always there are a limited number of free tickets for members and guests are also welcome to come along.

If you’ve been to startup weekend before or never been then come along to Bar Detroit in Covent Garden.

London Startup Weekend – info on all the teams

damiensaunders — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Here is the full list of the teams from London Startup Weekend June 2010. We hope to see them all continue to grow their new ideas and become real entrepreneurs and startups.

Rags2Riches

This is the mobile game to play where every check-in makes you money
http://rags2riches.mobi

BuddyBounce

Allows people around the world to meet online through a video speed networking service
http://www.buddybounce.com/

Zolidays

Creates your personalised holiday planner based on budget and your interests
http://www.zolidays.com/

Brit My Pride

We want people to be proud of their voice rate or record phrases and show off your national or regional accent
http://www.britmypride.com/

Tweevents

Create and track meetings and events from Twitter
http://www.tweevents.com/

Movitica

Develops casual & fun games for any mobile and branded content games

http://movitica.com

Ludofy Github

Ludofy:Github creates an incentive for productivity and effective use of source control by making Github into a game. Developers get points, badges and experience points for checking in their code.
http://github.ludofy.com

Charity Mapper

find events around you for charities, such as fun-runs, bake-offs, etc

Gruvi world

Film fan centre for Facebook ‘The Universe for those that love movies…. and the movies we all love’

Smartime

Find places or event nearby that are open right now

Peer Genie

new business networking tool to help entrepreneurs and potential co-founders find each other.

London Southbank shines for the stars of Startup Weekend

damiensaunders — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:48:11 +0000

London Startup Weekend (http://london.startupweekend.org) finished on a high note with awards and presentations under Waterloo Bridge.

The London Southbank office of IBM was packed out on Friday evening and for presentations on Sunday evening. The good weather, central location and good-humoured nature of the weekend kept everyone going. More than 60 people turned out for the weekend, working in 11 teams over for 2.5 days. Teams then had to pitch to a ‘jury’ of well-known London Entrepreneurs.

Many of the new startups made use of well known social media services, worked on events or mobile & location based ideas. The main prizes for the night were:

Startup most likely to make a million (pounds) - Buddy Bounce

BuddyBounce is for events and is described as ‘video speed networking’. The team came up with the concept after using Chatroulette and is for consumer brands, marketing agencies and anyone creating an events. It’s like a fun icebreaker that can have a great value also as pre-conference tool.

Startup with the best crowd appeal – Brit My Pride

Brit My Pride is developing an app to test your knowledge of national and international accents. Initially a fun app for iPhone and Facebook, the team behind the concept plan to do more serious versions for English language teachers and students.

Startup most likely to get funding – Rags2Riches

Rags 2 Riches is a great mobile location game where catching up with friends can earn you ‘money’. Every time a member checks-in they could collect ‘money’ or charge rent. Members can also buy and sell locations from with their team.

The Judges Prize – Rags 2 Riches

The judging team were unanimous that Rags 2 Riches take the main prize. The panel consisted Raam Thakrar (CEO Touchnote), Alicia Navarro (CEO Skimlinks), Andrew Scott (CEO Rummble) and Farhan Lalji (Entrepreneur).

Startup Weekend Peoples Choice Award – Zolidays

Zolidays plans your holiday from you’re social network profile. Once you login with Facebook connect and enter your budget a holiday location is recommended for you. Zolidays will also work without logging in.
The main prize of business support services valued at £1500 went to Rags2Riches. Runners up, Brit My Pride and Buddy Bounce received prizes valued at £600 each. Major prizes were provided by eOffice.

Damien Saunders and James Digby, UK Organisers are very happy that attendance figures are up from previous events and also that format of the weekend has also been popular with attendees.

Startup Weekend is a great experience for everyone that comes along, the best thing about the weekend is what you take away from – this includes practical stuff like building your network or learning more about setting up a business.

You choose to work as a team and at the end on the Sunday night, teams present their business model, working prototype or maybe its a video – each team has a chance to win one of the many prizes.

The event is open to anyone interested in the local entrepreneurial community, and it puts them in a setting where anything is possible. Teams have even started to generate revenue during the 54hr event, and others have gone on to direct angel and VC investment. None of this takes into account the amazing networking, ongoing professional relationships, and amazing experience that happen at every event.

About London Startup Weekend

London Startup 2010 is the 3^rd event in the UK. In 2009, Enterprise UK recognised Startup Weekend for promoting entrepreneurship. With so much interest in Startup Weekend, there are plans for more weekend events throughout the rest of the year.

About Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend is a 54 hour startup event that provides the networking, resources, and incentives for individuals and teams to go from idea to launch. Startup Weekend’s motto: Build Community. Start Companies. No Talk. All Action. In conjunction with local facilitators around the world, Startup Weekend is run by three guys out of Seattle, WA. Together, we are our own community of passionate entrepreneurs on a mission to help other entrepreneurs and facilitate innovation. In the past 2 years, 280+ startups have started mostly across the US, 9,000+ entrepreneurs have been inspired.

PRESS & MEDIA CONTACT

Damien Saunders – Organiser

Phone: +447919110638

Email: Damien@startupweekend.org

Requests for interviews and press enquiries to

Web: http://London.startupweekend.org

Email: London@startupweekend.org

Twitter: twitter.com/startuplondon

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London Startup Weekend – lets get a 1000 followers on Twitter today

damiensaunders — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:20:39 +0000

The new teams at London Startup Weekend have kicked off their social media marketing activities. There are a number of groups all setting up on Facebook or Twitter audaciously hoping to get to 1,000 followers by 6pm today.

Checkout these new teams on Twitter:

Charity Mapper

Zolidays

Tweevents

London Startup Weekend Day 2

damiensaunders — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 09:30:34 +0000

Day 2: London Startup Weekend … Friday night’s ideas and pitch session, finished with 12 formative teams. When they arrived on Saturday this had started to change and a couple of teams merged.

Saturday morning we go down to work quickly with our mentor Raam CEO from Touchnote spending team with every team. In the afternoon Andrew Lockley came around to mentor and we were joined by Alex vanSomeren from the Cambridge entrepreneur scene.

By Saturday afternoon, I’d been around to all the teams to get an idea of what they were working on and what state each project was at. Some are moving ahead really fast — some have a great idea, some could go into business by Sunday.

WOOHOO

London Startup Weekend around 12 teams up and running

damiensaunders — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 15:06:06 +0000

London Startup Weekend is in to Day 2 and has around 12 teams working on a number of ideas. Friday night’s pitch session started out with some 22 ideas and after a break for discussions and coffee people had formed up into teams.

Day 2 has seen things become quieter as people ‘crack on with the challenge’ – to get a really good idea ready to present back on Sunday night. The 12 ‘teams’ that started from Friday night were:

Pedro Santos – Real world monopoly
Ben Johnson – Facebook trailer application
Chris Pope – Browser based mobile games
Zoe Peden how to speak British proper
James Nixon- Find me a business partner!
Jemima Garthwaite- Charity Maps Mashup
Giulia Piu + Emma Obanye – Buddy Bounce
Sanjay Choudhary – Grouping Small Business
Corentin Cremet – Interactive map culture event mobile web
Arianna O’Dell – Travel budgeter
Guillaume de malzac – Use Twitter for scheduling into calendars
Jimmy Blake – eyeCompli

Day 2 has also welcomed the input from Raam Thakrar, CEO Touchnote as mentor – who reminded the teams their ideas do need to achieve either growth in customer numbers, revenues or be crazy enough to get some seed funding.

London Startup Weekend – its about the location thanks IBM

damiensaunders — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:26:46 +0000

The IBM Offices are situated on London’s Southbank … about 10 mins walk from Waterloo or Embankment station

The offices are sandwiched between the National Theatre and the ITV TV studios.

Nearby you can find a variety of cafe’s and restaurants to hang out and many of the places like the BFI Southbank and the Royal Festival Hall offer free wifi in the public areas.

London Startup Weekend would like to thank everyone at IBM who made this happen.