Anyone who walks into Startup Weekend Orlando on Friday, Oct. 8 may leave on Sunday with a fully-formed business.
The annual event backed by Boulder, Colorado-based startup accelerator Techstars soon will return as a live event from Oct. 8-10 at E-Spaces Orlando. Startup Weekend Orlando takes in budding entrepreneurs, no matter their levels of experience, and puts them into teams with the goal of building a startup over the course of a weekend.
At Startup Weekend Orlando, teams will form a business, develop a prototype, identify customers and more over the course of 54 hours. Participants get to work with experienced entrepreneurial mentors, with a winning business selected by a panel of judges. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer will serve as the event’s marquee speaker.
The event introduces local residents to the world of entrepreneurship, and it has served as a catalyst for some of Orlando’s best tech success stories.
Participants, mentors and judges will interact at the live event, which is a crucial element for entrepreneurial endeavors, said event organizer and Informulate CEO Rajiv Menon. Central Florida’s tech and startup ecosystems have featured few live events in the past 18 months, but the “creative collisions” that happen when in person are essential for innovation, Menon said.
Likewise, organizer and Stax co-founder and Executive Vice President Jacques Fu said the lack of live events due to the Covid-19 pandemic left a “gap” in the local innovation ecosystem. “There’s not much of a replacement for these types of events.”
Startup Weekend Orlando has an important place in the history of Stax, formerly called Fattmerchant. The idea for the Orlando-based fintech business first was pitched at Startup Weekend Orlando. The company later was formed and became one of the region’s fastest-growing companies.
The event has a track record of birthing successful companies. In 2017, the event birthed Winter Park-based real estate tech firm Leasecake after CEO Taj Adhav wrote a pitch on the drive to the competition, he previously said. Leasecake went on to win the global Startup Weekend competition in 2017, and fellow Central Florida business GamerMeetups.com won the global competition the following year.
Still, not every business born from Startup Weekend Orlando will be a success. However, that’s OK, Menon said. “Maybe the validation you get is that the idea isn’t needed.”
Startup Weekend Orlando will kick off Orlando Innovation Week, a series of tech and innovation events leading up to innovation summit Synapse Orlando and annual interactive arts show Immerse. Here’s a closer look at when and where Orlando Innovation Week events will take place and how to get involved:
Growing small businesses in high-tech, high-wage sectors is important for Central Florida, as those firms can add local jobs and create economic impact as they scale. Startups also create innovative solutions for businesses, help develop a community and make it easier for other new companies to form in the future.
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