Shane Reiser, COO of Startup Weekend and local facilitator, confers with an attendee.
The third iteration of Startup Weekend Des Moines kicked off tonight with an evening of idea generation, voting, lobbying, pizza consumption, inspiration, pitches, and hard work. Not to mention a massive roshambo tournament.
The more than 100 participants, speakers, judges and mentors convened in a vacant office suite at the Greater Des Moines Partnership Building whittled more than fifty pitches down to the following ideas which are being worked on throughout the weekend:
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- Unleash Heroes – Track and reward people for heroic behaviors
- Survey – Online survey’s done right
- Employee Recognition – A combination of two pitches based around better employee reviews and employer recognition as a service.
- Local Jams – Integrate local bands into retail shop music
- Chama – Social savings and loan platform
- Modem Mapper – vizualization tool for cable companies to geolocation problem cable modems
- Capture the Flag App – An iPhone App to play capture the flag
- Group Purchasing – Platform for splitting group purchases
- Unified Women – Groupon-style platform for women-only
- Lady Capital – A point system for a women to track and reward their significant other
Christian Renaud of StartupCity Des Moines challenges the group to use the weekend as an excercise in “saying yes to risk”.
Participants listen intentively to the experienced entrepreneurs who offered their insights to the group.
Startup Weekend attendees vote for the pitch ideas they want to work on.
Follow the weekend via Twitter at the hashtag #swdsm.
