Entrepreneurs and Local Businesses Sell Out Northeast Florida's First "Startup Weekend"
This weekend more than eighty attendees will participate in Northeast Florida's first "Startup Weekend," an intensive 54-hour three-day event which will help existing businesses, new businesses and "entrepreneurs with big ideas" get a jump start on building and implementing web and mobile business applications.
Everyone is fairly clear about business applications for the web (making your products or services accessible through notebooks or desktop computers), but what is a mobile business application? It is basically the same thing--but accessible on smart phones, iPads, iPhones and other mobile or portable devices. A mobile application could include additional website bookmark capabilities or provide for instant messaging options via a mobile device or provide access to other mobile functions. Web and mobile business applications simply provide businesses another way to connect with their customer base in selling their business product or service. Sales to customers while limiting the need for additional sales personnel or office space and a mechanism to permit businesses to reach a market outside their local community could be critical for the entrepreneur's or new business owner's success in today's business environment. The three-day event will be held at UNF and will engage three groups (with three different types of tickets for the event), including:
"Developer" Participants. This ticket category will include technically trained individuals who can write computer code for a businesses' web based computer applications and mobile applications.
"Designer" Participants. This ticket category includes non-technical people who are essential to the development of the look and the brand elements of a businesses' web based computer applications and mobile applications (including, for example, graphic artists, social media specialists and video specialists).
"Business Support" Participants. This group will include professionals who will support the entrepreneur or business in the development and implementation process (including, for example, financial, legal and marketing professionals and businesses).
The Startup Weekend will be an interactive event. It will kick off with ideas being pitched and teams being formed to consider the top products and services. As the event draws to a close on Sunday evening, ideas will again be pitched--but this time to a panel of judges. The finalists selected by the panel of judges will have the opportunity to win up to $25,000 in prizes.
The Jacksonville Business Journal recently interviewed entrepreneurs and new business owners attending Startup Weekend event (see "City's First Startup Weekend to bring entrepreneurs together") and reported on various mentors and business leaders that would be on hand to guide the participants through the interactive activities that weekend. The January 20, 21 and 22, 2012 Startup Weekend has met with a resoundingly positive response in the Northeast Florida business community as it was officially announced last week that the event was "sold out."
Still, if you are interested in participating in the January event, sponsors are "wait-listing" individuals who want to participate this weekend and are releasing any tickets that become available in the order you go on the list. Even if you are not able to get into the January event, if your name is on the waiting list you will receive communications about upcoming events.
If you have questions about issues and opportunities facing your own business, contact a Northeast Florida business lawyer at Wood, Atter & Wolf, P.A., with offices located in Jacksonville and Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
