NimblePitch and RVA Startup Weekend – WOW!

What a weekend!

85 aspiring entrepreneurs, 22 mentors, 10 organizers, 5 judges, 2 guest speakers, 38 nervous pitches, 12 teams working almost 54 hours straight, all distilled down to this: 3 winning teams. If an event can be energizing and exhausting at the same time, then the RVA Startup Weekend was it. The most amazing thing, however, is the quality of those twelve 5-minute pitches at the end. They were well-thought out, researched and branded, with business models lined up and finances planned. Every one of them worthwhile. We were proud to be part of it as organizer and mentor and pleased to be able to offer a NimblePitch package to one of the winners.

Congratulations to Event Spaces, NimblePitch Winner

Event Spaces delivered a one-stop solution to a problem that plagues event planners everywhere – details on facilities for an upcoming event. Who has a room the right size for your event? Is it available? What kind of facilities does it have for serving food? Does it have a projector? Is there room for dancing and power outlets for a band or deejay?

Event Spaces will help put one-stop shopping into event planning. Event Spaces received a NimblePitch presentation to help them sell their idea to event planners and those with spaces to lend or rent in Richmond and beyond. We’re excited to be working with the Event Spaces team! View the final pitches of each of the three winners, including Event Spaces.

Former U.S. CTO addresses RVASW

Aneesh Chopra, appointed by President Obama as the nation’s first United States Chief Technology Office and a former Virginia Secretary of Technology spoke to the Startup Weekend crowd Saturday. Chopra inspired the teams to build local ecosystems of innovation and attack sectors such as health care and education to deliver new applications, processes and business models to drive America forward. Chopra emphasized the coming challenges and opportunities of crowd sourced funding and open data to literally open up a range of new opportunities. Opportunities that for Virginians would allow our own economy to strike a greater balance alongside defense and government spending, he said.

Chopra has returned to Virginia as a Senior Advisor with The Advisory Board Company, a global research, consulting, and technology firm helping hospital executives to better serve patients, where he previously served as Managing Director. Read the full story or watch his talk.

NimblePitch & Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend, where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups, was September 7-9 at crt/Tanaka.There were 38 1-minute pitches Friday night, which were whittled down to the 12 teams who delivered more detailed pitches Sunday evening.

The NimblePitch team has really enjoyed being part of the RVA Startup Weekend planning committee for the past few months and mentoring the participants during the weekend itself. It was exciting to have the opportunity to help bring this event to our city. RVA StartupWeekend isn’t the first time with the intense Startup Weekend experience for the NimblePitch team. We took part in the Charlottesville Startup Weekend back in March and one of our project teams took first place!

Have an idea of your own?

Startup Weekends occur around the world on many weekends of the year. October 26 is the date of the next Startup Weekend in Charlottesville – also Lousiana, France, Switzerland, Brazil, Mexico and Reunion. Find more information here.

Startup Weekends are weekend-long, 54 hours of hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if startup ideas are viable. On average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees have technical backgrounds, the other half have business backgrounds.