h/t Portland, Maine SW for curating these resources! Collaboration FTW!

This event locally powered by...

START WITH THE BASICS:

 How to Kick Ass at a Startup Weekend: 5 Tools to Build a Winning Product. (Because we are all here to kick ass, RIGHT?)

STARTUP WEEKEND PITCH RESOURCES:

Friday night (60-second pitches) should include the following:

1. Snapshot/Overview
2. Problem & Why Now
3. Solution
4. Market
5. Revenue Model

•  “Tell Your Story in 60 Seconds” (Entrepreneur Magazine)
• Mark Suster, “How To Run More Effective Presentations and Get Better Results“- useful, extensive discussion of understanding the personalities of who you are presenting to, and how to adapt.
• Quora, “What Should Be In A Pitch Deck” – ranked answers (need to join first, but it’s free)
• Marty Zwillig, “10 Funding Quotes Every Entrepreneur Should Skip“
• Mark Suster, “The Importance of the Narrative“
• Guy Kawasaki, “Raising Money: What To Say And What Not To Believe“- links to pitch/business plan templates in Powerpoint, Word and Excel plus his list of ten lies by entrepreneurs, and ten lies by investors.
• Ryan Spoon, “How to Create An Early Stage Pitch Deck” – on Slideshare
• INC, “How To Write A Better Elevator Pitch“
• Sample Pitch Decks:

  • Youphonics (16 slides, angel round raise)
  • Mint.com(pre-launch, post-initial financing)
  • Tipfrom.Me (simple visuals tell the story)
  • Everest (online NOT Powerpoint)

   

SUNDAY NIGHT JUDGING CRITERIA

Sunday night’s presentations are 5 minutes and include slides or video demonstrations. Universal Startup Weekend judging criteria is broken up into three sections. Teams are judged according to the following 3 criteria (weighed equally):

Business Model:
 The heart of it all. If you haven’t got answers to these questions, you’ve spent too much time on frills & features and need to get back to the basics:

Who is your customer?

What is your core value proposition?

What are your key activities?

What are your revenue streams?

What is your cost structure?

Who/what are your key partners/resources?

What are your distribution channels?

What is your rollout strategy?

Customer Validation:
 Have you taken the proper steps to ensure that the people who matter (your future customers) support and reinforce your assumptions? Think of Customer Validation as ‘evidence’ to back up the core structure of your ‘theory’ (your Business Model). The more feedback you gather (quantity), the more this feedback comes from your specific target market (quality), and the more you’re able to actually integrate this feedback into the Business Model and product development (execution), the better.

Execution: 
The nitty gritty: what has your team been able to actually build over the weekend? Even the strongest of Business Plans are useless in the hands of those who can’t properly execute on them. Getting as far as possible in the development of your product/prototype not only helps give Judges a tangible vision of what the final product could be, but proves your strength and skills as a team. This is what truly matters: investors don’t invest as in ideas so much as teams.

SUGGESTED ONLINE RESOURCES

Global Startup Battle - From the team at Global Startup Battle, resources to learn all about the prizes and the competition!

Don't miss out on the almost two dozen offers for attendees. These discounts are worth thousands! Take advantage of them!

Make sure to get your .co domain and all the Amazon Web Services. Codes to redeem these resources will come out in  your Saturday Morning Email Blast

  Startup Weekend Resources - from the smart folks at Startup Weekend headquarters comes this comprehensive list of resources covering helpful apps, market research, keyword research, traffic research, presentation tools, finances, web hosting and much more.  Definitely worth taking the time to become familiar with  these resources before the big weekend!

PickFu.com Survey Tool to get feedback on marketing presentation. Coupon code will be in your Saturday Morning email blast!

Steve Blank Startup Tools – an amazing list from Silicon Valley’s #1 entrepreneurship educator. Scroll down to find resources for Website Domain Names, Create  Websites, Surveys, Product Launch Tools and much more.