Startup Weekend Trinidad Day 1: From Ideas, Through Voting, into Working Teams

Day 1 of Startup Weekend Trinidad held at the University of the West Indies St Augustine, kicked off with 175 people attending with 117 registered to pitch,form teams and build things. One of the highlights was the Keynote speech by Kama Maharaj CEO and Founder of Sacha Cosmetics. He was funny, real, with great quotes to share with the event attendees.

One of the poignant and memorable pieces of advice to the aspiring entrepreneurs was this- ” People buy benefits not features. Your product must solve a pain or offer a delight.”-Kama Maharaj Sacha Cosmetics.#swtt

After the keynote, welcomes and Warm up Exercises, then there was the Call for Pitches and there was a line!

First Came the Idea Pitches. There were 57 of them.  

The Line and Wait to Pitch their Best Idea. #swtt

From the 117 registered participants came 57 idea pitches. Each got 60 seconds to pitch their ideas, say what resources they need- whether it’s a designer, developer, marketer or business development person, investor.

The Pitchlist. A snapshot of the Ideas pitched on Day 1 of Startup Weekend.

Snapshot of the PitchList

As people pitched their ideas, a pitchlist was built on spot and projected on the big screen in the room.

Then Came the Canvassing for Votes. Final Ideas Selected.

The Voting Board. Each Post it Represented a single vote. #swtt

After all the pitches are heard, there were 57 of them – the pitchers then go about canvassing votes from other attendees. They networking with attendees and pitch to them one on one why they should get their vote.

Individuals pitching others to vote for their idea. #swtt

The ideas that wins with most votes, are then selected an they will go on to spend the rest of the time building their product. People’s ideas that didn’t make the finals are free to join other teams to immerse themselves in the Startup Weekend experience.

The Ideas with the Most Votes are announced. The people who pitched them are called to stand in front of the audience.

The Selected: The Ideas with The Most Votes, Move on to Form Teams and build

The people with the ideas that made it to the final now must start formalising a team, take an inventory of skills, be honest, and direct about what resources and skills needed for the product and get to work.

For the rest of Day one until 8pm officially but until whatever time the teams want to work on.

Now for some Team Work! A few teams used the Business Model Generation Canvas . http://bit.ly/1a7JMHa #swtt

On Day 2: All Teams go deep in building out their MVPs…Minimum Viable Product. Now this is where smart TeamWork comes into play. You can follow @SiliconCaribe on Twitter, also @swtrinidad with the hastag #swtt.  Look out for Startup Weekend Jamaica. Dates will be announced with the  next 10days.