Another successful Startup Weekend in Sacramento culminated last weekend as 80+ people were on hand to watch seven teams of entrepreneurs pitch their new startup ideas that they’d been working on feverishly over the previous 50 hours.

The weekend began on Friday night when anybody could stand up and pitch their idea in a rapid-fire 60 second pitch- fest. Audience voting then selected the top 10 ideas and teams coalesced over those top 10 ideas. Eventually, seven teams emerged and began working on business plans, market validation, and minimum viable products. After tirelessly working to flesh out these fledgling business ideas, each team had 5 minutes to present their idea to a panel of judges, followed by 3 minutes of Q&A from the panel.

The panel of judges for this event included a distinguished set of Sacramento business leaders:

  • Cathie Anderson, Business Columnist at The Sacramento Bee
  • Christine Folck, Program Manager at The Shop at VSP Global
  • Oleg Kaganovich, Founder and CEO at Wyndow
  • John Nogrady, CTO, Fantag
  • Eric Ullrich, Cofounder at Hacker Lab

You can see the presentations from each of the teams in the videos below:

GrowPal

CoWalk

Choosie

SmartWash

ShopTalk

OWOOP

GoHalfway

Judging of the winners was based on the following:

1. Validation:

  • Did the team get out and talk to customers?
  • Are they actually solving a problem?
  • What’s their clear value proposition to that customer?
  • Have they identified a specific target market?

2. Execution and Design:

  • Did they work well as a team?
  • Did they have an MVP or prototype (paper is ok) to present?
  • How functional was the demo?
  • Was the usability of the product easy and friendly? Design Matters!

3. Business Model:

  • Does their solution solve a core need/problem?
  • Did they present a value proposition
  • Is it unique?
  • How will they differentiate themselves from their competition (did they identify competition)?
  • What is the go-to-market/launch strategy?
  • How will they make money?
  • What is the user acquisition model?

After retiring to a room to deliberate, the panel of judges returned and the winning teams were announced.

1st Place Team

Go Half Way

2nd Place Team & Crowd Favorite

Choosie

3rd Place Team

GrowPal

Congratulations to all the teams who participated, the judges, mentors, and coaches, as well as the sponsors for making this Startup Weekend Sacramento such a successful event!