Omaha Code School was packed last weekend as over 100 people gathered to develop and pitch startup ideas from scratch for Startup Weekend Nebraska. Many of the participants were students from Creighton, UNO, Metro, and UNL.
The previous facilitators, Corey Spitzer and Joe Evans, handed over Startup Weekend over to Shane Reiser, but he had not got around to doing another one until this year.
“It’s been two and half years since we did one,” said Reiser, one of the event’s main facilitators, “so I think there was pent up demand.”
Thanks to our sponsor
This year 20 teams pitched 54 ideas, in contrast to 8 teams from the previous event.
In 2012 the event was held at the Mastercraft. This year Sumeet Jain and Beth Haubert hosted the event inside the Omaha Code School.
“The space had a really great vibe,” said Reiser.
Reiser attributes the success of the event to the many community sponsors and supporters that brought in a diverse group of talent.
Even the signature sponsor, Cox Business, participated. Julie Minton, a marketing manager at Cox, joined a team and was involved the entire weekend.
“That’s really incredible for a sponsor to do that,” said Reiser.
By the final pitches on Sunday evening, some teams already had working prototypes and customers. First Place went to Babysteps, an automated baby book service.
Other winners included:
- Haus – a box for everything you need after a move (The team also blogged about their experience.)
- Tap’d – an automated time tracker for developers
- BE Faithful – an interactive game to keep kids engaged at church
- Wildflier – a tool for helping companies get referrals through sharable before/after landing pages
