Social game Pijjin took home first place at the eighth Startup Weekend Kansas City.
The eighth Startup Weekend Kansas City was anything but “for the birds.” On the contrary, an avian endeavor took top marks at the weekend-long event.
A social game called Pijjin—where players help lost “pijjins” find their way home—took first place after the competition’s final presentations on Sunday Nov. 17 at Kansas City Community College.
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“The idea sprung from the concept of being able to create a digital object that you can only find with your phone and then being able to move it,” Tim Bergerhofer, one of Pijjin’s team members, told Silicon Prairie News. “I started with the name Pijjin and we just kept playing on the concept until we found workable game dynamics.”
The five-person team was comprised of Bergerhofer, Bryan Baumgart, Jacob Sewell, Sheldon Gabriel and Evan Sailer. Bergerhofer said the team will continue to develop its product and aims for a spring 2014 launch.
The event was Bergerhofer’s second Startup Weekend and he said he was amazed by how much he and his team were able to accomplish in just 54 hours.
“My biggest takeaway from the event was to start somewhere and keep making it better,” he said. “Don’t be paralyzed by all of the options of what could be. Make something now. Make it better tomorrow.”
Along with the bragging rights that come from winning a Startup Weekend, Pijjin received six months access to Xero’s cloud-based accounting software from The Emerging Business CFO, three months of unlimited drop-ins at Think Big Partners’ co-working space, business formation assistance from Vomer, three hours of consulting from CremaLab, one hour of consulting from The Emerging Business CFO and a launch party at Snow & Co. The team also will move on to be part of Startup Weekend’s Global Startup Battle.
Thirteen teams— formed after the 36 ideas pitched on Friday evening—competed in the weekend-long event and presented their products in front of a panel of judges and audience of community members. Judges for the eighth iteration of the event included Digital Sandbox director Jeff Shackelford, Jill Meyer from the University of Missouri Kansas City, Blake Miller of Think Big Partners and Tim Barnes of RightNow Technologies.
Second place went to the EqueSmart team, who built a racehorse database they dubbed “Carfax for horses.” The team received 10 total drop-in days and two 2-hour meeting room uses at Think Big Partners, one hour of consulting from CremaLab and one hour of consulting from The Emerging Business CFO.
Photo-dating mobile app Pearing took third, and received 10 total drop-in days, two 2-hour meeting room uses at Think Big Partners and one hour of consulting from The Emerging Business CFO. Startup Weekend KC’s crowd favorite was Harp Health, a service that connects first responders to doctors with video conferencing using Google Glass. The Harp Health team received a coffee meeting with an unnamed VIP.
Credits: Event photo from Twitter.
