LAWRENCE, KAN.—About 40 miles southwest of Kansas City, you’ll find Lawrence, Kan., the home of the University of Kansas but also home to a up and coming startup community. Now, the city will celebrate another community rite of passage by hosting a Startup Weekend Sept. 26-28.
Organizers Joseph Jarvis, a startup and small business lawyer at Tallgrass Legal in Lawrence, and Beth McKeon, founder of Iowa Startup Accelerator participant Kids Calendar Network, may be spearheading Startup Weekend Lawrence but their efforts are also in support of larger group, Startup Lawrence.
The inaugural Startup Weekend Lawrence will be held at Lawrence Public Library Friday, Sept. 26 at 5 p.m. Registration for Startup Weekend Lawrence costs $75 and is open online through Sept. 22. Just want to attend Sunday’s presentations? Grab your ticket for $10.
Still not convinced? Learn a little bit more about how Startup Weekend Lawrence came about from one of the event’s organizers.
Silicon Prairie News: Tell us a little bit more about Startup Lawrence. What community need did you see that wasn’t being filled?
Joseph Jarvis: Startup Lawrence grew out of a lack of any forum for Lawrence’s startup community and those interested in startups. The University (of Kansas)’s life sciences incubator was doing interesting work with funded and sophisticated startups, but not that visible in the community. 1 Million Cups Lawrence had just launched and was struggling to find its footing between Lawrence’s “Main Street” business community and Lawrence’s handful of startups. Much of KU’s entrepreneurship programming was tied to Kansas City’s scene.
So a couple of us just started meeting monthly for a happy hour to create an informal space for local entrepreneurs to talk. We’re a very small group. But it scratches the itch that some of the town’s startup founders, software developers and business consultants have to find an empathetic ear or educate each other. At its core, Startup Lawrence is about serving each other, the local startup community trying to support itself. We organize primarily through a Facebook group.
SPN: Why was a Startup Weekend the next logical step after Startup Lawrence?
JJ: My co-organizer Beth McKeon and I spent a lot of time discussing how we could better serve startups. We toyed with a co-working space because we felt a physical space might act as a catalytic community hub. But then we remembered the hardest work of any startup is customer acquisition, and we decided to focus on community organizing—building connections and interest in startups. Startup Weekend is the perfect fit for that. We’re bringing together isolated people in the community for an intense bonding experience and they’ll hopefully walk away with more skills and excitement about what you can build with a good idea and a little strategic risk taking.
SPN: Who do you hope to have in attendance come Startup Weekend?
JJ: Startup Weekend is for everyone, all ages, all skill levels. Typically, these events have a fair number of software developers, graphic and product designers, entrepreneurs and “hustlers,” makers, marketers, electrical engineers, social media gurus, etc. Part of the excitement is seeing who turns up and what unexpected thing we can build together.
SPN: What’s one thing people may not know about the event?
JJ: A few things: Despite our proximity to Kansas City, I think Wichita’s startup community has been much more motivational to those of us in Lawrence. They’re doing really interesting things without the resources or cache that Kansas City has. At the last Startup Weekend Wichita, the winning team received free office space for a year. That was a great challenge goal for us, and we’ve come close to matching it. All the members of our winning team will receive free membership for a year to Cider Offices in Lawrence, in addition to donated legal, accounting, and printing services.
We’re also really proud of our judging panel, too—Michele Weigand, Suman Saripalli and Will Katz. Between just three people, they’ve probably evaluated over a thousand businesses. Yet they’re local to Lawrence and accessible to participants after the event.
And while most restaurants aren’t startups per se, we see lots of great entrepreneurial behavior and risk taking in Lawrence’s outsized restaurant scene. So we’ve made it a point to showcase great local restaurateurs. So come hungry and ready to work!
