Startup Weekend Iowa City is partnering with Techstars Iowa to bring back the 54-hour event in a new, virtual format next month. During the weekend-long event, entrepreneurs, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more will pitch ideas for new startup companies, form teams around those ideas, and then deliver final presentations at the end of the weekend.
The online event will kick off at 6 pm on Friday, April 23. Participants will get up and pitch their idea on Friday evening and try to form teams around their ideas. Throughout the weekend, teams will then work on their ideas and will have the opportunity to meet with mentors on Saturday afternoon.
“Since we weren’t able to have Startup Weekend Iowa City this past year because of COVID, we wanted to do something to bring it back again for 2021,” said Jay Cooper, organizer of the event.
On Sunday, teams will present their final pitches at 4 pm via live stream. The final pitches will be free and open for anyone who would like to attend.
“It will definitely feel different than the in-person events where you have that energy of everyone in the room together,” said Cooper. “But we will be utilizing a lot of technology that people have been using now pretty frequently for the last year. So it won’t be terribly difficult for folks to form teams and really get things going during the weekend.”
Cooper says he hopes to have between 50 and 100 people sign up for the event.
“We’re going to be using software that a lot of people are using already,” said Cooper. “We’re going to be using Slack and Discord as a way for teams to form leading up to the weekend itself and then also use those platforms to communicate between teams so mentors can come in. The actual beginning and end of the Startup Weekend will be live streaming so that folks can do their pitches in front of a virtual audience.”
Registration for the event is free and now open.
