 "Photo: Ryan Propes/The Daily Texan")
After three days of getting almost no sleep, consuming 10 gallons of coffee and polishing off four warehouse-sized cases of energy drinks, 40 UT business and engineering students produced four viable prototypes of start-up technology companies.
This weekend marked the second annual 3 Day Startup, an event in which students work together to build a proposal for a tech company in three days. The 105 students applied to spend the weekend at the Austin Technology Incubator, working on ideas to pitch to a panel of investors Sunday evening.
The judges gave feedback and identified weaknesses in the proposals.
“In terms of going forward after the weekend, some of these ideas can be spun off into companies,” said Joel Hestness, a computer sciences graduate student and one of the event’s organizers. “But that’s where the teams are going to have a lot of work to do.”
Turn2live.com, the company that began at last year’s 3 Day Startup, is still a functioning Web site. It allows users to search for live music in Austin based on their moods.
“The biggest challenge we face now is how to make money,” said Nik Daftary, the company’s CEO. “We have a plan for generating revenue, but everything last year was so theoretical that when we tried to look at applying it to the market, it just didn’t work.”
Instead of selling ad space, the company will soon release an upgraded, platinum version of the Web site that users must pay to use.
Though last year’s event focused on developing one company prototype, the 2009 group pitched and moved forward on four ideas.
“We had some people who left last year after the final idea was selected,” Hestness said. “We didn’t want that to happen again, so we just let teams split organically.”
Computer sciences graduate student Harshdeep Singh worked with a team developing an iPhone application called “Lunch!”
The program would allow iPhone users to send out lunch or coffee invitations to multiple friends at the same time without requiring a response from invitees.
“It was a good experience defending the idea in front of everybody,” Singh said. “You might have an idea and not think it through all the way, but when you pitch it, things start clearing up.”
The brainstorming session on Friday night was one of the most difficult parts of the process, said co-organizer Vanessa Castaneda.
“You get 40 of UT-Austin’s brightest in the same room, and you get them to work together to do something,” Castaneda said. “But when you get so many people who focus their lives on the theory of things, you get a lot of talking and not a lot of action.”
Computer sciences graduate student and co-organizer Thomas Finsterbusch called the event an emotional rollercoaster. He stayed at the Incubator all weekend and set up a makeshift bedroom on the floor of one of the offices after most people had gone home to grab one or two hours of sleep.
“I was the only one up and there was nobody here,” Finsterbusch said. “It was definitely kind of the low point because you have no idea what is going to happen. But it’s amazing how much we can accomplish in just three days.”
Finsterbusch said the 3 Day Startup is, overall, a great opportunity for young entrepreneurs. But given the amount of sleep the students sacrificed over the weekend, an energy drink company was an appropriate sponsor for the event.
“You could say that we’ve got wings,” Castaneda said. “Intellectual and liquid.”
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