Portland startup weekend Day 1 - PDXSW
Today is Portland Startup weekend #PDXSW day 1. Among lot of people and plenty ideas, event started. While there is lot of stuff I can talk about, I have certain focus points to make:
- Portland business accelerator: Portland business accelerator is the startup incubator initiative of Portland State University (PSU). They offer a conducive environment for budding startups! The environment provides office space, net connectivity and all you would need in a daily business day: guess what, without lease! I liked the concept very much, and something I see missing big time in Indian academia and industry in general. Some more facts: the business accelerator started in 2005, and companies that started here so far have gathered funding of 123$M (USD) and have employed close to 200 people. Some of companies which grew over time have moved in their own office, but thanks to the center, they got a platform to start on!
- The ideas presented were plenty: 81 ideas from close to 140 people. Some of interesting once, which i can recall:
- I am biased: the idea my team is working on : Poll Karma. We plan to give a users an opportunity to answer one question at a time while helping people get food fro your responses.
- HashTags: A way to monetize trending hashtags which are so often used in social media
- Edit.me: A platform to markup and get corrections on writeups/blog posts.
- A idea talked about creating a game development platform where kids can play as well develop new games
- A lady wanted to make sure that she can find a way to surf things on PInterest which she can actually buy from retail websites!
- Photo Lab: Connect normal people with professional photo editors, so people can get their photos touched up by professional editors
- The ideas presented were plenty: 81 ideas from close to 140 people. Some of interesting once, which i can recall:
The first day was a stretch from 6 in evening to well after midnight, but next 2 days are gonna be even more demanding. The startup feeling and venture has started with full energy!
More updates on day 2 and 3 later (I wrote update of day 1 on day 2 evening after coding the whole day :)