Lexington Startup Weekend

Pizza, Taco’s, Baha Blasts were consumed…but work got done as well.

The Holowyn team is still in stealth mode…like ninjas.  They made progress, but if they told you about it, they’d have to kill you. 

Pants is Bad has succesfully created a new page on their site to allow local bikers to submit and then vote on T-Shirt slogan ideas.  Follow them (and vote for your favorite slogan) on Twitter:  @LexingtonBikeT

Also, to raise money for the iBall (a black tie formal event for geeks) Pants is Bad will be selling twitter trucker hats that will facilitate the geek community in Lexington.  Think of it like a nametag on your forehead.

Underbeard.com is officially alive and well.  Thanks to the Steve, a guy we randomly met in the parking lot downtown, and Todd, one of the founders of Collexion (and a indeed a hardcore geek as well), we have our first two submissions.  Have a beard and want to share what’s behind it?  Send before and after pictures to underbeard@gmail.com

istaskdone.com is a ruby application that creates a website to keep track of your task (yes, just one task…because you can’t do more thing than one thing at a time anyway).  Turn this into your homepage so that you make sure to be reminded of what you need to be doing instead of digg, twitter, facebook, pissyourlifeaway.com, etc.

Rockstar Association - now has everything set up for tomorrow’s jam session at Awesome Inc. and the flyer has been designed for the first official “Band for a Day” on the 20th of this month.

This is Lexington, KY signing off.  Puerto Rico, University of Miami, Vienna, Boulder, Holden Beach - it was a pleasure to share in the startup community, activity, and energy across the world with you!  Keep it up!

Awesome Inc. the co-sponsor of Startup Saturday Lexington just bought some pizza from Mellow Mushroom…the wheels of startup industry came to a grinding halt and everyone is talking shop and ideas…wahoo!

After talking about Arduino’s, IRL tags, and a pickup artist symposium for girls…Lexington has finally settled into the freezer turned coworking space known as Collexion to get some work done.  Pants is bad, an existing ” podcast, blog thingy” has added crowdsourcing clothing for bicyclists….think Threadless for the cycling community making a statement to the rush hour crowd surrounding them.

Holwyn is back again, the original Lexington Startup Weekend team has reunited to keep working on their website for promoting and finding small local bands.

Underbeard.com - even when a bearded man is naked, the underside of his beard remains hidden…until now.  This funny website blog features before and after photos of bearded men and what lies underneath.

The Rockstar Association a group from the SW Lexington 2, has reunited and is putting together a series of weekly jam sessions for local musicians.  They are also scheduling “Band for a Day” - think Startup Weekend for musicians.

…..other subprojects are forming, so updates will follow.  Here’s a few of the Lexingtonians hard at work:

Lexington is hosting a Startup Weekend Saturday. The event will be on Saturday, June 6th at Collexion - 941 Manchester St, Lexington, KY. The event will be a Mini-Startup Weekend event where developers, designers, and business developers can get together and work on their ideas. Participants are welcome to work on previous Startup Weekend ideas or get a fresh start on new ideas.  Please rsvp at: http://swlex6-09.eventbrite.com

Breakfast and Lunch will be provided for free thanks to our sponsors:

After over a dozen hours, plenty of collaboration, conversation, ideation, and domination…SW Lex reunion is calling it a day.  Unlike the original SW Lex most of the ideas that started the event stayed alive throughout its entirety.

The Awesomecast - Bob recorded the first Awesomecast episode here at the space and interviewed the SW Lex Reunion event organizer, Blake Hall, for next week’s podcast.

The Rockstar Association - After leveraging all the social media tools and planning, Rockstar Association’s first “Band for a Day” event will launch mid-april.

Newtter - New appi functionality, RSS updates - done.

Also a big thanks to Morgan Siler, of Modern Single Momma for her presentation on strategies of how to use Twitter to strengthen your own brand and that of your company.

Thanks for everyone that participated and I look forward to seeing these projects grow.  Lexington was proud to be part of Startup Weekend World too.  Best of luck to all the teams that will be finishing their projects up tomorrow!

After talking through ideas like super simple cooking sites, an iphone app that identifies the carriers of all your contacts (so you know who is in your network and who’s out of it….and costing you money to talk to) and boogerawareness.com (don’t ask), Lexington has settled into a couple new ideas and one old one:

The Awesomecast - a podcast about technology, creativity, and startups…basically about the events that go on within Awesome Inc’s Awesome Space, but isn’t necessarily limited to things going on in the Space itself.  It will be run by Bob Babcock of Appcast fame….and he does aerospace engineering to pay the bills.

The Rockstar Association - a community of musicians that focuses on getting together and jamming…but with the expectation that they’ll have a finished song at the end that they’ll perform for the group.  Think Startup Weekend, for music, in less than two and a half days.

Newtter - Tweet the news.  Newtter leverages twitter to create a real time reporting platform for citizen journalism. Report breaking news as you witness it in real time. Follow your local feed to know what is happening in your area as it happens.  This is a group from the original Lexington Startup Weekend…back in the saddle.

So there you go.  We’ll definitely be seeing more action as the day progresses.

Hey! Hopefully by now you haven’t forgotten the amazing experience of
Startup Weekend Lexington. How would you like to meet back up with everyone?
See how everyone is doing, continue working on your project, or even start a
completely new one! Well that’s what is happening Saturday April 4th from
8am to 10pm. We are having a Startup Weekend Reunion at 348 East Main St. It
will be $5 per person to cover food and drinks. So come on out and bring
anyone that you think will be interested!  You don’t need to be an original Startup Weekend - Lexington participant to attend.

RSVP & Pay here:

http://swlexreunion.eventbrite.com

Questions?
Email the event organizer:
Blake Hall - blake.hall@uky.edu

Summary:
WHAT: Startup Weekend Reunion
DATE: Saturday, April 4th
TIME: 8a-10p (or whenever you feel like coming)
LOCATION: 348 E. Main
PRICE: $5 (covers food and drinks)

Several of the SW Lex teams have met since the event finished a little over a month ago.  This is really what we hoped to see - great connections made over the weekend and lasting relationships (and hopefully even some successful projects) going forward.  My team, The Dream Fear Project met a few weeks ago and will be connecting again in early January.  

Let us know how your team is going in the comments section and what the organizers (Richard, Brian, & Luke) can do to help.

We will be sure to have a follow-up SW event of some kind sometime in the spring.  Ideally we could pull together the communities of Lexington’s SW, Cincinnati’s “In One Weekend” event (homegrown SW-style event held last summer), and a Louisville followup event (if they end up having their own SW-like event in February or March).

Presentations are over, the White Hall building is no longer Startup Weekend Central.  During the weekend, the following projects were worked on.

 
Holwyn helps you find and promote local live music events.

 http://holwyn.com

Career Answers offers recorded interview questions and answers to help you nail that interview.

Interest in Giving is developing a plan to fund small business in Appalachia.

Newtter is a service that delivers headline news from twitter, showing where it came from and whom.

Meet2serve is creating an all in one volunteering management system for organizations to use as well as a social networking site (including Facebook Applications) for volunteers to join and meet people through service.

Uvestor demoed a mobile app built on the Yahoo platform that links to MLS listings, but gives more information than anything else currently available. Look for a broader site launch with more tools in 2009.

MycroAid was formed to help students with small loans for educational purposes.

The Dream Fear Project is a place online for people to share their hopes and fears in order to show us all that we’re really not that different.

Wildcat Showdown switched course from looking to find an old theater to host gaming in, to a weekend video game tournament to be held at University Of Kentucky this spring.

Paddle in the Stone is a prank to be pulled on rafters and kayakers

This weekend I have several searches running Startup Weekend Lexington, Startup Weekend Athens and plain Startup Weekend.

In addition, many of the attendees are all twittered up:

• Jeremy Tanner
• Richard Stump
• Todd Willey
• Nick Warner
• Blake Hall
• Justin Raney
• Leslie Hensley
• Charles Rowe
• Brian Raney
• Luke Murray

If you’re at the weekend or want the attention of the group, try tagging your tweet #swlex 

If I missed you, either comment below or update the Grouplist and I’ll add you into the post.