#StartupWeekend: And the Winner is

Calling all aspiring entrepreneurs, idea chasers, and career changers; this one is for you! In the city that excites ambition, determination, and a thirst for innovation has brought attention to Verizon’s New York City co-working space, Grind, to kick-off Startup Weekend. Startup Weekend, a three day event that serves as a gateway to startup communities in over 1000 cities worldwide, brings the opportunity to take an idea from concept to creation in just 54 hours. Yes, you heard right, in less than three days your idea is transformed from the drawing board to reality! Startup Weekend hosts between four to six events annually which focus on various verticals; most recently the subject matter was music technology.

The weekend went off without a hitch, where keynote speaker Joe Belliotti, Head of Global Marketing for Coca-Cola’s music division set the tone Friday night. The room was filled with nerves, excitement and an overwhelming energy of individuals with an undying urge to create the next best thing in music. Sixty-second pitches quickly capitalized on over 30 ideas on how to tackle the dilemmas that musicians, music enthusiasts, producers, and the music industry as a whole faces today. What followed was organized chaos, a frenzy of creativity and inspiration; all while participants roamed the open space and formed teams for the following days of this Startup Weekend. Of course, RAINE couldn't miss out on the opportunity to capture every thought provoking moment of the thrilling chain of events, alongside Sony Music.The next morning, teams arrived at 9am sharp as time was of the essence to get to work and produce something great. Their objective: to define and validate the problem and develop a minimum viable product (or an MVP); in other words, version one of the product that will deliver just enough features to tackle that problem. In many cases, this meant refining or even redefining the issue and pivoting several times on a solution.

With great ideas and success, come even greater failures and obstacles, such as: struggle to pinpoint the problem, discovering a different or new problem, merging ideas, developing a viable and profitable business model around the problem….real-life challenges that all entrepreneurs encounter. In an effort to defuse some of these obstacles, twenty-seven mentors lent their expertise in business development, product development, design, marketing and finance. Many mentors have had firsthand experience and knowledge founding their own startups within the music industry. Teams also had access to create workshops on Slack, a workplace communication platform as well as Safari, an online research platform courtesy of O’Reilly.

All work and no play makes for a dull day. Participants ceased the opportunity to pose for professional headshots and team photos sporting Startup Weekend t-shirts, beaded necklaces and blow-up electric guitars. Who said a little fun couldn’t build up a healthy and creatively buzzing appetite. Before dinner, a special production by ChocoJazz wowed the crowd with a live 10 minute edible art and improv- jazz show. The day was long but the night was young. As the venue closed, many teams went on to work elsewhere, not allowing their momentum to fizzle out until the next and final morning.

The final day of this jam packed weekend had finally arrived. It was demo day – only eight hours until presenting to a panel of high-profile judges which boasted influencers from Coke Music, Sony Music, Atlantic Records, Techstars, B Music Group, and Blank Label Records; no pressure. Each team worked with experienced coaches to rehearse their pitch and by 4:30pm, guests began to arrive. The pressure was on and the same enthusiastic nerves from day one quickly returned. The teams received five minutes to pitch and five minutes to answer judges’ questions. Witnessing the transformation was incredible - in just one weekend, twelve teams, most of whom were complete strangers when they started their journey, stumbled, failed, pulled through and delivered. Proud and perhaps a bit relieved, everyone mingled over dinner and live jazz while the judges reached their final decision.

After a bit of a wind down over dinner and music the anticipation began to build once again as teams anxiously awaited at the edge of their seats for the winner to be announced. Before announcing the winners, the event facilitator, Roger Osorio reminded everyone about the true spirit of Startup Weekend which is less about the outcome and more about the growth by failing, finding like-minded people and experiencing the ups and downs of building a business together. And the winners are…First to be recognized was a group of local high school students from P-Tech, an early college program that provides underserved communities with an experiential, tech centered curriculum. The students were able to attend through a sponsorship from IBM.In First Place: Met with a truly surprised reaction from OPUS, an online booking platform for musicians to find gigs in trusted venues.In Second Place: Rift, a tool for listeners to change the spatial location of instruments and be able to listen to music from different perspectives.

In Third Place: DJenkins, a team of NYU exchange students from Singapore who created a chatbot for music discovery.In effort to cease the moment one last group selfie capped the night, and just like that, Startup Weekend came to a close. Everyone was exhausted, but in the best way possible as many were in no rush to leave - the sign of a successful event.The next Startup Weekend will take place in 2017, where the focus will on the fashion industry. Keep current and follow Startup Weekend on Facebook, Twitter, and don’t forget to join the Meetup group. Once again, congratulations to all twelve participating teams; special congratulations to all the winners you are truly RAINE-Makers.