Dublin Startup Weekend hopes to inspire entrepreneurs

The fourth Dublin-based Start-up Weekend will bring 120 budding entrepreneurs together tomorrow in the hope of creating a viable company following three days of intensive brainstorming.

The concept comes from the Seattle-based non-profit organisation of the same name, which spawned more than 400 such events in 100 countries in 2011.

Its model is simple and uniform across the world: would-be business developers pitch their ideas and receive feedback and support from peers and mentors. The best ideas are selected and teams are formed with the intention of developing a workable model.

"The idea is to launch a start-up in 54 hours. They work over the entire weekend and, on Sunday night, they pitch to a panel of judges," explains co-organiser Keith Reid.

Mentoring
The winning idea will be determined on the basis of a number of criteria, including scalability, customer base and website prototype design.

“We wanted to aim to have 40 people from a non-tech background, 40 from design and 40 from technical,” says Mr Reid.

“A lot of people go not to just work on their own idea but to gain experience working on start-ups with other people. They will get mentoring from people who have started their own start-ups.”

This year's judges, who will examine the team projects on Sunday night, include technology investor Barry O'Sullivan, Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave, Story Toys chief executive Barry O'Neill, Eamon Leonard of Engine Yard and Gene Murphy of Redeem &Get.

The event will take place at Google’s offices in Dublin, with remaining tickets for participants selling for between €55 and €70.

“I think the [start-up sector] is strengthening with the limited employment opportunities in the country,” said Mr Reid.

“A lot of students are now looking to set up and we have seen a lot of success stories around the world.”