Startup Weekend Melbourne is just slightly more than 24 hours away! If you have been thinking of pitching an idea during the pitching round of the event now is probably a good time to start practicing. The pitchfire session will begin at 7.30pm on Friday night where you will get 60 seconds on the stage to pitch your idea to your fellow participants and those viewing. It may seem daunting at first but if you follow the guideline below you will be fine.

After the pitchfire session we will have a voting session where you get to vote for three of your favourite ideas that you would like to work on. We then select the top 14 teams and announce them. You will then get to find which teams you would like to join and where you can make use of your talents (everyone has talents to contribute something in a startup) may be of best use. After that your team should be assigning jobs and your game plan for the rest of the weekend. We suggest you leave by 11.30 pm at most and get some sleep.

We will open the venue up on Saturday morning at 6.30 am. You will then have till Sunday late afternoon to work on your startup. During this time you will want to do some customer validation and start looking at what the judging criteria will be(which we will post on our blog as well as in the venue).

Throughout Saturday and Sunday we will be having mentors around to help you out with your business plans or just to bounce ideas off. There will be a lot of very smart people in the room, make use of them. We will have two feedback sessions where your team will have a chance to talk to a group of mentors on where you are at and issues that you are facing.

By Sunday you should be starting to prepare for your 5 minute presentation that you will be giving in front of our panel of judges by 5pm on Sunday. Here is an example of a presentation:

We will be providing all your meals and drinks and stationary from Friday evening till Sunday evening. If you have any further questions do let any of the organizers know.

Best of luck to all!

#SWMELB Team