We would also like to thank all the sponsors, judges, coaches, volunteers and organizers for pulling of an amazing event.

Here is a list of the winning teams:

1st Place 

-RoadAngels

2nd Place

-StageLabel

3rd Place

-Codeine.io

Best Hustler Award

-Hint

Most Valuable Participant (crowd voted)

-Rob Skilington

Look out for a post event coming soon!

#SWMELB Team

With and event of this scale there are a whole heap of people working on things and many in the background that contributed to such an amazing event. First I’d like to thank our local sponsors Optus, Xero, Flippa, Amazon Web Services, DesignCrowd, and not to forget York Butter Factory for allowing us to make their awesome space our home for the weekend. They not only provided significant finances to run the event but also dedication and volunteering their time.

I’d also like to give a shout out to Darcy Naunton, Co-organizer of Startup Weekend Melbourne. Without his efforts in securing the great list of mentors and judges, we would have not had such talented and dedicated bunch of people to give advice and guidance to the teams.

Next up is the talented bunch of mentors and judges who helped out to nurture the teams and provide support all throughout the weekend.  Hopefully everyone got to meet few inspiring people during the weekend.

We wish you the best of luck on your future and your startups. Please stay in touch by joining our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter to find out more about our follow up events and resources to help you grow in the startup ecosystem.

Do not hesitate to reach out to us for any questions or help and we will do our best to assist you. Please direct your questions to dineshgeorge@startupweekend.org

#SWMELB Team

Here are the winners:

Best use of Cloud services by Amazon Web Services, $500 of AWS credits

-CornerStorage

Twitter competition by Amazon Web Services, Amazon Kindle Fire

-Frances Goh

Twitter Competition by Optus, Samsung Galaxy S3

-Ed Hooper

Most Innovative and Disruptive  by Optus, Samsung Galaxy Tab

-Tramsurance

Best Mentor (participant voted) by Optus, Samsung Galaxy S3

-Mike Casey

Runner up for #SWMELB by Optus, 2 months co-working space in “The Fridge”

- Donatify

Winner of #SWMELB by Optus, $5000

-CornerStorage

Best of luck to everyone and thank you.

Be sure to jump on our Facebook page to stay in to loop of our follow up events and future events as well as pictures from the weekend. While you are at that follow us on Twitter too.

#SWMELB Team

1. EXECUTION
Execution is what you and your team have accomplished over the weekend. Whether pitching to a jury or investors, execution is what proves you and your team are capable of following through on a great idea. Make sure you highlight what you’ve accomplished over the weekend.

2. PRESENTATION
Watching over an hour’s worth of straight pitches can be tiring. As you may have noticed on Friday, those ideas that received the most votes tended to be the ideas that were pitched in the most exciting/interesting way. Be creative, enthusiastic and for better or worse, try to make sure the jury and audience will remember your presentation.

3. VIABILITY
This category is down to the basics. Can and will your Startup make money? Is your business model viable? Have you taken into consideration your competitors and how the changing market might disrupt your plans? An exciting, disruptive idea is one thing, but if that idea can’t sustain itself, it’s not worth much. Make sure to show that you’ve taken into consideration all the factors that might impact your Startup’s success – this will show the jury you mean business.

4. INNOVATION
This is all about the X factor. Opening a lemonade stand on a hot day might be a guaranteed way to make a few bucks, but it sure won’t get you rich. Emphasize how your Startup concept is unique and disruptive, not just another lemonade stand.

5. BREAKTHROUGH
And finally, the cliche criteria: does your Startup have the potential to become the next Facebook or Google? Will you hit one million users in 1 year?

Aside from keeping in mind these basic guidelines, a few other tips to make sure everything goes well:

REHEARSE
Be sure to practice your full presentation at least three times with a timer beforehand. Set timed cues at various speaking points.

TECH CHECK
If you don’t do a tech check beforehand (with the laptop you’ll be using for the presentation), YOU WILL FAIL. Save your sites locally because the internet WILL GO DOWN. But don’t stress 

Good luck,
#SWMELB Crew.

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

We are very proud to have such a passionate community supporting the petition for greater diversity and access for people to exercise their entrepreneurial curiosity. Startup Weekend is a vehicle to advance the entrepreneurial ecosystem and to provide a great focus for our collective energy – the more we all get engaged in community the more opportunities we have to make a big difference in the world!

For those who didn’t see the petition, here is our response:

Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures.  We see that diversity in the startup community both in Australia and worldwide as a key attribute to success.

The list on the website is not a final list, and is still being updated. We have reached out to a wide group of potential mentors and judges, and are updating the website based on availability of the individuals that are willing to contribute their time to the event.

Startup Weekend is a non-profit organisation, and in Australia is run by volunteers that are passionate about advancing entrepreneurship.  As it grows, our network reach grows, and it will allow us to achieve wider access and greater diversity of participants – forming a vibrant community.

We could not run the events that we do without the support of our volunteers – be they organisers, coaches, judges and speakers – equally we could not do it without the generous support of our sponsors.

We welcome your support in identifying and securing great people, male and female, who can help us advance Startup Weekend events in Australia.

Please forward your suggestions to us and help us to deliver the best event yet:  dineshgeorge@startupweekend.org

Location: York Butter Factory, 62-66 King St, Melbourne 3000

Time: 6pm till late

Date: Friday, 8/6/2012

RSVP now by clicking here. 

Check out the highlights video from Startup Weekend in Sydney.

Let’s make it bigger in Melbourne!

Tickets are already on sale. Click here to get your’s today.

#swmelb team

JFDI incubator award: PrintMyLife