Congratulations to the Winning Teams of Startup Weekend DC!
Wow, was last weekend ever an event-filled one! From a great talk by Eric Koester, co-founder of Zaarly, to kick things off on Friday night to our panel of startup experts who stopped by to listen to presentations on Sunday, the attendees of SW DC were busy!
We’d like to say a huge thank you to all of the event sponsors–both local and global–for their support of entrepreneurs here in DC and around the world. We’d also like to thank the companies who provided the SW DC winning teams with such awesome prizes.
So, without further ado, the winners of Startup Weekend DC:
1st Place: Weekly Eats
Description: Build a healthy, easy and cheap weekly meal planner for young, recent college grads
URL: getweeklyeats.com
2nd Place: Encore
Description: Software as a service for non-profits and donors to share, collaborate, and show impact
URL: encorehq.com
3rd Place: Shake On It
Description: Make handshakes more meaningful than ever!
URL: shake.ly
Popular Vote: Hitch A Trip
Description: We’re bringing hitchhiking back
A huge congratulations to each of the winning teams. Weekly Eats is currently participating in Startup Weekend’s own Global Startup Battle. Head over to the voting page, check out the videos, and show your support to your favorite startup idea. Vote now!
Meet the Teams!
Dinner isn’t too far away at Startup Weekend DC and with the sun setting the teams are feeling the pressure. In true Startup Weekend fashion, we’re expecting some pivots between now and presentations tomorrow but for the moment, here’s a look at the teams who are furiously building.
1. Trips Ole
Description: Making it easy for teachers to choose safe, reliable, more effective learning experiences with the confidences of our community recommendations.
URL: tripsole.com
2. BrailleBot
Description: e publishing for kids with print disabilities – software technology pre-existed on the mashupapp (themashupapp.com)
3. Shake on It
Description: Make handshakes more meaningful than ever!
URL: shake.ly
4. Weekly Eats
Description: Build a healthy, easy and cheap weekly meal planner for young, recent college grads
URL: getweeklyeats.com
5. EventStir
Description: Allow individual users to create/fund unique events that use crowd-sourcing.
URL: eventstir.org
6. Epic Tripper
Description: Allow people to come together and discover common epic trip ideas, plan them out, and go do them. Realize your epic trip dream.
7. CrateZero.com
Description: Crate Zero simplifies and improves your ability to manage logistics.
URL: cratezero.com
Twitter: @charlesplanck
8. TwelfthFan
Description: Where fans hang out.
URL: twelfthfan.com
Twitter: @twelfthfan
9. Kairos
Description: Virtual tours evoking emotional reactions allowing people to see, hear, and feel the historical relevance of the places they visit using tablet/smartphone technology.
URL: kariosapp.com
10. Encore
Description: Software as a service for non-profits and donors to share, collaborate, and show impact
URL: encorehq.com
11. BrewNome
Description: website and mobile app that recommends new beers and wines based on their genetic code. Pandora for beer and wine (recommendations).
URL: brewnome.com
12. Hitchatrip
Description: we’re bringing hitchhiking back
URL: hitchatrip.com
Twitter: @hitchatrip
13. Perfect Gift
Description: Ease of mind and ease of time. The perfectgift takes the stress out of gift giving
14. GreenToDew
Description: One-stop shop for expert info and purchasing green products. where customers can find sortable info on where to buy specific green products, materials/ingreditents contains, where it’s produced, certifications.
URL: greentodew.com
Twitter: @greentodew
15. Craig’s Network
Description: more user-friendly craigslist that processes payments with a social networking capability
16. Feastly
Description: Air b’n’b of dining services
URL: eatfeastly.com
Twitter: @eatfeastly
17. LoyalCurve
Description: Loyal Curve is a customer loyalty platform for small merchants
URL: loyalcurve.com
Twitter: @loyalcurve
The Final Stretch
It’s now less than 24 hours until Friday pitches kick-off and you embark on conceiving, validating, and building your business at Startup Weekend. We hope you are as excited about Friday night as we are because there will be nearly 100 participants!
While we are busy making the final preparations, such as coordinating mentors, judges, sponsors, and food vendors, here are a few things you can do to pass time:
1. Get Inspired
Inc. Magazine published a story recently about the 5 biggest successful companies that have come out of Startup Weekends: Zaarly, TripLingo, Foodspotting, Planely, and Giant Thinkwell. The article has some background on the founders and lessons learned.
2. Brush up on Lean Methodology
One of the keys to victory in Startup Weekend is validating as much of your idea as possible. If you don’t know what validation & “getting out of the building” mean, then watch this short summary of the lean startup methodology. After that, take a look at the business model canvas or its cousin the lean startup canvas, which will help you write out all of your assumptions to be validated. Finally, read over this proposed schedule of validation tasks to help you manage
3. Get some rest
You’ll have more to do than you can accomplish in 54 hours. You’ll need every minute. Be well rested. Hydrate, pop some vitamins, and get some sleep coming into Friday night. Your body and your team will thank you when you execute and then some in clutch moments.
You ready? Then bring it.
Taking the Long View with Your Small Business
*** There is an easter egg in this post. Read carefully ***
Hey all, today we have a special guest post from Bizfilings here to give you some helpful advice on preparing your startup for the long haul! Read on…
Taking the long view is a key ingredient to the long-term success of any business. But as a start-up company, you may find yourself focusing on getting up and running instead of looking at the future. A key element in long-term success is taking a look at how your products and services will evolve, as well as keeping an eye on the competition.
But there’s another facet to your small business that needs attention: business formation — often referred to as incorporation. Today, we’ll overview two types of business formations — Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) and S corporations (S corps). We’ll focus on your company’s long-term vision, and how your decisions regarding business formation can affect you — both personally and professionally. Let’s start off at the beginning …
Forming a Sole Proprietorship or General Partnership
If you’re a one man or one woman operation, your company instantly becomes a sole proprietorship as soon as you make revenue. The same is true if you’re a general partnership, which is a company that has more than one owner.
The Benefits: In both instances, your company can conduct business, make a profit, deduct expenses and file your business tax return as part of your personal return.
The Downside: The greatest pitfall to running a business as a sole proprietorship or general partnership is that you have no limited liability protection.
What is Limited Liability Protection?
In a nutshell, limited liability protection shields a business owner against being held personally responsible for their company’s debts and liabilities. With limited liability protection, creditors cannot pursue the personal assets (home, savings, etc.) of the business owner to pay off business debts.
As a sole proprietorship or general partnership, owners and their business are legally considered the same — leaving personal assets vulnerable.
Since this is obviously not a good thing, what’s a small business owner to do? Well, if you missed early bird registration, you can reduce the price of a ticket by $25 by typing “BizFilings” where appropriate. Continuing on…two of the most popular options are forming a Limited Liability Company (LLC), or an S corporation (S corp).
What is a Limited Liability Company (LLC)?
As the name implies, when you form an LLC, your company enjoys limited liability protection. This is the most popular business formation choice for small businesses owners because of its ease of operation and the fact that it is relatively inexpensive to form.
Other benefits include limited compliance requirements and a flexible management structure, as compared to S corp and C corp formations.
Over time, you might find that the next logical step in the progression of your business is to elect S corp status for your LLC. The reason why some LLCs do this is simple …
Taxes
If your LLC operates an active trade or business, and payroll taxes (SECA taxes) on the owner or owners are high, you may find that an S corporation election is your best choice.
The Differences Between LLCs and S Corps
Although these two formations share some key benefits, including limited liability protection and pass-through taxation, there are also some important differences.
- LLCs can have an unlimited number of members, while S corps can have no more than 100 shareholders (owners)
- Non-U.S. citizens/residents can be members of LLCs. S corps may not have non-U.S. citizens/residents as shareholders
- S corporations cannot be owned by C corporations, other S corporations, LLCs, partnerships or many trusts. This is not the case for LLCs
- S corporations face more extensive ongoing internal formalities. LLCs are recommended, but not required, to follow internal formalities
- Owners of an LLC can choose to have members (owners) or managers manage the LLC. S corps have directors and officers
- S corporation stock is freely transferable, as long as IRS ownership restrictions are met. LLC membership interest (ownership) is typically not freely transferable — approval from other members is often required
Although you might want to leave the taxes to your accountant — who by the way is an excellent resource to discuss formations with — knowing which business formation will grant you the best tax breaks could save you thousands of dollars.
No matter which business formation you choose, it’s important to have a crystal clear understanding of each option to make sure it’s the very best choice for you — both today and down the road.
Good luck!
It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week!
We hope you had a blast at Digital Capital Week. Though you shouldn’t worry if you missed it because this week is Global Entrepreneurship Week! DC is celebrating it with a ton of events under the umbrella of DC Entrepreneurship Week. In addition to the formal panels and pitching events, there is a party every night. However, don’t over-commit because the closing festivities of DCEW overlap with the beginning of Startup Weekend DC (also a part of GEW).
We also have some updates on the increasingly awesome Global Startup Battle prizes! Here’s what awaits the winner in addition to the DEMO Asia tickets:
- A table at the Launch Conference in San Francisco plus 2 air tickets to there
- 40 hours of web design services from BTrax
- $5,000 legal incorporation package from Cooley Law
- PR Launch package from the Kauffman Foundation
T-minus 100 hours to kickoff!
