Hope To Happiness

NYC Startup Weekend

I participated in the NYC Startup Weekend event this past weekend and had an incredible experience. I had an idea for a voice application that I could build on top of Twilio. My team and I ended up building SingSend which lets you create a karaoke recording on your phone and send it to a friend. It is still live and you can call 201-564-0921

The most enjoyable parts of the weekend for me were the small conversations I had with many of the other attendees. Although my team was officially only 4 people, there were another 20+ whose comments and advice helped us figure out a vision for the weekend and the future. I wonder how we can continue to have this kind of communal experience, which likely includes sustaining this kind of atmosphere at venues like New Work City.

You can see the video of our presentation here with our rendition of one of the classiest songs of the 90s, Sir Mix-a-lots magnum opus “Baby Got Back”. If you don’t laugh, I cant help you :-)

A few of my favorite startups include:

- Donor Universal: Using social media to help blood centers get people more engaged with donating blood. I love real social entrepreneurship (of the double bottom line kind) so I hope ideas like this one find a way to take off.

- Foodo: By Alex Godin and Team Awesome, this application connects hungry diners with restaurants with open tables in a location (and time) based manner. Once they get the deals in place this could do very well.

- DinnerOn : This is a take on communal dining that can help restaurants sell tables long in advance. I would definitely get one of these.

Much thanks go out to Shane Reiser for putting together such a great event. I have organized events in the past and know that it is never easy. Hope to make it to other Startup Weekend events in the future.

At the end of the event we won the “Spirit of the Event” award and will be attending Twiistup next year! It looks like an amazing conference so we are excited to attend.

See you all at the next Startup Weekend event in November!