On March 30th, 2012, 130 people gathered for one purpose: to start a brand new business in less than 54 hours. Startup Weekend Orange County (SWOC), hosted annually at Chapman University, provided an exciting avenue for entrepreneurial minds to come together, collaborate and innovate in an accelerated environment. All Startup Weekend participants have an opportunity to pitch, and teams are formed from the best ideas. 17 teams were formed out of 67 pitches at this year’s SWOC event.  Over the following three days, the teams worked to build a website or mobile app to demo their product at the end of the event to a panel of judges.

Adam Bedford, an undergraduate student at Chapman University, attended this semester’s SWOC. “I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into the weekend given the fact that I hadn’t participated in anything like Startup Weekend before,” Adam said.  “I chose to work with Team Car-nivore, a car buying platform where the roles typically associated with the car buying process are reversed. Rather than buyers seeking out the car they want from thousands of new and used options, they tell us the specifications of the car they want to buy, and Car-nivore returns the best pre-negotiated prices from local vendors and dealers.”

On the experience as a whole, Adam commented that he “learned a great deal from the other participants, especially from the mentors that were drafted in to give us advice.”  Attending and working with Car-nivore also gave Adam the inspiration he needed for a project of his own. “I’m about to start a venture with one participant that pitched his idea for a wedding website working in a similar fashion to Car-nivore. Obviously, without Startup Weekend, this opportunity would never have come about.”

While not all the businesses created during SWOC become long lasting businesses, the networking and connections participants make during the weekend can last for years.  SWOC is partly sponsored by the Chapman University made possible with the help of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics.

-Jon Holmquist