29th
We freakin did it! StashMate is GO!
StashMate.com is live! After a weekend of very little to no sleep our amazing team of startup enthusiasts cranked out a working application that is pretty damned handy if I do say so myself.
The experience:
Friday night - 80 people (biz development, project managers, designers and developers) enter the Enterprise Center of Johnson County and pitches begin. A record (?) 47 one minute pitches are given and then voted upon by a show of hands. 8 are chosen to go on. You can see all of them here and look through other blogs on that site to see video updates and demos from the weekend.
After the 8 were chosen, teams form by people simply grouping together around the leaders. You go to the product that you felt strongest about and where you are most needed. Our leader, Jaime, is a contract Rails developer from right down the street in KC and already has some of the product built. I am first in, then we pick up, Rob, an amazing project manager from Des Moines, Cara a great UI designer from here in KC and Curtis a biz dev guy from KC. We got our room first and went to work plotting out the idea.
By the end of Friday night (we quit too early) we had a pretty good idea of our business model and potential features.
Saturday - We came in on Sat. and our PM Rob was already there with most of what we talked about the night before outlined on boards on the wall with sticky notes for process flow and such.. as I said.. he was a hoss. Almost immediately we began more discussion and once we were squared away on the plan we went to work. The dev got his code on while the UI designer and I did our bidness. Curtis recruited Mark to join us who I gather is also interested in business development and they along with Rob set to work on our presentation.
Everyone else left Jaime and I around 10pm except Rob stayed till 2am.. mainly just for support.. again.. a super hoss.. he even bought us sweet rolls from wendy’s at like 1:30. But I digress.
Sunday - Jaime and I worked through the night and our team was surprised to find us there in the same clothes at 9am on sunday. We kept on a working while they put together the presentation materials. I was done by 2pm. I almost passed out a few times by my brain wouldn’t let go. I went home to crash and Jaime kept working.
We all met back up at the Kauffman foundation at 6:30 for the presentations. They were all so amazing, you will see when you look at the final list. I was floored by the talent that was there and the products that were produced. Some could have used a good dose more design work, but 54 hours really isn’t a whole lot of time.
So that’s all. In short, it was amazing. If you DON’T go the next time they bring it to town you will kick yourself. Or I will kick you. So if you don’t want to get kicked.. SHOW UP!
Now, as for what is owned by who and is it real and all that..
Yes it is real.. you can sign up right now confirm your email and start using it. It is owned equally by those that created it. We are already working on ideas for the “beta” release and it will be AWESOME.
Next stop, business development. We are looking to co-brand with moving companies and storage facilities. Have them sell our product to their clients with their brand. Even if we can get some local small time storage places online it will help prove our business model to VC. After that.. insurance companies.. then the world.
Keep your eyes peeled. StashMate is on the rise!!
