Platonix Does Startup Weekend Israel
26 December, 2009 -
The idea of Startup Weekend, which was actually held during the week as Shabbat makes working on the weekend a no-no, is 52 hours to present, create and pitch a start-up idea. As Platonix Joint Ventures is always looking for new, promising software startups to fund and work with, it seemed the place to be.
According to Joel Leyden of Israel News Network, Startup Weekend had “attendees from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Ashdod, Hadera, Ra’anana, Afula, Holon, Sderot, Kiryat Shomona, Katzrin, Rehovot and Herzliya.”
Yishai, Itay, Itai and Shai from Platonix didn’t just sponsor Startup Weekend, they participated in it as well.The event started off with Itay and Itai sitting with me (Shira) in the front row of the event, debating (quietly) which presentation would have the most likely success story. Some presentations made no sense, others sounded a bit too over the top. In the end we were told to choose 2 teams and work with one (which seems a bit silly looking back, we should have only joined one team). Itay and I joined what would end up being AttenDance, an application aimed at maximizing the social experience at events. Itai (note the i at the end of his name) joined ShopJet, a widget meant to bring the Amazon level experience to smaller online shops. Shopjet was my second choice, but I never got the chance to actually join them over the “weekend”.
Due to Hannukka and other obligations there was a bit of tag-teaming on the coding side of things. Itay couldn’t make it on Thursday, so Yishai came to code for him instead, but he returned on Friday for the finishing up of the work and presentation of actual product. Itai was with ShopJet for the whole 3 days. Shai came on Friday to give some extra help where it was needed.
In the end we created two strong beta products. However, only one of our Beta products actually demo’d correctly. As Murphy’s Law would allow, anything that could go wrong – will, and that was the case with the AttenDance presentation. Not only did the demo fail miserably, but the PPT presentation was lost as well. Meaning that poor Gene was stuck on stage with no visual element to explain the product (which worked on the actual phone, but not on the demo software for some unknown reason). Fortunately, not all was lost for Platonix as Itai’s team won the runner-up position.
Overall, Startup Weekend was a lot of fun had by all. The food was great and the people were wonderful as well. The video of Startup Weekend is here.