Designers, engineers and marketers came together this weekend at SpringUp Belfast to build a startup business and pitch to experienced early-stage investors. Each team only had 28 hours starting on Saturday 21st April in the Farset Lab Studios in Weavers Court Business Park, Belfast to get from concept to demo and pitch.

Anaeko , RumbleLabs, Farset Labs and GitHub were sponsors of the event to make it a success.

The event was launched with our very own CTO Colm Hayden giving a motivational speech and  told the teams that these are “boom times”, and while some people want job stability and a narrow career route, we will never be like them. He also promoted new development models, saying it’s “lean all the way with Lean Startups".

The Lean Startup model is based on technology start ups building, measuring and learning from their work, to not only save money but deliver faster business decisions and therefore show innovation in how we approach our entrepreneurial ideas.

Benefits of The Lean Startup

Be more innovative.    Stop wasting people's time.    Be more successful.

 

After a motivational start the competition was on with many teams competing through the night and presenting their pitches on Sunday afternoon to investors to win the Grand and Runner Up Prizes.

Prizes

Grand Prize:

• £500.00 presented by  Rumble Labs
• 6 months membership to Farset Labs, worth £900
• Github Silver, worth $600
• Heroku credit, worth $300

Runner-up Prize:

• 3 months membership to Farset Labs, worth £450
• Github Bronze, worth $300

Grand Prize Winner:  Alrg is an online recommendation service that lists eateries for people with special dietary needs.

Runner Up:  BetExpertise are offering risk-free bets to the money concious sports enthusiasts
Well done to all those who competed and good luck with your Startup!

Ben Bland of Farset Labs gives a detailed account of  the weekend  "SpringUp:Launching Five Startups in 28 hours"

You can watch all the pitches below: