A 54-hour Techstars Startup Weekend DSM event, the first to be held in Des Moines in seven years, is planned for Jan. 12-14 at Maple Studios, organizers have announced.
The event is meant to bring together designers, developers, marketers and startup enthusiasts to share ideas, form teams and launch startups.
Other startup weekends across Iowa have included virtual statewide gatherings the last two years and regularly held events in Iowa City, one of which sparked the idea to bring the concept back to Des Moines.
Colleen Kinsey, who is organizing the Des Moines event along with Brandon Rockow, leads software development company Softvoya, but also had another business idea she wanted to explore. A startup weekend event in Iowa City this summer allowed her uninterrupted time to get started.
“I had an idea I had been throwing around in my mind for a few years within the death tech industry and thought Startup Weekend IC would be the perfect opportunity to test it out,” Kinsey said in an email. “Normally I wouldn’t have time to pursue this trying to scale Softvoya, but this weekend would be the perfect time to start shaking out the details.”
She said she met another attendee from San Diego, Paul Richardson Jr., who also happened to be interested in a death tech idea.
“Death tech is not a sexy topic, so the fact that we were at the same place, at the same time, with the same idea felt like destiny,” she said.
Since joining forces at the event, the pair have formed the entity tumbleweed as co-founders, are going through the Venture School program and applying to accelerators. Richardson Jr. has also relocated to Des Moines.
Kinsey and Rockow hope to bring back the “innovative energy” of a startup weekend to Des Moines’ entrepreneurial community and aim to have about 100 people participate in January.
The weekendlong event starts Friday evening with attendees pitching and voting on ideas to pursue and forming teams. The teams will work throughout the day Saturday and Sunday on their ideas, ending with pitches to a panel of judges who will award prizes to the top pitches. There will be short workshops to attend and mentors available to provide advice throughout the weekend.
More information and registration is available at startupweekenddsm.com.