Startups birthed in one weekend

Teams at Startup Weekend Adelaide 2022 with mentors as well as the ICC's Jasmine Vreugdenburg, Facilitator Renee Coman and Judges Eloise Hall, Amelie Froger and Shruti Sardeshmukh.

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Eager entrepreneurs attended UniSA’s Innovation & Collaboration Centre over the weekend to experience how a startup is created in just 54 hours.

Creative ideas were born at Techstars Startup Weekend Adelaide by participants who committed to a weekend full of workshops and ideation, Facilitated by Sunshine Coast local Renee Coman and supported by Inspiring SA.

Participants shared dinner on Friday night before a pitch fire event where individuals pitched their idea in less than 60 seconds to the other participants. Following this, the ideas were then voted on and teams were formed to work on the most popular ideas over the weekend.

The participants were guided by experienced mentors who gave up their time for the duration of the event such as Alison Kershaw, Doug Adamson, Kathy Sharrad, Ben Longstaff, Sasha Dragovelic and Aaron Davis.

On Saturday after breakfast, teams checked in and had a customer validation workshop before hitting the streets to do their customer research.

In the afternoon, teams had a prototyping workshop before 2019 winner Dr. Kim Le from KoLab presented his pitch pep talk and shared his wisdom and experience from the previous Startup Weekend.

Dr. Le told the audience the 2019 event “changed his life” with an experience he will never forget before answer questions and guiding participants through his pitch deck.

Teams then worked through until 10pm Saturday and returned at 8am Sunday for breakfast and a pitch workshop.

At 2pm Sunday, the teams pitched their ideas to a panel of three judges. 2017 winner and former Young Australian of the Year, Eloise Hall from TABOO, Amelie Froger from the Office of the South Australian Chief Entrepreneur, and Associate Professor Shruti Sardeshmukh from UniSA Business.

The winning teams were all focused on the circular economy with a social impact element:

• Skintatol: With South Australia leading the country in the manufacturing of potato chips, Skintatol came up with a solution to turn the wasted potato skins into skincare.
• Plastic Fantastic: Given supermarkets are now refusing to take soft plastics, this team created a concept to incentivise the return of plastic shopping bags to make short term use items such as hats and ponchos for festivals.
• Waste Nothing: With the amount of construction waste on the rise, Waste Nothing created a platform where you could search and find waste to reuse.

Results and awards

• Waste Nothing who came up with a solution to solve construction industry waste, were the first prize winner of Startup Weekend, a nice reward for one team member travelling from Victoria to attend. The team won tickets to SouthStart 2023 as well as six months of hot desking space at the Innovation & Collaboration Centre thanks to SouthStart and UniSA.
• The Impact Award winning a lunch experience thanks to the Office of the South Australian Chief Entrepreneur went to Plastic Fantastic.
• The Best Last Minute Pivot award went to Skintatol. The team received copies of The Essential Entrepreneur thanks to author Richard Turner.
• The Spirit of Startup Weekend award was awarded to participant Forum Bakrania – who also received a copy of The Essential Entrepreneur thanks to author Richard Turner.

Director of the ICC Jasmine Vreugdenburg reinforces the important of holding these events.

“The last time a Startup Weekend was held in Adelaide was 2019 It is vital we continue to hold events like Startup Weekend to inspire the next generation of innovators that are helping to solve problems that will ultimately impact the way we live,” she says.

“This weekend we were able to support high school and university students with an experience and support so they could ake a risk with their startup ideas, build teams and connect with mentors to potentially change their lives.”

“It’s great to see a focus on recycling and the environment as problems these young innovators are looking to solve here in South Australia.”

The Innovation & Collaboration Centre would like to thank Inspiring SA, Southstart, The Office of the Chief Entrepreneur, the mentors, judges and volunteers who helped make the event possible.