This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend a really great event called Startup Weekend San Diego.

The Startup Weekend concept has been around a few years and happens in many cities around the world.

This, however, was San Diego’s first Startup Weekend. The event took place at the HIVE, which has become San Diego’s co-working headquarters, and the flow of the event went like this: Friday night, attendees came together and pitches were made (by attendees) for about 18 different projects. After the pitches, idea-owners were given cups and everyone was given two tickets. Attendees then voted for the ideas they liked best by putting tickets in the cups.

The top 6 ideas went on to form teams, which were completely self-selected, so some teams were larger than others, some with more tech resources, others with more business minds. Then, over the next two days, teams worked furiously on their projects–the hope being they’d have a clean enough product and presentation by end-of-day Sunday that when they presented to the panel of angels and VC representatives, they would win! The prize for the event was free incorporation services provided by a local law firm–a value of up to $2,000.

Though I didn’t stay the entire weekend, I was there for most of the day Saturday and the judging on Sunday. I found it exciting to start from scratch with an enthusiastic team and have something concrete by the end of the weekend. The project I chose to work on selected the name HootOnU.com. The basic premise of HootOnU was to provide a platform for people to complain, easily and in a structured fashion. The platform would have the ability to generate detailed reports about who had complained about an issue, where and why they were annoyed, and what, if anything, they’d like to see changed.

HootOnU ended up winning the competition and the team has now gone on to incorporate and pursue the idea further.

Events like this are exactly what San Diego needs to prove the entrepreneurial spirit is thriving here. While Silicon Valley continues to be the hub when it comes to startups, there are entrepreneurs in every city. Events like this helps us all realize how many ideas are out there, and how quickly you can pull together a team to work on an idea. It also offers a way to network with the angels and venture capitalists offering funding for startups here.

I look forward to more events like Startup Weekend, as well as the chance to engage with entrepreneurs on their ideas. If you have new idea you’re working on–especially if you’re considering video for that preoject–be sure to let me know.  I love to hear business ideas and would be happy to provide feedback and spin up a VMIX trial account so you can experiment with the VMIX Platform.