Its been a few weeks since we caught up with Lainey Weiser from Curtin, but apparently its full steam ahead. Read on…
“Just Start IT is going really well. We are into the 2nd half of the competition with schools returning this week after the Easter break. I have been going out to a lot of schools this week, and they are all at the development stage of their app / website and finalising their marketing strategies and starting to think about their pitches. They all seem to have completed product validation via marketing surveys quite successfully, and so are now onto the next stages of building / developing and costing (break even analyses).
The second half has them all in a tizz now realising that they still have much to do, but not a whole lot of time to do it. But they are pumped! The ideas just keep getting better, with very little overlap from all the teams.
Our judging panel will be made up of Larry Lopez, Andy Lam, Charlie Gunningham, John Ross (Old Masters Young Guns); Ed Cortis (Bankwest); and Michelle Sandford (Microsoft). Invitations are being designed now, and my intention is to start getting invites out by next week.
My intention is to make the gala event by the students for the students by including unbelievable talent from all the participating schools, and we will be working on some very exciting pitches that promise to be of high entertainment value. I am channelling the students to entertain the audience not talk at them. After all creating an experience tends to have a lip lingering effect.
I feel that this initiative is going a long way towards one of the issues highlighted at the KPMG workshop for startup leaders in WA. The students involved in this have definitely been “bitten by the startup bug”. The schools involved have all already signed up for next year with a hope for more groups in each school and are all intending on making it part of the curriculum for next year which is a big win for us as the startup movement.
Word of mouth is also getting out there and I am getting a lot of interest from other schools to be part of it next year. Next year we will be going National.”
Thanks Lainey, we look forward to learning about the winning team and following their progress.
Via JustStartIt