Note: I originally reported the Cedar Valley number at 112 and the total participants at 251. That included some attendees who were spectators but not participants. Numbers have been revised. —Geoff
The first Startup Weekend event in Iowa was held in Des Moines in July 2009 (I wrote about that event here). Organized by Shane Reiser and held at Impromptu Studio, it attracted 30 participants who created four companies throughout the three day event. 6+ years later, our community staged, supported and executed simultaneous events for the first time ever in four cities across the state last weekend.
It total, Startup Weekend Iowa 2015 had 213* participants and created 26 companies.
City by City statistics
Ames
- 49 participants
- 16 others (judges, mentors, organizers)
- 8 teams
Cedar Valley
- 74 participants*
- 21 others (judges, mentors, organizers)
- 6 teams
Iowa City
- 71 attendees
- 25 others (judges, mentors, organizers)
- 8 teams
Sioux City
- 19 attendees
- 10 others (judges, mentors, organizers)
- 4 teams
No go events
Both Council Bluffs and the Quad Cities had planned events to be included as part of Startup Weekend Iowa 2015. The Council Bluffs event was suspended indefinitely and the Quad Cities event merged into the Iowa City event.
History
Event Date / Winner (notes)
Ames
Cedar Valley
- November 2014 / Simple Connection (held in Cedar Falls)
- November 2015 / signiFit (held in Waterloo)
Cedar Rapids
- February 2014 / Major Trading Cards now called Fanstreamm
- March 2015 / Date Brew
- March 2016 / Delve
Des Moines
- July 2009 / ClassTrack.org
- March 2010 / Epplause (held in Clive)
- March 2011 / Unleash Heroes
- March 2012 / Doodle Cloud
- November 2012 / GlamSnap
- November 2013 / Beard or Not, BrickIt (tie)
- October 2014 / GifaSent
Iowa City
- September 2011 / Gut Checker
- October 2012 / Tellmystory
- October 2014 / Subscribr (held in Coralville)
- November 2015 / Sexy Life
Spencer
- June 2013 / PushLoyalty
- January 2014 / AgSensor (vertical theme: “Next Gen Ag”)
Sioux City
- September 2014 / [know the winner? leave a comment]
- November 2015 / Poingo
Photo Credit: Startup Weekend Iowa City via facebook
Geoff Wood is the founder, connector and space captain at Gravitate, a workplace community for entrepreneurs, freelancers and remote workers in the heart of downtown Des Moines. In addition to writing here, he hosts a podcast, speaks at conferences, organizes events and has been helping tell the story of the Iowa startup community since 2009.