Startup Weekend Baltimore -- Demo Day!

Photo by Jeff Tong (Keadworks)

The whole weekend Sat through Sun was spent writing code and developing the algorithm to make RUNIN Out real!


The only thing I stopped to do was get my car window replaced, buy a new Macbook and of course go for a short run to gather my thoughts.  Other than that, it was all backend work and all through the night. Thank goodness it was raining outside.

Senodja swung my house at 11:00 AM Sunday as I putting the final touches to our site.  We then jumped in her car and raced up I-95 towards Charm City, rehearsing our presentation on the fly.

Photo by Jeff Tong

All the teams at Bio Park  (Univ of Maryland) in Baltimore were very busy putting things together.  I had never seen so many people so focused on a project -- most of which were birthed on Friday night.


It's also amazing how Baltimore has evolved as a serious startup city over the last few years.

The One-Minute Pitch

So I arrived at the Emerging Technology Center, Baltimore's Technology Incubator at 8:00 pm just in time for the pitches and a quick drink of something. I  chugged an Amstel Light down as I glanced around the burgeoning crowd of 150 plus of Type-A people.  Many developers and entrepreneurs had used the time wisely over the last two hours to get to know each other and to sell their ideas.   Not knowing anyone, I was already at a serious disadvantage -- and I needed people to vote for my idea, or else I wouldn't make the cut.

We made our one-minute pitches in a large hallway with no chairs and barely room to crawl -- just the floor to sit on and the person next to you to lean on.  There were over 75 pitches that night (more than half of the people attended had ideas), but only about 20 would be asked to demo during startup weekend.

Most of the people there were Business, marketing types with less than half being developers -- me being an MBA communications type and designer, finding a developer was the one critical skillset needed to make RUNIN Out functional by Sunday evening.

Emancipation Day Break-in

I woke up Friday morning and I was really happy. That's because sitting in my inbox was a Living Social Dollar Lunch to dozens of restaurants all over the city.  I was more than happy -- I was stoked!

I was on my way to Baltimore, heading to Startup Weekend, so just prior to leaving the city, I conveniently stopped at a very nice restaurant in Dupont Circle.

The restaurant was cozy with a nice ambience.  But because I wanted to arrive in Baltimore before the rush hour traffic, I grabbed something to go and quickly returned to my car, only to find window glass all over the sidewalk and my backpack with my Macbook Pro and videocamera was conveniently lifted from my car seat.

I would have screamed if it wasn't for the pleasant demeanor of a young lady who was already on the phone with the police.  Tinoi  was having lunch in a restaurant directly across the street.  She had seen the whole thing -- a vagrant thug was walking up and down 17th Street NW looking into cars.

A moment later, glass shatters and the thug is seeing running down 17th with a backpack in tow.

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By the time I arrived, a mere five minutes had escaped.  I was livid. Tinoi's presence was reassuring.

It took nearly an hour for the police to arrive.  Incidentally, we found out that DC was celebrating Emancipation Day
(to celebrate the freeing of the enslaved people of DC, nine months before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation).  A DC holiday while everyone else works means still lots of people downtown with less patrol and police operations.

When the officer arrived he explained to me that there has been a rash of break-ins lately.  If I had taken the time to look at SpotCrime, I would have found this out, but who does have the time.

Furthermore, I didn't really enjoy the lunch downtown.  I didn't have a chance to read consumer reviews like Yelp because, well, I didn't have the time.

Parked along 17th Street

The first thing I did after Tinoi called the police was update on Facebook that my car was broken into and my laptop and Canon Videocamera stolen.  Mike Brenner from Startup Weekend Baltimore immediately contacted me and informed me that they could easily refund my money.

I thanked Mike for the offer but told him no.  Come hell or high water I was heading to Baltimore.  I had an idea to pitch and I wasn't quitting until I made it.