Military Families Hit Ground Running at Startup Weekend

More than 50 would-be entrepreneurs competed for awards during San Diego’s first Startup Weekend for Military Families and Veterans held in Balboa Park. Begun in 2007, the Seattle-based nonprofit Startup Weekend has held more than 500 events in 95 countries. The goal is to bring together entrepreneurs who form teams around the best ideas and then to see what kind of projects and progress emerge from a weekend of effort. To date, 850 companies have been spawned from this kind of hothouse effect. In San Diego, 11 entrepreneurs ultimately formed teams that worked throughout the weekend to define their business model, gather customer feedback, and build a prototype or a mock-up of their product.