Video: Startup Weekend Visits MSU

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STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) — More than 40 Mississippi State college students are gathering for the first Innovate Mississippi Startup Weekend in Starkville. The like-minded student entrepreneurs have only a few days to develop a business idea and turn it into startup company.

Students, who range from entrepreneurs, to developers and designers, only have 54 hours to build and develop their very own business plans.

It all starts Friday night when they pitch their business proposals. Their ideas are then narrowed down to one.

“It’s pretty intense, it’s no sleep, kind of just an atmosphere of open entrepreneurship mixed with some of the business community that really knows what their talking about,” said Dee Hamill, with Innovate Mississippi.

Mentors from the community are on hand to help the students fine tune their business ideas.

One group is working to help their peers find a balance between academics and fitness through a social website.

“Give students an outlet to discover how to really manage a lifestyle that is going to incorporate the fitness aspect of living in college as well as staying on top of your grades,” said MSU student, Lexi Waarich.

The website, titled College Fit, will be customized to each user, based on a survey of preferences.

“An example of our questions is going to be ‘do you prefer to workout at home or at the gym?’ and suggested workouts we’ll have will be based off of that,” said Waarich.

Another group is developing a shower dryer, Dream Dryer, that will dry users in the shower.

Their goal is to save hotels money.

“The potential is definitely there and we’re hoping to make this a big success one day,” said MSU student, Jimmy Stewart.

On Sunday, a panel of professionals will judge the groups’ business plans, based on their chances of real-world success.

The top winners will take home prizes from local providers.

Participants say the weekend has several benefits.

“Shows us how to work together as a group and shows us that something can be done to make something happen,” said Stewart.
The weekend is funded in part by a grant from the Rural Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Program through MSU.