Open Range and Techstars Omaha brought Omaha Startup Weekend back to town June 5-7, for a hugely successful event at Catalyst Omaha. After 20+ individual one-minute micro-pitches on Friday night from founders from the Midwest, 60+ attendees voted on their seven favorite ideas and then formed teams.
Friday Night Micro-Pitches
Yes, I joined my friend Katherine MacHolmes with a micro-pitch. And yes, it is hard to pitch an idea in just 60 seconds. Katherine has an existing business, and we hoped to spend the weekend developing an additional arm of her online platform. But stating her niche problem, the solution, and why we are the best team to solve it in under a minute proved too much of a challenge, and we did not advance to the next round.
My UNeTech Institute colleague Monica Chatmon was one of the seven finalists, with an idea called BeSpoke Omaha. Monica and her team created an online sales platform for North Omaha makers, with plans for a physical space. They even created a pop-up shop on Sunday during the final pitch.
Team KEYRIOSITY: (from left to right) Tailla Strawn, Bennett Waddington, Ethan Strom, Artez Young, Keyosha Atwater, Stephanie Kidd, Dani Hayden
Team KEYRIOSITY
I chose to join a team led by my friend Keyosha Atwater, whom I met at the Women in STEM Conference last year. (She commented on my sparkly silver boots, and we were instantly fast friends.) Keyosha’s idea spoke to me because it was education-based, but more so because she had such a passion for it. She recognizes a learning gap in early learners, particularly young readers aged three to five. Keyosha is building an online learning platform that allows these young readers to work on reading skills alongside their parents in an individualized, gamified system. The differentiator is that parents and children work together; it’s not just a screen you sit kids in front of and walk away from.
There were seven of us on Keyosha’s team, each with different skills. And we had such a good time working on the project in between the speakers and panels that Open Range leaders Laurel Oetken and Joceln Stange brought to the event.
I knew team member Tallia Strawn. I gave her the Community Impact of the Year award at the Nebraska Tech Summit earlier this year. The rest of the team was new to me—Artez Young, Dani Hayden, Bennett Waddington, Ethan Strom.
We split up the work and got busy on Friday night. Tailla, the senior lead instructor at the Code Black Professional Tech Network, took on the task of building the online platform. Ethan, a business administration and management student at Ottawa University, created our logo and branding package. Artez, with 20+ years of experience in banking and finance leadership, took charge of our financial planning and filled out our business model canvas. Dani has leadership experience at three powerhouse Omaha employers: LinkedIn, PayPal, and Toast. Bennett is studying criminal justice at UNL. Dani, Bennett, and Ethan led the charge for customer discovery by interviewing parents all weekend, testing our hypotheses, and validating our problem-solution fit. And Keyosha made one heck of a final pitch, sharing her personal story, teaching her own daughter to read.
I learned so much from this team this weekend.
Every team member contributed something that each one of us could not have done on our own.
I teach the business model canvas, and I could not have put it together as quickly as Artez put ours together.
Ethan had our branding kit together faster than it would have taken me to even ask Keyosha my first few branding questions.
Tailla spent all weekend building out our platform—it looked incredible. It had the cutest graphics that could say phonetic sounds and put them together to make words.
Bennett and Dani tirelessly made phone calls, and they had us all cracking up in between calls.
And Keyosha was the glue that held our team together. She led with a quiet strength, allowing each of us to step into our own areas, acknowledging that we needed to get things done quickly and that perfection would be the enemy of done in this space.
It worked.
Our team, KEYRIOSITY, named after Keyosha, placed third, and we could not be prouder of what we achieved. (See all winners listed below.)
My Biggest Moments of Learning
1. “Perfection is the enemy of done” is really hard when you are a bossy know-it-all. And I am often a bossy know-it-all. When I work alone, this does not impact anyone but me. In a team setting, this makes me a somewhat obnoxious team member.
2. No one can know everything about startups. And this means that solopreneurship is really challenging. At the final pitch, each founder made it clear that they could not have accomplished what was accomplished without team members. No one has all of the skills or knowledge. Use your people. Use your resources.
3. You are not an entrepreneur island. This weekend was full of people who just want to help. Our room was full of folks who want to give support to new founders with their skills, connections, finances, and mentorship. You name it, and someone in the room this weekend was ready to support you. All you have to do is ask.
4. Omaha entrepreneurship is diverse. This weekend’s event was such a mixed group of people. Young. Old. Students. Professionals. All races and ethnicities. I love and appreciate the diverse collection of people that Open Range cultivated for Startup Weekend. And I love that the seven finalists were also so diverse.
Winning Teams included:
First place: CleanOS.
- Eric Yim, founder
- Brian Alvarado
- Keyik Annagulyyeva
- Wyatt Riesz
- Sarah Vail
Second place: Recipes.md, a mobile app to collect digital recipes and organize them for family use and inheritance.easy use.
- Michael Joyce, founder
- Abbie Perry
- Dheeraj Avadhutha
- Tazmon Sims
- Matthew Newman
Third place: KEYRIOSITY, an online learning platform, including an individualized, gamified model that helps parents teach young learners to read.
- Keyosha Atwater, founder
- Artez Young
- Stephanie Kidd
- Tailla Strawn
- Dani Hayden
- Bennett Waddington
- Ethan Strom
Thank you, Open Range and Tech Stars Omaha, for this event. I had such a great time, and I learned so much. I cannot wait for your next weekend event!
(Above) Keyosha Atwater presents at the final pitch on Sunday, June 7, as KEYRIOSITY team members look on.
(Below) All participants of the final pitch competition.
(Above) The logo for KEYRIOSITY, designed by Ethan Strom.
