On October 21^st, 40 student entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds will participate in the fifth iteration of 3 Day Start Up, a highly energetic, often sleepless, weekend where big ideas are turned into viable companies over the course of three days. 3 Day Start Up liberates students from the classroom, and creates an environment where budding entrepreneurs can learn by doing. Over the course of a weekend, students pitch their business ideas, vote on the projects they find the most compelling, and ultimately self organize into project teams to create a prototype, perform market research, and formulate a business strategy. Participating students hail from myriad backgrounds including computer science, engineering, business, law and design, to create the skill set necessary to jumpstart a company. The weekend event is hosted by Austin Technology Incubator.

 The culmination of the event is 7:00pm on Sunday October 23^rd, when students pitch their start-ups to a wide array of Austin entrepreneurs including:

• Bob Metcalfe, Professor of Innovation, Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise at the University of Texas at Austin;
• Gary Forni, Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN);
• Josh Baer, Capital Factory & OtherInbox;
• Zaz Floreani, Austin Ventures

When asked about the influence of 3 Day Start up on their academic and professional careers, previous participants have said the following:

“3DS takes all kinds of people from their respective little boxes and encourages them to bring their talents together to make something great.” – Jeff Zhao, BBA Finance, 3DS Spring ’11

“3DS has been by far the best experience I’ve had thus far as a graduate student. The weekend is intense and sometimes grueling but it’s also just a lot of fun. “- Rene Pinnell, MS Design, 3DS Fall ’09

“At 3 Day Startup, we learned by doing. Instead of sitting in an auditorium, I worked with forty like-minded people to go through the process of launching something great. The next time I go to a seminar on entrepreneurship, I’m going to sit in the middle of the front row, watch the PowerPoint presentation, and think to myself, ‘I’ve done that.’” – Rishi Shah, Plan II Honors, 3DS Fall ’10

3 Day Start Up began with a simple idea: start a technology company over the course of three days. Over the last three years it has evolved into a popular event campus-wide with a highly competitive selection process.  Companies that have emerged from previous 3 Day Start Up events include: Famigo (www.famigogames.com/), Hurricane Party (www.hurricaneparty.com), and HootMe (hoot.me).  3 Day Start Up was started by students and is run by students. For more information on 3 Day Start up, please visit our online media guide at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5rzbSUfJv8 or go to http://3daystartup.com/.

For information about the event happening at Austin Technology Incubator, October 21-23, please go to: http://austin.3daystartup.org/

Contact: Suzanne Burley                                                       

Phone: 201-759-1115

Email: sburley@ati.utexas.edu