GETTING DOWN TO STARTING UP. Participants at a 2010 Startup Weekend in Canada, get to work. Since 2007, thousands of Startup Weekends have been held in 135 countries. There are over 45,000 Startup Weekend alumni.

After a false start last year, organizers of the Eau Claire Startup Weekend are confident the first-time event will dash out of the starting blocks this year – and maybe even get some new businesses past the finish line.

Since 2007, thousands of Startup Weekends have been held in 135 countries around the world. Participants frequently include software developers, designers, and marketers who form teams and work together for a weekend to try to bring a creative business idea to fruition in a 54-hour sprint of coding, planning, and presenting. The goal is to create a minimum viable product, which could be anything from software to coordinate dog walking to a better way to share music, explains Patrick Gaetjens, one of the local event’s organizers and a project manager at the Eau Claire Area Economic Development Corp.

“They see it on the ground level. What it takes to take an idea and work through all the little details.” – Patrick Gaetjens, Eau Claire Area Economic Development Corp., on the experience of Startup Weekend participants

Sometimes real businesses grow out of Startup Weekends, while other collaborations serve as exercises and networking opportunities. Either way, Gaetjens says, rubbing shoulders with would-be and actual entrepreneurs is key. Economic development officials like himself can offer advice to their clients, but “peer-to-peer interaction is invaluable,” he says.

“They see it on the ground level,” he says of participants. “What it takes to take an idea and work through all the little details.”

The Eau Claire Area EDC and other partners originally planned to hold a Startup Weekend in Eau Claire last November, but they fell just short of the number of participants needed to hold the event. This time around, Gaetjens is confident that at least 40 people will sign up, the necessarily minimum. “We wouldn’t be putting this on if we didn’t feel there was demand for this in the Chippewa Valley,” he says.

Startup Weekend was founded in 2007 in Boulder, Colo., and is now a global nonprofit sponsored by Google and other tech firms. Participants – who often, but not always, have tech backgrounds – will gather on Friday evening for a dinner at the soon-to-open Lismore Hotel, where they will hear a keynote speech from local tech entrepreneur Jim Ward, owner of Applied Data Consultants. (The previously announced keynote speaker, JAMF Software co-founder Zach Halmstad, had to cancel because of a scheduling conflict.) Participants will then be invited to make 60-second idea pitches, which are then voted upon. Teams are formed around the most popular ideas, and team members work together throughout Saturday and most of Sunday to flesh out the ideas. They develop software, create business plans, and meet with mentors who are there to provide advice. Late on Sunday afternoon, the teams make presentations to a panel of judges, who critique them and give out awards, which include between $5,000 and $10,000 worth of donated business services.

While they may lead to real-world businesses, “Startup Weekends are all about learning through the act of creating,” the national website states. That philosophy will apply in Eau Claire as well, where the weekend is expected to benefit UW-Eau Claire and its students, says organizing committee member Ann Rupnow, UWEC’s entrepreneurship and economic development coordinator. Even though only a few UWEC students are likely to take part in the Startup Weekend, others may come to observe and still more will benefit from the knowledge that Eau Claire is a place that fosters entrepreneurship with such events, Rupnow says.

And while details are still being finalized, Rupnow says the university is planning an Entrepreneur Week Oct. 5-9, just after Startup Weekend. Entrepreneur Week will include presentations by UWEC alumni and local entrepreneurs.

Gaetjens, of the Eau Claire EDC, recently participated in a Startup Weekend event in Kansas City, Mo., and came away excited by the experience. “It was very positive,” he says. “I’m not sure I want to work in a startup company, but I know some people who would really benefit from it.”

Startup Weekend Eau Claire • Friday-Sunday, Oct. 2-4 • The Lismore Hotel, 205 S. Barstow St., Eau Claire • $99 • www.facebook.com/ECstartupweekend • www.ec-startupweekend.com