Video: KTVA posts video from 3DS Alaska news story
As noted earlier, a local reporter from KTVA in Anchorage stopped by the 3DS Alaska event this past weekend, captured some video and chatted with Jeremiah and Matthew. Complete video of the story was posted online earlier today (and is embedded above).
Thanks again to reporter Alexis Fernandez (@alexisfdzKTVA) and her camera person for dropping in!
Video: The 3DS Alaska Investor Pitch
Congratulations to the entire 3 Day Startup Alaska team!
In a little over 48 hours (straight through) this group of previously-unaffiliated business and technology college students developed a business idea, researched it and actually built a working prototype. But they took it further. In true 3 Day Startup fashion, they prepared a final presentation and delivered it to a collection of local business leaders and entrepreneurs, soliciting feedback and even asking for seed money to take the startup business forward.
Below is video of the formal pitch event, including opening comments from Jeremiah Dunham (primary organizer for 3DS Alaska) and Thomas Finsterbusch (co-creator of the 3 Day Startup event and nonprofit). Participant Matthew Sargent gave the presentation.
The investor pitch event started at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 27, 2011.
3DS Alaska: The Investor Pitch from John Proffitt on Vimeo.
Following the presentation was a lively discussion involving the expert panelists and even the assembled audience. Some of this discussion was also captured on video and will be released separately.
(Photo by Loren Holmes)
KTVA news story posted (video coming later)
Local Anchorage TV news reporter Alexis Fernandez stopped by the 3DS Alaska event on Sunday and picked up the story on our unique Alaskan business project.
She spoke with 3DS Alaska organizer Jeremiah Dunham and then later chatted with Matthew Sargent, one of the participants (and the investor pitch man later in the day).
For the moment, only the written story is on the KTVA web site. Fernandez says the video will also be posted online. When it is, we’ll post the link. In the mean time, read the story here.
Watch 3DS Alaska LIVE
Streaming .TV shows by Ustream
We’re streaming LIVE on USTREAM.tv most of Sunday, March 27, 2011 from the 3 Day Startup war room here in Anchorage. You can “tune in” either here on this post or via a short link.
You may also be able to watch live from a mobile device, but our tests seem to suggest this may not work. The most reliable method will be to use a full-blown computer and watch here or on the link.
When is the LIVE investor pitch for GearSpoke.com in your time zone?
- 5:00 p.m. Hawaii
- 7:00 p.m. Alaska
- 8:00 p.m. Pacific & Arizona
- 9:00 p.m. Mountain
- 10:00 p.m. Central
- 11:00 p.m. Eastern
- 4:00 a.m. London, UK (Monday, 3/28)
- 5:00 a.m. Barcelona (Monday, 3/28) — Hi Barcelona!
Help us prepare the pitch! What would YOU rent out?
The idea behind GearSpoke.com — the proposed tech startup from the 3DS Alaska team — is that you’ve got recreational gear that sits idle much of the time and costs a lot of money, so why not rent it out to other folks that don’t want to own it, but do want to use it? What if your recreational equipment paid for itself?
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) rentals are catching on across the country, so why not here in Alaska, where the toys-per-capita rate is so high? Rent out that snow machine! Rent out your kayak! Get money from your RV, your ATV, your dirt bike!
But we need more information — from you — to figure out what would make sense in a P2P rental service. What would you charge to rent out your RV for a day or a week? If a trustworthy person wanted to rent your scooter, what would you charge?
Please Help!
By taking this fast online survey, you can tell us what you’d rent and what you’d charge. Take it as many times as you like, focusing each time on a different piece of gear, from a backpack to a luxury home-on-wheels.
We won’t actually ask you to rent anything out. The information we collect is purely for research to help guide our team as they design Alaska’s newest tech startup. We won’t use your info for anything beyond the 3DS Alaska event.
Thanks, and let’s get that RV to pay for itself!
3DS Alaska Social Media Links
We’re documenting our work over this 3 Day Startup weekend in photos, video, text, links and more. As a reminder, here are all the places where you can find us.
- OFFICIAL BLOG: http://3dsalaska.org/category/blog/
- TWITTER FEED: @3DSAlaska
- FLICKR PHOTO SET: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magneticnorth/sets/72157626352363488/
- FACEBOOK PAGE: http://www.facebook.com/pages/3DS-Alaska/161931113836643
- VIMEO CHANNEL: http://vimeo.com/channels/183094
- USTREAM LIVE STREAM (when available): http://www.ustream.tv/channel/starting-up-in-alaska
- GENERAL EMAIL ADDRESS: info [at] 3dsalaska [dot] org
- LOREN HOLMES, our official photographer
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/holmesphoto
- Web Site: http://lorenholmes.com/
Video: DRAFT investor pitch for GearSpoke.com
3DS Alaska: Draft Pitch for GearSpoke.com from John Proffitt on Vimeo.
Matthew Sargent (aka “Sarge”) took the stage on Saturday night (3/26) at 9:00pm to deliver the DRAFT presentation for the 3DS Alaska tech startup GearSpoke.com. This video covers the entire pitch, at just under 10 minutes.
For another hour after the pitch, the assembled 3DS Alaska team discussed the content, identifying areas where they needed to fill in the blanks, what messages to emphasize, and preparing the team for some of the questions likely to be asked by investors and mentors on Sunday evening.
With only 21 hours to go before the FINAL presentation, the team will now rush prototype elements, market cases, and a revised pitch. Go team!
And on the second day, they called it GearSpoke.com
After a sometimes-funny, sometimes-contentious discussion over names — and a ton of searching for available Internet domain names — the 3DS Alaska team chose a name for the startup with only about 24 hours to go. It is:
GearSpoke.com
Why? “Gear” is what will be rented in the proposed P2P service — mostly outdoors-oriented equipment and vehicles. “Spoke” is the service itself — it will tie together renters and rentees, making idle gear more valuable and allowing gear users to avoid the cost and the responsibility of owning and storing all that stuff.
From here the technical work continues and the marketing analysis will start to come together. A draft presentation will be delivered this evening to the group, and the final presentation — to potential investors and open to the public — will be in just 22 hours.
We plan to stream the presentation live starting at 7:00pm Alaska time tomorrow (Sun, 3/27).
P2P renting is hot
The 3DS Alaska team selected a business idea almost 24 hours ago and has been diligently working on CSS, HTML, PHP, SQL, server setup, business plans, market research and more ever since. They’re currently (7:00pm Alaska time) trying to nail down a company/service name, preferably one with a catchy, Internet-unique name.
Meanwhile, we’ve been looking at other examples in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) rental space, and we’ve found a lot of activity. P2P renting was hot enough to warrant a panel at South by Southwest Interactive (SxSW) just last week.
Check out these links and resources to learn what’s going on in the P2P rental space:
- SXSW Interactive Panel: The New Sharing Economy
Check out this link to find the panelists, but also an audio recording of the panel. You know when something is covered at SxSW it’s hot and still fairly new. That bodes well for developing a P2P renting service that’s focused on the Alaskan market. - Zilok
This is a sizable “rent anything” service that even boasts listings in Alaska. It incorporates P2P and corporate-organized renting. They’re a leader in the space, even gathering mainstream (local) press coverage. - Zilok: The eBay for Renters
A slick CBS News report on how regular people are participating in P2P rentals via Zilok. - Rentalic
Another P2P renting service in operation, based out of San Mateo, California but with national aspirations. - May I Rent Your Lawn Mower? Sharing Meets Web 2.0
Published the first day of 3DS Alaska (what luck!), this is a blog post from the personal finance management service Mint. - LinkedIn Poll: What would you most likely to rent from someone local on a P2P rental website like Rentalic.com?
It’s a bit of a shameless plug for Rentalic, and the poll response rate is low, but still… there’s a chart.
- Wikipedia: Peer-to-peer renting
If you’re not sure what Peer-to-Peer renting is, or could be, Wikipedia has this primer.
Is it bad to riff on a pre-existing idea?
So far, we think not. As has been pointed out multiple times, there aren’t any truly new ideas (at least not often) and the existence of other (nascent) businesses in this space suggests others have done some business research and figured out, “this is just crazy enough to work!”
Additionally, the Alaska market has enough quirks to make a locally-tuned P2P rental play. For example: our higher-than-average presence of outdoor sporting gear and outdoor enthusiasts and our highly transient population, for which renting can be highly preferably to buying.
In any case, the team’s research and business modeling continues.
Video: A working 3DS meeting
3DS Alaska: Saturday Morning Meeting from John Proffitt on Vimeo.
This is the “staff meeting” from Saturday morning with everyone in attendance and 3DS co-creator Thomas Finsterbusch leading the discussion.
Video is about 22 minutes, so it’s really long. However, if you’re curious to see what happens in a small meeting about 31 hours away from the project deadline — a presentation to potential investors — this is it.
Video: Saturday morning as of 10:30am
3DS Alaska: The Story as of 10:30am Saturday from John Proffitt on Vimeo.
Take our survey!
We need your help.
The business pros on our 3 Day Startup team need some market data to help shape the specifics of our tech startup. It’s a short survey and it even works well on mobile phones.
Take the survey here. And please retweet, repost, and share all over the place — the more data we have, the smarter our tech startup will be when the Sunday evening investor pitch comes around.
SURVEY DEADLINE: Saturday, March 26 at 3:30 p.m. Alaska time (7:30 p.m. Eastern)