Boise was all about starting up companies last weekend, with four official ideas coming out of Idaho. Our Regional Coordinator from the Gem State, Norris Krueger, shared some anecdotes from the event, which brought together aspiring entrepreneurs for a 54-hour, weekend-long event designed to turn an idea into reality:

Here in Idaho we kicked off the week with the amazing Startup Weekend model. Assemble a bunch of people on Friday after work, brainstorm ideas then form teams around the best ones... then by Sunday evening... start a venture! They only have FOURTEEN of these before year's end... It was my honor to introduce these guys to GEW – always great to connect great people – the Entrepreneur's Code says “We're all in this together!”

Four teams rolled on Friday - 2 starts & another that will likely be a new product & the fourth has a great platform designed to build on after SW. Check out http://idaho.startupweekend.org for overall info, Weblinks and short videos on all four teams. I've been an entrepreneur and an entrepreneurship educator a LONG time and I was thoroughly impressed.

We got great media support - both TV (thanks to Mike McLenna at KTVB) and NPR (thanks to George Prentice at KBSU). We also drew the attention of the state's Commerce Director, Don Dietrich, who did our Friday kickoff, and then came back on Sunday for the presentations (and by now he has delivered a t-shirt to Idaho's Governor!) GEW made some serious friends in high places!

We have two favors to ask, if we might:

1) Morgans Journey - a mechanism to connect families and friends of children with cancer. As you'll see above, it was inspired by one entrepreneur's daughter (we all love ya, Morgan!) and you'll see the results of 50 hours of passion at www.MorgansJourney.org

[Our 'Ask' = please follow on Twitter (@morgansjourney) then visit the site & please make a small donation!]

2) Yaro - www.getyaro.com, @getyaro - a new social media aggregator that will allow to better manage multiple social media accounts (no more confusing your Facebook friends with cryptic Twitter posts or sending "that" photo to the wrong places, LOL) Should integrate nicely with other aggregators like Gist.com or Idaho-bred www.MyReMa.com (you should sign up for both their betas too. We're all in this together!) Yaro also caught the eye of local TV - founder Jana Briggs shines at http://bit.ly/1P0zv4

[Our 'Ask' = please follow @getyaro on Twitter, then visit www.getyaro.com & sign up for the private beta... make both of these a real #GEW Success Story!]

Norris Krueger, PhD, @entrep_thinking

Find out more about StartupWeekend. @startupweekend

tags: boise