STL Tech Stars Shine at CoMo Startup Weekend

STL teammates claim first and second place in TechStars Startup Weekend, Columbia.

Last week, I thought it expedient to take a mini-vacay to cool my jets, lest I write another essay on TechSTL (of which there is still plenty more to say, but I’ve chosen to refrain and invited them to collaborate on the major issues I’d like to discuss publicly and am still awaiting an answer from the TechSTL board).

City Break

So I took a break from writing and headed to Arizona to check out the largest airplane boneyard in the world and walk among gigantic cacti in Saguaro National Park, while TechSTL took a “delegation” (for lack of a better word) of St. Louis startup founders up to Columbia, Missouri for COMO Startup Weekend.

Get the Scoop

EQ’s friendly co-opetition joined the TechSTL tour bus, and Paul Riat has done a great job covering the whole show, so go and check out the coverage on 4thEst8, and support another locally grown independent media startup(!) which, ultimately is the core issue that my original post challenged.

Winning Teams

STL tech talent was well represented in COMO, this year, with teams that included STL founders claiming first and second prize.

Co-founder of NativeMsg, Michael Lamb’s team claimed first prize with their fintech concept for Landlords, Appreciate. And Ali Jorani’s team claimed second with their farm-to-table marketplace, FarmFind. Bryon Pierson from EDUrain was also in attendance brainstorming for Team Goober, basically on-demand school buses.

Training Ground

Startup Weekend hasn’t been in St. Louis since 2015, but it’s a cool hackathon style marathon event where teams have to develop a startup idea from scratch and take it from concept to execution.

A fun thing I learned while I was doing SEO on the EQ archive, is that historically, Startup Weekend has proven a reliable training ground for future founders in St. Louis.

For example, Colleen Liebig, who organized 2014’s event went on to launch PluggedIn and 2015 winning team member, Satya Mishra is now co-founder of WayLit.

Rumors

There’s definitely a deep desire to bring Startup Weekend back to St. Louis, highlighted recently in a Twitter conversation.

All I know is that in 2020, rumors were definitely swirling about a comeback.

Maybe TechSTL’s promised membership program can fund a way to make it happen.

Or maybe that’s what Phyllis Ellison is doing next? I don’t know, I’m just speculating!