Six new businesses that were created at a start-up business camp in Sydney last month will be auctioned on sitepoint.com over the next few days in a bid to answer the ultimate business question: How much is an idea actually worth?
The StartupCamp, designed and run by entrepreneur Bart Jellema, is run nearly non-stop over a weekend with participants who have never met. The teams are then asked to create business ideas from scratch.
The new businesses created from the last camp include GiveDo, a site that allows easier payments to charities, and ActivityHorizon, a site that provides information about leisure activities around Melbourne.
One team created EpicTweet, a content aggregator of the best content posted on Twitter.com, while another new start-up was designed around an iPhone application dubbed iTrafficApp, which updates a phone with real-time traffic details.
Jellema says the program forces budding entrepreneurs to work to strict deadlines.
“We got a bunch of people together – they don’t know each other – and we put them in teams and they come up with ideas, and within 24 hours they launch the product. Then they get a bit of sleep, mostly because they’ve been up for over 24 hours,” he says.
“Then the next day they do their pitch. It was a really great experience for them.”
Jellema also says while the concept of a business camp was established in the United States, the idea of placing the businesses on auction is entirely new.
“Instead of debating the value of the business, we decided to just auction it off. People are always arguing whether a business is worth $20,000 or whatever, so this way we can see what it’s worth, and then if you think it’s worth more then you can bid for it.
“The best performing one is going for just around $999, and the worst at about $100 or so.
Jellema says he is already planning for the next camp. “We’re looking at September at the moment; we haven’t looked at dates yet but we’re looking at a two week program, so it would be a little bit more intense.”
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Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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