Project Skyway Boot-Camp weekend will be held this coming weekend (June 10-12) at CoCo’s downtown St. Paul location (view map).  While we have referenced our upcoming Boot-Camp Weekend in many of our recent communications, we also realize that not everyone may know what we mean or have in store for the weekend.  Here then is a brief overview of what campers can expect, and how the rest of our community can participate during the weekend.

Friday, June 10

• Geek Dance:  The weekend kicks-off with the invitation-only Project Skyway Boot-Camp Mixer on Friday night with our 25 companies (49 Campers).  This will be a great chance for everyone to get to know one another and most importantly have some fun.
• Before the evening ends, the campers will be given a questionnaire with a number of tough questions to answer.

Saturday, June 11

• Executive Summary “Swap-and-Pitch”:  In the morning (8 AM to noon), each team will receive an Executive Summary of one of the other teams.  Each team will then be given 15 minutes to read the summary and write a 2 minute pitch.  Next each team will give their 2-minute pitch, followed by 3 minutes of questions, and 2 minutes of response from the team that originally wrote the Executive Summary.
• Mentor-Go-Round: In the afternoon (1 to 5 PM), the teams will be split into 6 groups and then each group will rotate between different discussion tables that have judges in each of the following disciplines: Fundraising, Legal, Team/Founders/Hiring, Marketing/Biz Development, Tech/ Development, and Strategic Partnerships.
• The teams will go out to dinner in mixed groups with local entrepreneurs and Project Skyway Ambassadors.

Sunday, June 12

• Go to the Gym & Pitch Prep: Each team will spend the morning (8 AM to noon) preparing three 90 second-pitches (one each for investors, customers and employees) to be presented in the afternoon. These presentations will be video-taped and judged by the audience. The teams will also have access to pitch tools from BizGym to help develop their presentation.  Members of the entrepreneurial community are also encouraged to come and help our campers develop their pitches.
• During the morning session, each team will also be pulled aside for 10 minutes to meet with the Project Skyway team.
• Home Run Derby: In the afternoon (1 to 5 PM) each team will have a chance to step up to the plate and present their three live 90-second pitches. Their pitches will be rated by the entire audience including other Campers and guests.
• The entire afternoon session will be open to the public and is a great opportunity to show our community support for our Campers.

At the end of Boot-camp Weekend, the Project Skyway team will come together and spend the next couple of days ranking the teams.  The final companies selected to attend the inaugural class of Project Skyway will then be announced on Friday, June 17.

We look forward to meeting all our Campers and seeing many of our entrepreneurial community supporters at our Boot-camp weekend.