After Startup Weekend, Five Businesses Born

Kevin Yancy walked into the EmergeMemphis building last Friday night with a domain name and dream. He walked out 48 hours later with a team of 10 people, the beta version of a Web site and the foundation for a startup company called The Roll Play.

Yancy’s concept was one of five business models chosen at Memphis Startup Weekend 2, held May 29-31 and hosted by LaunchMemphis. This was the second annual event, but the first in which multiple businesses were formed during the weekend.

Eric Mathews, president of LaunchMemphis and co-founder of Mercury Technology Labs, said the event exceeded everyone’s expectations, and the format changes helped get more participants fully engaged in working on a concept.

“It’s been a productive weekend,” Mathews said. “A lot of that had to do with some of the returning people, who had some memory and knew what they were doing. Their experience paid off big time this go-round.”

Alternative realities

The Roll Play, www.therollplay.com, is a collaborative, online storytelling Web site that grew from Yancy’s observations of his daughter, Kristen, who has participated in similar “role playing” story creations on the Internet.

A role playing story begins when a moderator establishes the premise, background and characters of the tale; that initial entry is followed by other contributors adding different characters and scenes.

The Roll Play – named because the story entries “roll” down the page – is unlike other sites because it gives the moderator more control, from ending the story to deleting or reordering posts to printing the story in book form, Yancy said.

What’s more, the concept could be applied to educational settings. Yancy even spoke to his son’s teacher about using it in a classroom so the students could write creative, collaborative stories.

“We started to see that the engine could apply to different venues, different styles of collaborative writing with just a simple machine, a simple mechanism,” Yancy said. “We’re starting in this area because there’s a ready market, but I’ve been asked how it can be used in all kinds of different environments, from educational environments to collaborative screenplay writing. It’s been interesting the way people have thought that it might be useful.”

Now that the core engine is up and functioning – thanks to the efforts at Memphis Startup Weekend – the team behind The Roll Play will begin prioritizing key site features not yet built. Then, Yancy said, the goal is to “see what kind of legs this idea has,” monitor site traffic and form a legal company to handle the business side of it.

“I’ve been really pleased with the interest and how far it came along so quickly,” he said.

Getup and go

The other companies at least partially developed at Memphis Startup Weekend 2 are Mister Menus, Cheezy Weezy, GameWavMedia and Rezzie.

Mathews said Mister Menus is an online service with restaurant menus and reviews. Too often, he noted, people go online and can’t find a restaurant’s menu, or its selections or prices are outdated.

With Mister Menus, users or restaurant owners themselves can enter that information at the site, which also provides social networking capabilities for users to rate restaurants or search for criteria such as vegetarian offerings.

Cheezy Weezy is a Web site where people can look at photos of children and decide if they’re “cute or not,” much like the popular Hot or Not rating site for singles. Cheezy Weezy will offer users the chance to judge the cuteness of children’s photos and share photos of their own children.

GameWavMedia is a concept for gamers, allowing them to use their online role-playing characters with numerous platforms. And Rezzie is a way to channel revenues for real estate ad placements as well as a forum for users to rate real estate professionals – Realtors, mortgage brokers and others – much the same way users rate eBay sellers.

Mathews said these five companies are provided space in EmergeMemphis’ LaunchPad area to develop their ideas. The LaunchPad is an open office area with office and other supplies.

In 90 days, the company starters will report their progress and milestones at a Startup Weekend reunion. At that event, participants will reconvene to see who has made the most progress, with an incentive tied to their success.

“The first company to get revenue,” Mathews said, “LaunchMemphis will give them a launch party.”

Thursday, June 04, 2009, Vol. 124, No. 108
ERIC SMITH | The Daily News