Techstars Startup Weekend is coming to Pittsburgh in February

Time flies when you’re ideally having fun and trying to get in the last of your holiday shopping, but amid the tinsel-tinged chaos, we figured it couldn’t hurt to give you something to look forward to in 2024: Techstars Startup Weekend, hosted in partnership by InnovatePGH.

Sure, Feb. 2, 2024 probably feels like a lifetime away, but as far as InnovatePGH Ecosystem Community and Research Manager Charles Mansfield is concerned, the sooner you get registered. the better.

Amid all the tech conventions and happy hours in the Steel City, what sets Techstars Startup Weekend apart? Picture an event where anyone can develop and pitch new startup ideas. Mansfield compared the event to a hackathon, but instead of coding, participants will be asked to build a startup in 54 hours. At the end of the weekend, participants will have access to potential mentors, investors and maybe even cofounders.

“In layman’s terms, it’s just like a two-day long ideation session, where people break up into groups around ideas, and then present them in a pitch form,” Mansfield said.

Techstars is a prominent national pre-seed investment program that currently doesn’t have a Pittsburgh presence. However, Mansfield noted that InnovatePGH and Techstars are no strangers to collaboration, as the two orgs previously hosted events together before the pandemic. On the InnovatePGH side, Mansfield said the powers that be believed it’d be helpful to the Pittsburgh tech ecosystem to host the pitch equivalent of a hackathon without the constraints that a university-specific event might bring.

Although Mansfield isn’t sure a Pittsburgh Techstars chapter is setting up shop anytime soon, he said the event could be a great chance to bring the community together.

“Everyone in the community who [is] interested in entrepreneurship can take part,” Mansfield said. The goal is to encourage “cross-pollination” of ideas.

Register here

It’s worth noting that for participants that any ideas shared throughout the event will be widely shared. If you’re worried about your future competition hearing your ideas, the event page advises, note that your pitch can be limited to the rough outline of the idea without giving away what could become trade secrets down the line.

Otherwise, Mansfield feels that the benefit of participating in Techstars Startup Weekend is how beginner-friendly it is.

“It’s targeted towards people who either have an idea that’s been ruminating in the back of their mind,” Mansfield said, “or if you’re just generally interested in startups [and] might not have an idea, but maybe you want to build something or join a team one day. I think this is an amazing kind of experience building block, just if you’re just curious about it at all. So it’s mainly meant for those like really, really early types of minds and not [necessarily] established entrepreneurs.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.