Rival Ripper takes home top prize at Startup Weekend Chandler

It was an exhausting weekend for the nine competing startups at Startup Weekend Chandler. Hosted by Ed Allen, Founder and Owner of ITECH Systems, Startup Weekend is an entrepreneurial event where anyone can come and pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from peers and mentors.
On Friday evening at Gangplank LLC in Chandler, about 20 people pitched their business idea to event attendees, and eight of those were picked to become startups. The remaining competitors joined the chosen startup ideas, and it was all systems go for the next 54 hours.
Teams worked from the ground up, hunching over laptops and exhausting supplies of sticky notes to create a business plan, develop marketing goals, build a website, design their brand and code, code, code.

The teams were working toward the grand prize of TechShop Chandler memberships and one class for each team member, consulting from web design and marketing company Ciplex, and lots of swag from Gangplank.
Each startup had five minutes to pitch followed by a five-minute rapid fire Q&A from a team of expert judges: Neal Andres, Founder of MINE International Limited, Susan Baier, Founder of Audience Audit, Jon Deiter, CFO/VP Finance and Admin at McMardon Investments, LLC/MAC6, and Jeff Weninger, Councilmember at City of Chandler.
After a long deliberation from the judges, the winner of Startup Weekend Chandler was Rival Ripper, a competitive price management system targeted to eBay power sellers. Their platform brings an easy way to keep up with competitors prices, building a pricing strategy for the user.
The team said the toughest part of the weekend was the very beginning when the team was trying to narrow down what would be their minimum viable product (MVP).
“The idea of what we were talking about was so broad and so esoteric that once we understood exactly what the main, core focus was things went a lot smoother,” said team member Matt Lopez.
The Rival Ripper team included:
Matt Lopez-Presenter and Customer Validation
Hans McMurdy-Frontend and Mobile Design
Barbara Atkinson-Operations
Ron Vinluan-Marketing and Networking
Yuan Huynh-Site Developer and customer experience

 
The following startups also pitched:
ZipLearn-a B2B mobile micro-learning service.
Bellafellabox-a monthly pet product review subscription where users try out products, rate them, and receive points to purchase the full-sized version in their ecommerce store.
Shark Bite Boards-a skateboard that simulates surfing. Winner: second place.
Fight the Fire-a gaming app that educates players on fire safety and prevention. Winner: third place.
NavGrab-a smartglove for motorcyclists that pairs with your mobile devices, giving users the ability to answer your calls and access other functions with one hand.
JDAsk-an attorney-to-attorney marketplace to sell and browse documents.
BidItDone-a bidding web and mobile platform to connect people in need of home improvement and repair jobs with handy people to get it done for them.
Newly added this year was the Chris Stiffler Technology Award to honor the late entrepreneur and co-founder of Vicinity Health who was a large part of the Gangplank community. Read more about Chris Stiffler and Vicinity Health here.
The crowd chose Fight the Fire as winner of the award.
Congratulations to all those who participated.
To read past coverage on Startup Weekend click here.
Photos provided by Eileen M. Kane on Flickr.com