Startup Weekend Detroit, Accelerate Michigan competitions come to downtown Detroit in November

Two big events are coming to Detroit in November: the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition taking place Nov. 4 through 6 in downtown Detroit and Come to the Motor City the following week.

Startup Weekend Detroit is an intensive, two-day workout where local entrepreneurs can make a spirited pitch to turn their idea for an app into a startup. Teams of local entrepreneurs will work for 54 hours to bring the idea to reality on Nov 14 in Grand Circus in downtown Detroit.

"On average we have 50 idea pitches," says Brandon Chesnutt, local organizer and global facilitator for Startup Weekend Detroit. "We will narrow it to 15."

This is the sixth Startup Weekend Detroit since it launched in 2009. About 100 people attend each competition and they break into 12 to 15 teams within a few hours. Some of the previous winners include Sales On Fire, which won the 2012 prize and became an app a year later, and VisionBoards, which won last year's competition and went on to take first prize in one of the 2013 Global Startup Battle sub-cattegories.

"Many people want to know if they have what it takes to be an entrepreneur," Chesnutt says. "You really don't know until try. Startup Weekend gives you the opportunity."

The Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition is geared toward the people who know they are entrepreneurs. The three-day competition pits mature startups against each other for about $1 million in cash and prizes. The top prize is $500,000 in seed capital. More importantly, the participants use the opportunity at the Book Cadillac Hotel to network with angel investors and venture capitalists to secure even more funding.

Source: Brandon Chesnutt, local organizer and global facilitator for Startup Weekend Detroit
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.