A whirlwind of a weekend produced a startup champion that hopes to revamp the world of customer relationship management.
Kansas City Startup Weekend, a competition in which teams frantically develop and refine a business idea in 54 hours, crowned LoopLogiq as its champion Sunday. The company’s customer relationship management system (CRM) aims to help companies with mobile workforces.
LoopLogiq beat out seven other teams in the competition, with AMPSocial winning second place and Near Cause earning third place.
“The win felt, and still feels, amazing,” said Ray Haynes, a co-founder of LoopLogiq. “This was my second time at Startup Weekend so I had an idea what it was like to participate. But actually winning is a whole other experience. It provides validation that we really are on to something good.”
LoopLogiq hopes to help businesses — from home health care to plumbers to maid services — manage their mobile workforces that travel to serve clients. The service will consist of a web- and mobile-app with which businesses can schedule, assign and track jobs. The apps also will allow for internal communication via email, text, voice, images and video.
Haynes said that customers will also be able to use the app to provide feedback on services and can share their comments on social media. Haynes built the app with fellow co-founders Paul Santulli and Amr Gaber.
“We’ve been talking to several people involved in businesses with mobile workforces,” Haynes said of LoopLogiq’s inspiration. “I kept hearing about the same challenges, and in trying to research ways to help them with technology, we found there was no good solution. So, we decided to build it. We hung onto the idea for a few weeks so we could use Startup Weekend as a ‘kick in the pants’ to launch the platform.”
Startup Weekend organizer Scott Howell said that 60 people participated in the weekend’s contest, hosted at the Sprint Accelerator. The competition, which kicked off Friday evening, started with a field of 20 teams but eventually was whittled down to the eight contenders.
Howell said that he was impressed by the competitors.
“The startups we had this weekend could all be legitimate companies,” Howell said. “With the rights skills they could keep growing. … Overall, it went really well. Everyone seemed to have a really good time.”
Alisha Templeton, program director at Techstars and one of three Startup Weekend judges, said that the teams each presented a variety of ideas in different fields. In addition, she said the competitors were keen to help one another.
“The overall feel of the event was supportive and fun, even considering the little sleep they all had throughout the weekend,” she said. “The teams seemed to work very well together and some even had users for their products by the end of the weekend.”
Templeton said that she voted for Loop Logiq for several reasons.
“They had such large market potential with the product of tracking delivery service providers as they are making their way to your house,” she said. “Think about an app like Uber to track the cable installer when he’s on his way to your house instead of waiting 6 hours for him or her to arrive. They also had built out a great product demo and showed progress in execution as well as a solid business plan.”
Startup Weekend Kansas City is held twice a year at various locations. For more information about its next event, click here.
Haynes encouraged others in Kansas City to try Startup Weekend, even if they don’t feel they have something to offer.
“If anyone is thinking about going to Startup Weekend and that they wouldn’t be able to contribute they’re instantly wrong,” he said. “There’s going to be someone there that will value your perspective.”
