As many of you know, GooseChase has had the amazing opportunity of participating in Start-Up Chile for the past few months. It’s been quite the experience and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Our productivity has also been through the roof so it’s hard to complain. But like all good things, it must come to an end, and our time is almost up here.
When planning where to go after this, we struggled between moving to the Bay Area and going back to Waterloo. Both have pros and cons, but in the end we decided to head back to Waterloo. There’s something really exciting happening in Waterloo, especially with VeloCity growing the way it is. I’m confident there’s going to be a couple very large companies come out of the area in the next 10 years and I want to be a part of it.
So starting in mid-May, we’ll be back in Waterloo working out of the VeloCity Garage at the Tannery. If you’re in the area, give us a shout!
GooseChase iPhone app can be downloaded from here & Android from here.
Hooray! It’s March! And with March comes the wildest conference out there, South by Southwest (SXSW). As we mentioned a month ago, GooseChase is going to be competing in the SXSW Accelerator competition, but our involvement doesn’t just stop there.
In order to celebrate the unveiling of our brand new, version 2.0 platform, we’re running a massive GooseChase to highlight all the hottest startups at SXSW. What’s so special about that? Well picture all the things you know and love about GooseChase: the intense competition, the incredible pics and the crazy challenges, and now add in the next wave of awesome tech from all over the world. Yup, sounds pretty awesome right?
Anyone who’s participated in a GooseChase knows that this isn’t your ordinary scavenger hunt. Sure you submit photos to complete missions and receive points, but when you see all the photos coming into the feed and you’re climbing the leaderboard, it’s really easy to get hooked. Like really, really easy. So with each mission highlighting a startup and their product with an entertaining challenge, it gives you an incredible way to meet the hottest startups before they explode.
Wouldn’t it have been cool to get to know Foursquare or Twitter before everyone else knew about them? I think so. And that’s where the SXSW GooseChase comes in. You’ll be up close and personal, getting to know these startups the way they really are. Uncensored and without PR polish, just raw, awesome startupness.
There’s already a ton of awesome startups in on it and their missions are nothing short of incredible. I’m always amazed by the creativity of others, and this has been no different. Whether it’s challenging others to a coaster throwing competition or having a pitch-off for make believe products, each startup has managed to convert their essence into a crazy fun task for you to do.
And you know what the coolest part is? All the startups that are trying to market themselves actually want to play too. You know something’s pretty awesome when everyone’s as excited as we are.
“Just checked out GooseChase & could not be more excited for their SXSW GooseChase!” -BringShare
“Amazing! Super excited to be involved.” - Stealth Startup
“I am going to have to download the app, I want to do the scavenger hunt myself!” -Wisdio
The good news is with SXSW starting in just over a week, we don’t have to wait too long to get this show on the road. If you are going to be in Austin, I highly encourage you to check out the SXSW GooseChase by downloading the new GooseChase iPhone or Android apps! It’s going to be an incredible ride and I feel pretty confident you won’t regret it :)
Are you a startup that wants to be featured in the SXSW GooseChase? Head to www.goosechase.com/sxsw and submit a mission for free!
Today I’m incredibly excited to announce that GooseChase has been selected to pitch at the SXSW Accelerator on March 12-13. As one of only 8 companies selected for the Entertainment category, this is a huge honour. SXSW has the ability to make or break a product and we believe that we have a great chance of taking home the gold for 2012. Just like Foursquare, Twitter and GroupMe before us, we want GooseChase to hit the mainstream at SXSW.
But, to accomplish that, we’re going to need some help getting the ball rolling. I can’t tell you exactly what it is (yet), but I can promise you that it will be hella fun. You don’t need to be going to SXSW, but it will definitely help if you are. So if you are down to help, please drop me an e-mail at andrew@goosechase.com. In exchange, you’ll get a early peak at something special we’ll be unveiling just before SXSW!
Let the countdown begin.
About the SXSW Accelerator
The fourth annual SXSW Accelerator will take March 12-14 at the 2012 SXSW Festival in Austin Texas. A live audience, as well as a panel of expert judges will be discovering advancements in social media, mobile applications, web entertainment, and more. The best part? Product demonstrations by the most ambitious talents in the world with the most creative new ideas to change it. We will catch a glimpse of the industry’s future, with a guided tour by our emcees and judges.
This competition will be unlike any other. On March 12, forty-eight companies battle for your taste-making, trend-setting attention, leading to a fireworks display of innovation. Connections will be made and careers launched. On Tuesday March 13, the top eighteen companies will be invited back, and at the end of the day winners of SXSW Accelerator will be announced. The Music Accelerator follows on Wednesday, March 14th with a full day of programming in which eight music technology startups companies will pitch their products or services.
Here’s some awesome news for us that we wanted to share with everyone. As of tonight, we are relocating to Chile for 6 months to participate in Start-Up Chile, one of the more intriguing accelerators to come out in the last year or two. It’s a pretty bold decision, but we are very confident in our ability to execute remotely and keep improving the product at a breakneck pace.
What I’m most excited about is getting to know the highly diverse set of entrepreneurs in the program. I think we sometimes get stuck in the bubble of what we know, and stepping out and living in another culture is a great way to break that habit. Everyone knows globalization is happening, yet few people actually act aggressively on it. By living in another culture and working with a global network of entrepreneurs, we are positioning ourselves well for the future.
With only a few hours to go before we head down, the excitement is really starting to kick in. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and we’ve got high hopes for what we can accomplish there!
I’m going to do my best to blog frequently and give plenty of updates on how things are going – so make sure to check back soon and add us on twitter (@GooseChase)! (feed: http://goosechase.com/blog/feed/)
More Information About Start-Up Chile:
Start-Up Chile is a program created by the Chilean Government, initiated by the Ministry of Economy and executed by Corfo/InnovaChile, that seeks to attract early-stage high potential entrepreneurs to bootstrap their startups using Chile as a platform to go global. In line with the national goal of converting Chile into the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of Latin America, the program plans to bring 1,000 startups to Chile by 2014.
During the six months the participants must be in Chile– for which they receive US$40k of equity-free seed capital, a 1-year work visa, and access to local financial and social networks– the objective is to raise funds, hire talent, create networks, and to launch their businesses from Chile while leveraging and interacting fully with the local entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The program, unique in the world, and catalyst of similar initiatives such as Startup America, Britain, and Greece, is the ideal opportunity for bootstrappers to receive funding without ceding equity while utilizing one of the strongest Latin American economies as their launching/development platform. Start-Up Chile has been featured in The Economist, BusinessWeek, TechCrunch, and Forbes, among others.
For more information about the Start-Up Chile experience, please visit www.startupchile.org.
