Startup Weekend 2022 1st Place Team: Brain Rot
The winning team at Startup Weekend 2022 was Brain Rot.
Brain Rot created an app which tracks viewing habits cross-platform and automatically recommends shows and movies to the viewer.
Last April, the SSU Kricker Innovation Hub hosted its second Techstars Startup Weekend. Over 30 Shawnee State students participated in the 3-day event, pitching startup ideas, forming teams, creating minimum viable products, and pitching in front of a panel of judges.
First place at Startup Weekend: Shawnee State 2022 went to Brain Rot, a team that created an app that tracks streaming habits and automatically recommends movies and television shows. During their pitch, Brain Rot concluded their app would greatly reduce the amount of time spent looking for a potential new show or movie to watch, thereby allowing more time for actual viewing.
“Think Spotify, but with shows,” said team member Shannon Adkins. Adkins described the concept as a cross-platform app which “makes custom playlists of different shows and allows users to watch them all in one go.”
The team members behind Brain Rot formed at Startup Weekend with no idea what to expect.
“I got involved mostly because of Choose Ohio First and class credit,” said team member Chase Minor. “But I also thought the experience would be really fun.”
Minor, who received extra credit through Jason Lovin’s marketing class, says he gained much more than extra credit over the course of the weekend.
“The experience taught me a lot about teamwork, public speaking, marketing, and brainstorming new strategies. And of course, it helped me network and meet new people.”
“The experience taught me a lot about teamwork, public speaking, marketing, and brainstorming new strategies. And of course, it helped me network and meet new people.”
Brain Rot says they were fortunate to have a team with different backgrounds and academic majors involved.
“We had coders on the team, so they were focused on that. But when they found out I was a marketing major, I was assigned to that role,” said Minor.
“Since I was already studying design and business, I worked on the logo in partnership with teammate Elijah Wickerman,” said Shannon. “Having creative people helped in that regard.”
Shannon and Elijah designed the brain rot logo and worked on visual elements on the final pitch presentation. Shannon attributes their professional design work in helping to win the competition on the final day of Startup Weekend. The judges were also impressed by their app prototype, joking the app really did have the potential to ‘rot their brains’.
“Startup Weekend: Shawnee State was an amazing experience that taught us invaluable strategies and really pushed us outside of our comfort zone to create a business idea that could become reality,” said Shannon. “I would definitely recommend it.”
Startup Weekend: Shawnee State kicks off on Friday, March 31st to Sunday April 2nd. Students may register here.
“Startup Weekend was an amazing experience.”