Startup Standup is what happens when a hackathon collides with an improv show. You arrive in the morning not knowing your teammates. You get handed a random set of innovation elements. By late afternoon you’re on stage pitching a product that your team created that day!
It takes one Saturday, it’s free, and you don’t need a business or technical background to participate and enjoy. All you need a willingness to be a little ridiculous in good company.
How the Day Goes
- Morning — improv for everyone. You start with the Theatricality & You workshop: exercises that get you thinking on your feet and loosen up the part of your brain that’s worried about looking silly.
- Midday — teams and elements. Over lunch you meet your team and receive your random innovation elements: a client, a problem, a constraint. In 2025 those clients were superheroes, in 2024 they where steam punk inventors!
- Early afternoon — learn to pitch, then build one. A short workshop on telling a story with a product, then an hour of hard brainstorming to turn your elements into something you can actually sell from a stage.
- 3:30 — the Stand-up Cup. Every team pitches to a panel of judges, with a quick Q&A after each one.
- 5:00 — awards Winners announced, then time to talk and celebrate.
Who Comes
Students from every major. There’s no prerequisite and no expectation that you’ve done anything like this before (most participants haven’t). You leave able to pitch an idea to a room, which is a skill that outlasts the trophy.
Faculty join as judges, workshop leads, and organizers. It’s a low-lift way to see your students do something you don’t get to see in a classroom, and past editions have been shaped by faculty from economics, health studies, business, and theater!
Anyone who wants to watch. The Stand-up Cup in the late afternoon is the showcase, and it’s open. You do not have to participate to come see the pitches.
Past Editions
2025 — Superheroes with Super Solutions
Thirteen students spent Saturday, October 18th innovating for a superhero-saturated society. Teams built for clients with extraordinary problems: a calorie pill for a super kid who couldn’t keep weight on, a superhero tracker to help a local train conductor keep the trains running on time.
When students arrive in the morning, they are cautiously optimistic but often guarded. It doesn’t take long before students get the vibe of this immersive event: fun, exciting, and playful. After Startup Standup, students don’t see a pitch or presentation the same way.
~ Lynn Herrmann, School of Health Studies
Startup Standup is approved for Honors Engaged and Business Passport credit.