3 Day Startup

A hands-on 72-hour workshop that builds innovation and entrepreneurial skills in students of all disciplines.

You may walk away with the foundations of a new venture, but you will have a new way of looking at problem solving, creativity and making a lot with a little.

3DS is open to students of all years, majors and experience levels. The program is free, but you must apply to get in.

We also run a 3DS program for high schools.

What happens at a 3DS program?

Day 1: Participants arrive—with or without startup ideas—and a facilitator leads the group through dedicated brainstorming, preliminary pitches and feedback, and team selection modules.

Day 2: Customer discovery (teams exit the building, hit the phones or social media, and talk to potential customers), structured mentorship, intermediate pitches and feedback sessions. Day 2 places heavy emphasis on business model generation.

Day 3: Continued execution (including pitch workshops) leading into final pitches/demos to an esteemed panel of mentors and investors.

Interested?

We are currently taking expressions of interest for our next 3 Day Startup session. Register your interest for updates.

Register your interest

Frequently asked questions

What does the weekend look like?

You and 39 other students will start a company over the course of three days. We invite students with a wide range of backgrounds, cater food, drinks, snacks, and coffee, pick the best idea for a startup during the Friday brainstorming session, and release a minimal prototype by the end of day 3. The goal is to build enough momentum among a network of motivated people to sustain the company beyond the weekend

If I participate, what do I get out of the experience?

The worst-case scenario is that you will work with brilliant people from numerous disciplines toward the common goal of building real companies and products. Great connections happen at 3 Day Startup: cofounders meet, complementary skill sets collide and friends are made. The best-case scenario is that you will become a cofounder of a wildly successful new tech startup.

I’m a student majoring in a subject other than business or technology; should I even consider applying?

The short answer is: yes! Our past participants have spanned everything from an undergraduate in psychology to a freshly minted PhD in Neuroscience. If you’re at all passionate about startups and technology, it is likely that you will be a valuable participant.

What kind of ideas are allowed?

Ideas with scalable business models are strongly preferred. Our selection criteria for ideas are (1) your amount of passion and (2) the amount of research on your own idea that you perform.

What about food?

3DS caters all meals, drinks, and in-between snacks.

What is your rate of success?

First of all, check out some of the companies that have been started by graduates of 3-Day Startup here. Our main metric for success is how many of our alumni found companies that take investment, generate revenue or enter incubators. It is common to hear the word “startup” get thrown around. When we say startup, we mean the real thing: companies that are making money or taking investment. Per program, 3-Day Startup results in more successful startups than any other weekend entrepreneurship event. We have run 290+ programs in the US and internationally, and those have given rise to 90+ companies that have cumulatively received over $70 million in funding. Thirty-four companies from 3DS have been accepted to accelerators such as Y Combinator, Tech Stars, 500 Startups, and Dreamit Ventures. On average, each 3-Day Startup program has generated more than one successful startup. This includes programs in mature and nascent university entrepreneurship ecosystems.

3 Day Startup for high schools

The 3 Day Startup for high schools program allows students and teachers to explore the benefits of innovation and entrepreneurship across a series of fun, intensive workshops. The program will run in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast in February 2020.

Find out more