Briefcase: Three-day event on starting businesses

Three-day event on starting businesses

Spokane resident Brett Noyes is promoting and presenting a three-day Startup Weekend on April 20-22 at Gonzaga University.

Noyes, an MBA graduate of Gonzaga University, discovered the Seattle-based business-coaching concept while doing research on starting his own business. The idea is a trademarked three-day plan that has been presented across the country.

Noyes soon signed up to be the presenter of Spokane’s first Startup Weekend.

Friday night starts with those having business plans making one-minute pitches. A panel then chooses the best business ideas, and divides the full group of attendees into teams.

For the rest of the weekend the teams collaborate and brainstorm business strategies and devise solutions for turning the idea into a successful business.

A facilitator will be on hand provided by the Seattle Startup Weekend group, Noyes said. Several other guest presenters and coaches from Portland and Seattle have been invited, he added.

Noyes said he’s likely to host more than one of the weekends.

Registration, at spokane.startupweekend.org, is $55 until March 31. It’s $75 after that.

Tom Sowa

Sprint posts loss on iPhone costs

NEW YORK – Sprint dug deep into its pockets in the latest quarter to put iPhones in the hands of its customers. The perennially money-losing company on Wednesday posted its largest loss in three years.

Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, has found it difficult to compete with larger rivals AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, both of which sell the iPhone.

So Sprint jumped for the chance to sell the iPhone starting in October, giving Apple Inc. a $15.5 billion commitment to buy phones over four years.

But the cost was steep: Sprint estimated that the phone launch widened its quarterly loss by $630 million, or $350 per phone activated. It buys the phones from Apple for around $600, then subsidizes them to sell them for $99 or $199.

Associated Press

New Caesars shares jump 33 percent

NEW YORK – Shares of casino operator Caesars Entertainment Corp. jumped 33 percent Wednesday in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq.

The company’s stock rose $2.97, or 33 percent, to $11.97 in morning trading. Caesars had priced its initial public offering of 1.8 million shares at $9 apiece.

The Las Vegas company said late Tuesday that it expected to raise about $16 million from the offering before deducting costs. The offering values Caesars at about $1.14 billion overall because it includes just 1.4 percent of the company’s outstanding stock.

Associated Press