By Philip Joens Sunday, March 13th, 2016

Rep Watch won the inaugural Startup Weekend Ventura County late March 13.

Four California Lutheran University students created the company in just 53 hours over the weekend. During that time, Rep Watch created a device that measures the health of injured body parts. The event was held March 11-13 at Rancho Campana High School in Camarillo.

The device is designed to reduce workers’ compensation costs spent on rehabilitation, to give patients an idea of how healthy an injured body part is and to give insurance companies a way to monitor patients’ progress through rehab programs.

Cal Lutheran Entrepreneurship Club President Rob Kyler thought of an idea for a device that monitored the severeness of head injuries March 11 before the company later pivoted to its new focus. Cal Lutheran students Ryan Angel, John Ikudaisi and Alexis Schomer were also on the team.

By winning the event, the team will receive $10,000 once the company is incorporated. Rep Watch will also be given other services like time with mentors and co-working space.

About 65 entrepreneurs from around the region participated in the event. Nine teams developed businesses from a 60-second pitch on Friday that was refined into a five-minute pitch Sunday evening. Startup Weekends are designed to help all participants, even those that don’t win, officials said.

Judge Chris Messiner, CEO of Camarillo-based Messiner Filtration Products, said the company did a great job of articulating its vision and how it would make money to judges.

“We were able to focus on the business model,” Messiner said. “They had great use of data and statistics that they were then able to use to justify how they would generate revenue.”

• Contact Philip Joens at pjoens@pacbiztimes.com.