GigLink wins Techstars Startup Weekend POS
GigLink, a booking and admin app for musicians, won a 54-hour startup challenge in Port of Spain in August. What it plans to do and what has to happen next.
GigLink, a platform that connects musicians with clients and helps them manage bookings and admin, won Techstars Startup Weekend Trinidad and Tobago on 12 August 2026. The win puts a spotlight on a real problem in the local music business: most gigs are still booked through friends, promoters and WhatsApp messages.
A weekend prize is an early signal, though. The harder test is whether musicians and clients will use the app and pay for it.
What happened
Global Trinidad and Tobago (GlobalTT), the state agency for investment and exports, hosted the event in Port of Spain. Techstars Startup Weekend is a global format where people form teams and build a business idea in 54 hours.
This edition focused on the creative industries. Here is how it ran:
- 40 participants from technology, music, production, education and finance.
- 12 ideas pitched at the start, cut to six teams by peer vote.
- Nine mentors coached the teams before the final pitches to judges.
GigLink took first place, Watt Up came second and Sync the Island third. GlobalTT's write-up gives no detail on what the second and third teams built.
The problem GigLink wants to solve
Working musicians in Trinidad and Tobago often run their careers from a phone. Bookings come through direct messages, invoices are informal and payments get chased by voice note. That costs time and money, especially in Carnival season when demand peaks.
GigLink says it will help musicians find clients and handle the business side, such as admin and bookings. When we checked in October, we could not find a public website or app for it yet. It is a different company from GigLinked, a Canadian booking platform with a similar name.
What the speakers said
Abigail Bynoe, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Trade, Investment and Tourism, opened the final pitches. She urged teams to build for markets beyond Trinidad and Tobago:
"The Caribbean should not only be a user of technology developed elsewhere. We can build technology grounded in our own experience and capable of serving markets beyond our shores."
Melissa Jimenez, who runs GlobalTT's Music Export Office, said the ideas could strengthen the music industry across the region. Her closing line was the most useful: "The pitch may be over, but the real work starts now."
Who backed the weekend
Sponsors included the Private Sector Organisation of Trinidad and Tobago, Clover, Wam, The Worx, Caribbean Dragons, Deel, Mercury, HSBC Innovation Banking, Brex and Google for Startups. Wam, the local payments wallet, is covered in our Wam post.
Sponsorship shows local companies are willing to support creative technology. It does not tell us whether any of them will invest in the winning teams.
What a weekend win shows
| It shows | It does not yet show |
|---|---|
| The team can explain a real problem clearly | That musicians will switch from WhatsApp |
| Mentors and judges liked the idea | That clients will pay through the app |
| The problem matters to the local music industry | That the business can grow beyond Trinidad |
A booking app also covers only part of a musician's income. Royalties from radio, streaming and ads come through collecting societies, as our Carnival music rights post explains.
What to watch
Watch for GigLink to launch a public app or waiting list, and for its first paying users. Watch whether it works with WhatsApp rather than trying to replace it, since that is where Caribbean bookings already happen. And watch whether GlobalTT's Music Export Office helps the team reach musicians in Jamaica, Barbados and the diaspora.