Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours by Marc Nager, Clint Nelsen, Franck Nouyrigat
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the Great Valley. Kesterson explains: “It instantly made my previous world feel so primitive and out of the loop. People at Startup Weekend were so high on the rush of creativity and productivity and eager to collaborate.”
Getting the chance to meet all of these people from other fields was something that Kesterson says didn't happen for him in school or in his day job as a toy designer. Startup Weekend introduced him to “people on one end of the spectrum from Microsoft and Google,” as well as to those whom Kyle thinks of as being from a “sterile business-to-business environment.” He explains that while he doesn't really fit into that world either, the people who came from those other types of environments “had really interesting ideas about what collaboration with someone with my skill set could look like.”
In fact, many of the people who attend Startup Weekends work at larger companies. While they may feel as though they have unlimited resources where they are, that can be paralyzing in a way—because they start to believe that they need all those resources in order to start up a new company. But they don't. That's exactly why it can be very beneficial for them to network with veterans of startups and work alongside people who have the courage to engage in this process.
Kesterson found people at Startup Weekend who were highly polished, and some who were not; he found people who were into social gaming and some who were definitely not. “It was just this huge array, but it all had to do with technology and flourishing ideas. And everyone is really excited and really open and generous with their ideas.” He says that this kind of openness is something he hadn't encountered before. “This wasn't heavily guarded brilliance”; this was people “just wanting to get as much feedback as they can and really digging. And that digging included finding out what ideas you might have.”
Kesterson says that when he was in school, he imagined that some day he might be successful enough to become a freelance designer, but even in that case, he would just be working out the designs for someone else's ideas. He never dreamed that he could have his own company where he came up with the concepts for what he was designing, too.
Kesterson's educational experience prior to coming to Startup Weekend (which, if anything, was strictly limited to his talents) is not unique—and this is not only an American educational phenomenon. Thibaut Labarre, another Startup Weekend participant, explains that in his experience at the French Grand Ecoles d'Ingénieurs , “which are supposed to teach the best and brightest scientists and engineers,” he was not exposed to people from other fields or people who had great entrepreneurial ideas. However, at a Paris Startup Weekend, Labarre and his team developed a website where people could share their insights about what was going to happen in the future. “The goal,” he explains, “was to bring all brains together in order to have the best forecasts about what is going to happen.” Labarre says he would like to make a course modeled on Startup Weekend a part of the curriculum at his university. “Startup Weekend gave me the startup spirit and the feeling that anything is possible when people from different backgrounds work together for a common cause.”
Get Out of Your Bubble
Entrepreneurs have to be different from people who work for large companies. They can't just sit in their cubicle and interact with other people who do exactly what they do or have the same training they do. As a startup veteran and evangelizer for entrepreneurial networking, Bob Crimmins points out, “The most important relationships you have as an entrepreneur are with people who don't do what you do.”
Entrepreneurs have to act like CEOs, only with a more hands-on approach. They have to know a little bit about every aspect of business. It's
Getting the chance to meet all of these people from other fields was something that Kesterson says didn't happen for him in school or in his day job as a toy designer. Startup Weekend introduced him to “people on one end of the spectrum from Microsoft and Google,” as well as to those whom Kyle thinks of as being from a “sterile business-to-business environment.” He explains that while he doesn't really fit into that world either, the people who came from those other types of environments “had really interesting ideas about what collaboration with someone with my skill set could look like.”
In fact, many of the people who attend Startup Weekends work at larger companies. While they may feel as though they have unlimited resources where they are, that can be paralyzing in a way—because they start to believe that they need all those resources in order to start up a new company. But they don't. That's exactly why it can be very beneficial for them to network with veterans of startups and work alongside people who have the courage to engage in this process.
Kesterson found people at Startup Weekend who were highly polished, and some who were not; he found people who were into social gaming and some who were definitely not. “It was just this huge array, but it all had to do with technology and flourishing ideas. And everyone is really excited and really open and generous with their ideas.” He says that this kind of openness is something he hadn't encountered before. “This wasn't heavily guarded brilliance”; this was people “just wanting to get as much feedback as they can and really digging. And that digging included finding out what ideas you might have.”
Kesterson says that when he was in school, he imagined that some day he might be successful enough to become a freelance designer, but even in that case, he would just be working out the designs for someone else's ideas. He never dreamed that he could have his own company where he came up with the concepts for what he was designing, too.
Kesterson's educational experience prior to coming to Startup Weekend (which, if anything, was strictly limited to his talents) is not unique—and this is not only an American educational phenomenon. Thibaut Labarre, another Startup Weekend participant, explains that in his experience at the French Grand Ecoles d'Ingénieurs , “which are supposed to teach the best and brightest scientists and engineers,” he was not exposed to people from other fields or people who had great entrepreneurial ideas. However, at a Paris Startup Weekend, Labarre and his team developed a website where people could share their insights about what was going to happen in the future. “The goal,” he explains, “was to bring all brains together in order to have the best forecasts about what is going to happen.” Labarre says he would like to make a course modeled on Startup Weekend a part of the curriculum at his university. “Startup Weekend gave me the startup spirit and the feeling that anything is possible when people from different backgrounds work together for a common cause.”
Get Out of Your Bubble
Entrepreneurs have to be different from people who work for large companies. They can't just sit in their cubicle and interact with other people who do exactly what they do or have the same training they do. As a startup veteran and evangelizer for entrepreneurial networking, Bob Crimmins points out, “The most important relationships you have as an entrepreneur are with people who don't do what you do.”
Entrepreneurs have to act like CEOs, only with a more hands-on approach. They have to know a little bit about every aspect of business. It's
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