Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours by Marc Nager, Clint Nelsen, Franck Nouyrigat Page A
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not that they have to be able to step in for the coders if the coders call in sick that day, but they do have to know what is involved in coding. They must develop a sense of how long things take and how the work gets done. However, our day-to-day interactions often don't provide us with the opportunity to see how our colleagues in other departments do their work. Getting out of the bubble of your own field is critical to being a successful entrepreneur. As we discuss later, Startup Weekend has allowed entrepreneurs to be able to look at the entire workflow and see how the whole process can be made better and more efficient.
Many of the project leaders at Startup Weekend like to be modest and say they just bought the coffee in the morning and the beer at night and it was really their team that did all the work. However, that's rarely the case. Keeping the team on an even keel, matching up individual skills with a particular element of the project, and ensuring that people are getting along and having fun while work is accomplished are important parts of being a startup founder. And the action-based networking at Startup Weekend gives budding entrepreneurs a chance to try out these roles.
And not all of the networking that happens is with your own team, either. One Startup Weekend participant, Alexa Andrzejewski, founded a company called Foodspotting, a social networking application that allows users to post pictures of and recommend their favorite dishes (not just their favorite restaurants.) Alexa describes how she came to the event with an idea in mind but didn't plan to fully develop it that weekend. Instead, she claimed a section of a blank wall and started to put up post-it notes with her team members that had design ideas written all over them. As Andrzejewski explains, “We wanted to brainstorm in a really visible way.” And it worked beautifully; other SW participants would walk by and ask questions or make suggestions. “We talked to someone who did market research about how we could do research with restaurants to help Foodspotting [improve], and we talked to a lawyer who told us what's involved in actually starting up a company.”
Andrzejewski got to pitch her idea over and over again to dozens of people, and receive valuable feedback along the way. By the time she left on Sunday, she had a much better idea of how to make her concept work effectively—and she had gotten a lot of practice selling the idea to potential users. Though Alexa didn't find the rest of her team at Startup Weekend, the connections she made there eventually granted her access to some initial funding for her venture.
Another Startup Weekend participant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, worked on a project called Rethink Water, which aims to reduce the waste created by plastic water bottles by installing water filtration machines on college campuses. He recalls of his teammates: “Our instant friendship, as well as their passion for the project and our common interests in bringing not only the Rethink Water project but other ideas on the table to market, served to fuel our energy throughout the weekend and to this day.”
Like Alexa, this entrepreneur told us that it wasn't just the people on his own team who helped. “The collaborative and open nature of the weekend was an aspect I thoroughly enjoyed.” He was impressed with the way “everyone was willing to share their work and help others with theirs. We could be wrestling with an issue one moment, when someone from another team would stop by, take a look, and offer other creative alternatives.”
Another woman came to Startup Weekend with the idea of doing something similar to Groupon, but gearing it solely toward women—that is, offering deals on products or services in which women would be interested. As with Groupon, the deal would only go through if enough people signed up for it. So, she assembled a team and sent out messages to all
Many of the project leaders at Startup Weekend like to be modest and say they just bought the coffee in the morning and the beer at night and it was really their team that did all the work. However, that's rarely the case. Keeping the team on an even keel, matching up individual skills with a particular element of the project, and ensuring that people are getting along and having fun while work is accomplished are important parts of being a startup founder. And the action-based networking at Startup Weekend gives budding entrepreneurs a chance to try out these roles.
And not all of the networking that happens is with your own team, either. One Startup Weekend participant, Alexa Andrzejewski, founded a company called Foodspotting, a social networking application that allows users to post pictures of and recommend their favorite dishes (not just their favorite restaurants.) Alexa describes how she came to the event with an idea in mind but didn't plan to fully develop it that weekend. Instead, she claimed a section of a blank wall and started to put up post-it notes with her team members that had design ideas written all over them. As Andrzejewski explains, “We wanted to brainstorm in a really visible way.” And it worked beautifully; other SW participants would walk by and ask questions or make suggestions. “We talked to someone who did market research about how we could do research with restaurants to help Foodspotting [improve], and we talked to a lawyer who told us what's involved in actually starting up a company.”
Andrzejewski got to pitch her idea over and over again to dozens of people, and receive valuable feedback along the way. By the time she left on Sunday, she had a much better idea of how to make her concept work effectively—and she had gotten a lot of practice selling the idea to potential users. Though Alexa didn't find the rest of her team at Startup Weekend, the connections she made there eventually granted her access to some initial funding for her venture.
Another Startup Weekend participant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, worked on a project called Rethink Water, which aims to reduce the waste created by plastic water bottles by installing water filtration machines on college campuses. He recalls of his teammates: “Our instant friendship, as well as their passion for the project and our common interests in bringing not only the Rethink Water project but other ideas on the table to market, served to fuel our energy throughout the weekend and to this day.”
Like Alexa, this entrepreneur told us that it wasn't just the people on his own team who helped. “The collaborative and open nature of the weekend was an aspect I thoroughly enjoyed.” He was impressed with the way “everyone was willing to share their work and help others with theirs. We could be wrestling with an issue one moment, when someone from another team would stop by, take a look, and offer other creative alternatives.”
Another woman came to Startup Weekend with the idea of doing something similar to Groupon, but gearing it solely toward women—that is, offering deals on products or services in which women would be interested. As with Groupon, the deal would only go through if enough people signed up for it. So, she assembled a team and sent out messages to all
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