Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours by Marc Nager, Clint Nelsen, Franck Nouyrigat Page B
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of the Startup Weekend participants asking for their feedback. They ended up changing their model during the course of the weekend to include the idea that a portion of the money was to be given to particular charities, and that they were going to let businesses keep a higher portion of the profits than Groupon gives them. It was a great business model by Sunday, but thanks to all the feedback they got from fellow Startup Weekend participants, it didn't look much like what they started with on Friday night.
If Not an Actual Startup, at Least Always Build Relationships
Startup Weekend has begun to attract investors and startup veterans to its events, people who want to see what (or, more importantly, who) is the next big thing . The world of startup funding can be complicated. Knowing the right people to ask, the right amount of money to ask for, pitching your idea correctly—these are all things about which someone just out of college or who has spent years working for a software firm might not have the slightest idea.
Investors are often bombarded with proposals for new business ideas. How can they know who will follow through? First-time entrepreneurs with no prior track record will have difficulty getting their proposals to the top of the pile. But Startup Weekend allows investors to watch the development of an idea from a pitch on Friday night (a twinkle in the founder's eye) to a real business model—and sometimes even a real business—by Sunday night. Even if an investor doesn't fund that idea, he may find a person he would be willing to back in the future.
Or, the reverse may occur. Danielle Siauw attended a Startup Weekend in Singapore where she pitched her idea for FashionSpace—basically, a site with racks of user-generated fashion magazines, a Facebook for fashion or a fashion aggregator and search engine rolled into one. As it turns out, her idea was not very popular among her fellow Startup Weekend participants and didn't get selected for further work. However, her pitch caught the attention of an angel investor. In short order, Siauw says, “I quit my dreary job and found new life in my new startup with the help of Startup Weekend. I am finally able to fulfill my dreams of being an entrepreneur.”
Donald DeSantis, a veteran of a number of startups in the Seattle area, was attending a Startup Weekend in Costa Rica when he met one of the participants, a young man who had his own fledgling startup. Though it wasn't the project he ended up working on over the weekend, DeSantis proceeded to introduce the man to a number of the judges. The participant told them about his own business and eventually was promised some funding for it. As DeSantis relates, the man told him, “I didn't have any relationships with investors. In Costa Rica, it takes a long time to make those relationships, and there is a lot of red tape and greasing of palms. You just completely short-circuited the process for me.”
Former Executive Director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, Rebecca Lovell has come to a number of Startup Weekends to offer the investor perspective. She recommends that Startup Weekend participants try to meet the judges and other guest speakers who are at the events. Lovell likens attending Startup Weekend to “having a passport that lasts a weekend. You need to take advantage of the time there to make strong connections.” She says that many of the investors there are “naturally predisposed to help, but they're very, very busy.” So, you have to make an impression on them during the weekend. You can't just hand someone your business card; you must engage them and create a genuine connection.
It helps that the judges and potential investors at Startup Weekend can see what participants are capable of doing—even if the idea that attendees work on over the weekend is not the one on which they ultimately hope to follow through. In fact, we think that budding
If Not an Actual Startup, at Least Always Build Relationships
Startup Weekend has begun to attract investors and startup veterans to its events, people who want to see what (or, more importantly, who) is the next big thing . The world of startup funding can be complicated. Knowing the right people to ask, the right amount of money to ask for, pitching your idea correctly—these are all things about which someone just out of college or who has spent years working for a software firm might not have the slightest idea.
Investors are often bombarded with proposals for new business ideas. How can they know who will follow through? First-time entrepreneurs with no prior track record will have difficulty getting their proposals to the top of the pile. But Startup Weekend allows investors to watch the development of an idea from a pitch on Friday night (a twinkle in the founder's eye) to a real business model—and sometimes even a real business—by Sunday night. Even if an investor doesn't fund that idea, he may find a person he would be willing to back in the future.
Or, the reverse may occur. Danielle Siauw attended a Startup Weekend in Singapore where she pitched her idea for FashionSpace—basically, a site with racks of user-generated fashion magazines, a Facebook for fashion or a fashion aggregator and search engine rolled into one. As it turns out, her idea was not very popular among her fellow Startup Weekend participants and didn't get selected for further work. However, her pitch caught the attention of an angel investor. In short order, Siauw says, “I quit my dreary job and found new life in my new startup with the help of Startup Weekend. I am finally able to fulfill my dreams of being an entrepreneur.”
Donald DeSantis, a veteran of a number of startups in the Seattle area, was attending a Startup Weekend in Costa Rica when he met one of the participants, a young man who had his own fledgling startup. Though it wasn't the project he ended up working on over the weekend, DeSantis proceeded to introduce the man to a number of the judges. The participant told them about his own business and eventually was promised some funding for it. As DeSantis relates, the man told him, “I didn't have any relationships with investors. In Costa Rica, it takes a long time to make those relationships, and there is a lot of red tape and greasing of palms. You just completely short-circuited the process for me.”
Former Executive Director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, Rebecca Lovell has come to a number of Startup Weekends to offer the investor perspective. She recommends that Startup Weekend participants try to meet the judges and other guest speakers who are at the events. Lovell likens attending Startup Weekend to “having a passport that lasts a weekend. You need to take advantage of the time there to make strong connections.” She says that many of the investors there are “naturally predisposed to help, but they're very, very busy.” So, you have to make an impression on them during the weekend. You can't just hand someone your business card; you must engage them and create a genuine connection.
It helps that the judges and potential investors at Startup Weekend can see what participants are capable of doing—even if the idea that attendees work on over the weekend is not the one on which they ultimately hope to follow through. In fact, we think that budding
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