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Some of you may have seen me posting around here, or on similar subs. I'm a fledgling entrepreneur focusing on business development, and I just attended my first ever Startup Weekend, and I figured I would write about it in case that interests anyone.
For those of you unfamiliar with Startup Weekend, check it out. Startup Weekend Seattle: Greenovations was geared towards startups focusing on the "green" economy.
The event started at 6pm on Friday. I arrived at WeWork, the awesome co-working space where this event was held, at a little before 6, and was excited to see about 60 people already there. Chairs were arranged with rows facing each other, to stimulate conversation, and I decided to start my experience there by practicing networking. I sat down and dove right in, and by the time the event organizers got up to speak, I had met everyone in my double-row, and all but 2 of us on one end were in one large conversation, about startups, entrepreneurship, our goals for the weekend, etc. Great people!
After the welcome, dinner, and a little time for networking, it was pitch-time. But to get us warmed up, the organizer, Hakon, had us play a Rock Paper Scissors championship. Play someone near you; loser roots on the winner! And the loser's cheerleaders become the winner's cheerleaders. This tournament, with about 100 people, lasted 5 minutes. After 4 matches, I found myself in the final against a designer named Delaney. Atop chairs we stood, and cast our throws. My Rock crushed her Scissors, her Scissors cut my Paper, but after a few stalemate throws, I raised my Rock once more and just managed to bring it down on her Scissors, shattering them into shards and propelling me to victory!!! Ahem.... Sorry. =)
My prize was getting to choose my position in the lineup of pitches. The way Startup Weekend works is the attendees organize into teams to work on their team's startup for the duration of the weekend, to present to attendees, coaches, and judges on Sunday night. Anybody can pitch, and the business ideas with the most votes become the startups worked on for the weekend. I'm a poker guy, and so of course I chose to go last. Ironically enough, the voting was done with poker chips placed in your favorite pitch's paper bag.
There were quite a few awesome ideas! A few of my favorites to not make the cut were a platform for crowd-sourcing charity work for green charities, a bio-luminescent super-energy efficient light-globe, using moss or something (poor girl actually got enough votes to be a team, but couldn't find people who wanted to work with her on it, and so she wound up on another team- this happens often, actually). My entrepreneurial focus is not necessarily on the green economy, and so my pitch wasn't practiced or rehearsed, or a well-thought out idea. But I did it, and it went well. My idea for a triennial biodome competition, lasting 1 year with the results studied for another year after, between universities, corporations, space agencies, and even private clubs, in order to ignite passion within people and get them motivated about two key issues I myself am passionate about, sustainability and space exploration. The idea is the biodome competition mimics a colonization attempt on Mars, or the Moon. It was a fun idea. I got 4 votes, but the cut-off wound up being 9. No big deal! =) It was great practice, pitching an impromptu business idea in 60 seconds to 100 people.
I chose to work on a team called EcoMetrix. We want to help people save money, have fun, and help the environment while they're at it. My team was AWESOME. We had no personality conflicts, no egotism, and we got stuff done. The team was led by the guy who pitched it, Theo, who came all the way from College Station, PA to this event. And to visit his brother Mike, a developer, who lives here near Seattle. Mike was the driving force behind the idea. They also had another developer, Luke, who was a friend of Mike's.
We had two designers, Brian and Roy, two non-tech bus. dev. types, in myself and Rob, and we had one of the two high school students attending the event on our team, as well. Hilary was actually pretty impressive! At 16, I was spending my weekends drinking as much beer as I could get away with, not attending... well, things that didn't exist at the time, lol. She holds herself with such maturity for her age that there were no problems at all. I had honestly expected a teenaged girl to be a liability in this situation, but she was actually a great value add.
We worked until almost midnight on Friday, from 9am to almost midnight on Saturday, and from 9am til 5pm, when it was pitch time! During these working hours, we got visits from 3 coaches, all successful entrepreneurs, who had great advice and feedback. There was food provided from local sponsors, and the organizers did a great job dragging us out of our conference rooms occasionally to do quick little fun group activities.
The presentations on Sunday evening were awesome! Of the 14 winning ideas from Friday night, 10 teams were left to present. Two teams dropped on Sunday; one due to a death in the family of the team leader, and another team whose initial business model proved unviable immediately, who spent the entire weekend pivoting, pivoting, pivoting, and were unable to get anywhere; in addition, the muscle in that team, 2 developers who are actually with one of the event's sponsor companies, had to leave to get back to Eastern Washington before snow made the mountain passes too dangerous, so they left at noon.
Each team got 5 minutes to present, and then 2-3 minutes of Q & A from the judges.
The presentations were awesome! It was great to see how much work all the teams had accomplished over the weekend!
Recyclops, a fun-looking trash-can-sized plastic recycling unit that turns plastic bottles into 3d printable plastic.
BringYourPlate, a community platform to connect people looking to have a potluck social event, at home or in their neighborhood, focusing on vegetarian/vegan diets.
CanAIRy, a wearable, inexpensive monitor connected to your smartphone, to alert you to toxic gasses or pollutants.
RIDAR, a ride-sharing platform utilizing Facebook, to connect to you to friends-of-friends going to large events (concerts, sporting events, etc.) and let you carpool, to save money and reduce energy waste and pollution.
EnerAct, similar to what we are doing with EcoMetrix, except a little more serious, without the gamification or social aspect.
WaterNation, a non-profit to get water testing kits and information, planning, and help improving water issues across the globe.
I can't recall the others right now.
This event was awesome! Just the chance to interact and network with the coaches and judges alone is worth the $99 this thing cost (Startup Weekend is a not-for-profit), much less getting to work side-by-side with other smart, interesting, and passionate entrepreneurs!
It was like a weekend-long summer camp for entrepreneurs! I had an amazing time, and plan to attend the next Seattle event, coming up in March.
In case anybody is wondering, several of the teams are continuing on. The teams that won the 4 judging categories received coaching, legal fees, or both, which helps tremendously, and so will continue on I'm sure, and some of the rest of us will, as well, I'm sure. EcoMetrix will continue, we decided; at least for now.
Well, that's about it! I would highly, highly recommend checking out a Startup Weekend event, if they have them near you. If not, find one in a city you want to visit anyway, and go to that one. These events are incredibly inexpensive, with food provided, and they are AWESOME. At least, I thought so. But then, I'm a noob. A knowledgeable novice, but a novice nontheless.
Thanks for reading.