As I attend more and more Startup Weekends, I’m beginning to notice a trend in the attendees: expectations. The last couple of Startup Weekends that I was involved in, I played the part of “mentor” — going around to teams, discussing their project management and tech strategies, advising — which was great, but I’d like to point out a few things I think are important for a would be Startup Weekender to know going in.
If you know Startup Weekend, then you know it starts with pitches. Everyone that desires can bring an idea and give a 60-second pitch to the attendees. After all the pitches have been given, a vote is taken and people split up into to teams to work.
A question I get asked a lot, “What if my idea doesn’t get selected?” as to say “What am I going to do then?” My feeling is that in a lot of ways Startup Weekend is about practice. Practicing your pitch. Practicing working with a new team. Practicing working with constraints. Practicing your business development skills. Not having your idea selected shouldn’t signal the end for you.
The truth is that failure is at the heart of being a great entrepreneur, as long as you understand that failure doesn’t mean defeat. If your idea doesn’t get selected it could mean your pitch needs to be tweaked. Or maybe your idea targets the wrong market?
But don’t give up on Startup Weekend. Enjoy the company. Dig in to the challenge. Learn something new.
Startup Weekend is an amalgamation of people with different skills. Business majors, designers and developers are the biggest, all with something interesting to offer Startup Weekend. Once the voting completes there’s a mad dash for one type of attendee though: the developer.
I believe this is rooted in the fallacy that you are required to produce a fully working product by the end of startup weekend. The goal is to produce a viable business plan that you could pitch to someone and presumably get funding; in the case of Startup Weekend your “someone” is the judges.
The definition of viable reads:
Capable of working successfully; feasible
Success in this context is defined as attracting customers and making a profit. Unfortunately having the mostly complete product does not guarantee you will find customers. More likely, going heads down and building a complete product without getting feedback from customers means you will have features that no one will use and/or damages your product. This is a waste of your most precious resource: time.
Where do I think your time is best spent in a Startup Weekend?
I believe if you become comfortable with these truths and work together cross-functionally to build the best pitch possible, you are on your way to having a successful Startup Weekend experience. Even if you don’t win you’ve networked, got some practice in building a startup and you’ve learned something about your idea that could help you take it to the next level and build something amazing.
Enjoy!
