Startup Weekend is in full swing – so far it has exceeded my expectations.
If any of you have been involved in startups before then the idea of a big team of people, many of who have never met before, trying to build something in a weekend is probably one that will make you a bit skeptical. I know I was.
I had a short list of criteria the startup idea needed to meet in order to succeed:
- A product that can be built as a web service.
- An idea simple enough for everyone to quickly get their heads around.
- Functionality that can be fairly easily broken up into parallel development teams.
- Something that can be limited enough in scope that the initial “for launch” functionality can be built in a weekend.
An idea that meets these criteria will give the weekend a good chance at success, one that doesn’t… well… doesn’t.
Thankfully, we’re building on an idea that fits the bill nicely.
We’ve taken the unconference to the next level and watching people self-organize into development, design, marketing teams, etc. has been very impressive. We’ve even got in-house VCs and legal counsel.
We’re getting some nice press, have a Twitter account, have been live on UStream, have some LOLcats and have already been TechCrunched. This is all nice, but most of the comments I’m seeing are completely missing the point.
Yes, we’re building a startup, but the real goals of the weekend are:
- Prove the “startup weekend” concept. This is an experiment: see what happens when you allow anyone to show up and all work together as a team.
- Connect the local tech folks. What better way to network and meet folks than to work together, busting tail in a real development environment. The tech community in any area is a
small world 
, even more so in a place like Denver/Boulder. The residual results of this weekend are going to change fundamentally the tech community here.
I think we’re well on our way to achieving both of these.