Boulder Startup Weekend 2

10 in the group - 3 developers, 1 biz dev, a couple creative, and marketing/pr

It will be a green facebook application focused on knowledge building.   They are deeply in steath mode, I hope after some beer I can find out exactly what it is that they are doing.

Startup Weekend - Boulder 2 - Day 1 from Danny Holland on Vimeo

During the first Boulder Startup Weekend, I had come up early to help Andrew, a kid I had never met, setup and run the weekend. As I walked in around 6pm, he was filling a tub with beer and ice. This worried me. Here was a 24 year old kid, who had put together this event that I hoped introduced me to the Boulder tech scene, and he was filling a tub with beer and ice. I asked him about the plan for evening. “We’ll probably work until 8-9pm, and then head out to the bars.” he told me.

“Great,” I thought, “this is going to be a royal waste of time. I will kill Danny Newman (he spent the previous two weeks convincing me to attend.)

I realized that we had no name tags, so I drove to Target and bought some name tags and some pens, I got back about 7:20 or so, and Andrew greeted me with, “Sorry dude, we have already selected the top 3 ideas to review.” By 8pm, a idea was selected, and at 11:30pm, Andrew started to kick people out.

During the initial three hours, various groups formed, disbanded, reconstituted differently, and sort of settled into: Development, UX, Creative, BizDev, Marketing/PR and Legal. I found a few like-minded folks, and we became the bizdev group. As 11:30pm - midnight rolled around, I started the 40 minute drive home excited about what was happening. I got home around 1am, and worked through several ideas until 4am, when I came up with what I thought was a positive monetization strategy. And at 7am I drove back to Boulder, stopping for bagels on the way, and dove back into the weekend.

What took me a year to realize is that Andrew, for all his effort was not the reason I spent all that time focused on solving a problem. Part of it was my style (ADD plus insomnia helps), but most of it was the other people in the room that I was excited to work this problem through with. It was the people.

As Boulder 2 rolled around, I was afraid that we would see the same people, and the growth we had all experienced over the previous year would make Boulder 2 flop. I promised to just live blog the event. (For those that care, having won and lost the Cohen Cup, I am not blogging for quantity, but rather quality*) I had to coach lacrosse for a couple of hours, so I showed up about an hour and a half late.

The room was buzzing.

There were a lot of new faces, and while people were eating pizza, they were talking about a bunch of different ideas. Every white board I saw had writing on it, and I heard several people proclaim “I need dry erase markers! An idea has hit me!”

The energy was palpable.

You could literally watch people become energized. Discussions heated up, laughter soon followed. Groups formed around open tables, ideas soon flowed.

And then it hit me. It was the people. Andrew loves to talk about how Startup Weekend is about the community. I love to make fun of him for that, but the group of people that had decided to come and do Startup Weekend were quickly forming into just that. A community.

And as 11pm hit, and Andrew started kicking people out, people were slow to leave.

I wonder who  at home right now thinking about a problem discussed tonight, and coming up with interesting solutions?

* Given my status as the #1 Douche Bag in the World, I figured for those that want to be funny, here are some tweets you can cut and paste:

“@micah, great goal to go after quality. I suppose better late than never!”

“@micah you are a douche bag. What kinda idiot goes home and works on monetization strategies?”

“@micah great post, you are awesome. I so wish I was just like you.”

Based on 15 weekends of experience and feedback, coupled with learning around the legal and technical ways companies are formed, it became clear that a shift in how the weekend functioned was in store.

The first big change is that we are not working on one idea we are working on many. Currently there are 5-7 teams working on ideas ranging from carbon credits to iphone apps. I think we have the first hardware concept going as well.

In addition, we are having core conversations around user selected concepts. We have a live stream going, with some interesting feedback. There is even a few rogue groups coming up with some funny/silly/cool ideas as well.

One of the interesting things that is occuring is that people are realizing that one of the most important pieces of a successful startup is people. Groups are reviewing their resources and determining needs, and beginning to find the right fits and discuss ways to access the time of those identified.

This blogger, being the #1 douche bag in the world, has no true value and is being avoid by the StartupWeekenderrati.

People have split into different groups to critically think about the ideas presented in the pitch round.

From what I’m overhearing, some groups are opting to build out their ideas for the duration of the weekend while others are spending their time creating solid pitches for seed capital.

As a frequent Startup Weekend-er (or “Founder” as Andrew likes to call it), this is an interesting change.

As these ideas are flushed out, some groups have specific talent needs. The whiteboard looks like an ad-hoc/barcamp job board as teams post their specialty requirements. Designers and Developers are in high demand… so, for those of you playing at home and like an idea posted, you might be able to get in on the action. Because hey, you never know. Post it in the comments, or shout out to mediacasters.tv.

Andrew Hyde’s standard pitch:(blah blah blah this is how you pitch a [bad] idea)

The iPhone SDK posse has come up with a bunch of ideas:

1. Geo-caching Twitter
2. Proximity Time-Sensitive
3. iPhone Sonos controller
4. vCard sender
5. …and all those other possibilities

Cameron:
Server Script that prevents your site from going down by monitering traffic and providing users a bookmark so they can visit the site when it’s not being Dugg or TechCrunched or Slashdotted.

Charlie O’Keefe:
Facebook iterative idea feedback wall for applications.

Andy Stanberry:
Personal podcast participation aggregator - subscribe to one place for all of some users content
IMDB of podcasts

Brett (front page of some newspapers today):
Viral marketing reinvigoration.

(a brief pause to say hello to pulver.tv)

Pete:
Pizza POS (that’s point of sale … keep it clean) for Mom and Pop shops.

Casey Schorr:
Directory and how-tos for startups and entrepreneurs.

Erica O’Grady:
Kiva, but for local micro-financing.

Stan James:
Font repository for instant universal usability.

Brian:
Training software for power athletes, with instant results.
(OH: can put it on the iPhone)

(A guy who I can’t see from here):
Centralized self-distribution service

Wylie Nelson:
Mobile phone-based Cab Hailer

Dave:
Advertising Arbitrage

Harry Love (weilding a scary-looking Moleskin):
RSS Soundbites ”I’ve got Invites” marketplace (mashable apparently has this)
Content People - Contract go-to web person

Phil Emmi:
Businesses need transparency to renewable energy options.

Ben Genzel:
Automotive, high-beam-activated rear display.

Dan (draws something on board):
Manufacturing mold tracking.

…And that’s it.

70 people talking are quite loud.

Hello, Startup Weekend fans! Michael Gruen (@gruen) here, filling in for Micah Baldwin (@micah) while he finds his way to the building. Rumor has it he left his attitude at home; feeling incomplete, he went home to retrieve it. He’ll take over soon, so my narrative will be short-lived. 

By the way, any names with @ signs next to them refer to Twitter handles. 

–

Scene: 70-something people surround a whiteboard. A tall, lanky, blond haired kid stands in the middle.  Andrew Hyde (@andrewhyde) recounts the beginning of Startup Weekend. Here’s the short version, as he tends to verbosity:

I was out to dinner with the founder of Lijit and this random guy kept saying how stupid an idea Lijit was. We (sans random dude) began to wonder why we hadn’t worked together on something. So we did and called it Startup Weekend.

…and he continues (again, paraphrased for your convenience)…

Startup weekend has three tenets, so make sure you’re doing the following:Community - there are dangerous minds here, so meet them.Learn - take advantage of how much you can learn this weekend beyond your core skill set. Fun - if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.

…he then goes on to talk about a new vision for Startup Weekend 2.0…

So why are we launching more than one company?Reason #1: Who here can name three companies we’ve launched?

Reason #2: The SEC and Blue Sky Laws prohibit this many unaccredited investors from investing in a company

…and then introduces Mediacasters.tv (@mediacasters)…

Laura Fitton (@pistachio) and Tara Anderson (@tarable) will be broadcasting the event, connecting this small group of entrepreneurs with some major angel investors, venture capitalists, serial entrepreneurs, and technologists.

Visit mediacasters.tv to follow their live, interactive coverage of Startup Weekend Boulder II.

…concluding…

 Alright! So what are we building?

 Subsequent posts will answer that question. Stay tuned. 

This Friday is it!

We will be meeting at the Leeds School of Business room S125 at 6pm on Friday.  Our hours for the weekend will be 6-10pm Friday, 9-9pm Saturday and noon-9pm Sunday.  Please note the late start on Sunday, and feel free to join us even if you have Easter plans.