HN Explorer

Ask HN: "Startup Weekend" experiences?

10 points by davidw ↗ HN
I searched through the archives a bit, and it seems like some people have participated in them, and enjoyed themselves.

Was it worth it? How'd it go for you? What sort of people were there?

I don't believe in this sort of thing for making an actual startup, but it might be a fun time and a good way to network.

16 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 49.4 ms ] thread
davidw
The one I'm interested, of course, is this:

http://venice.startupweekend.org/

Anyone else happen to be going?

ilcesco
Hi David, I'll be there too. I also believe you can't really get something up and running in 2 days, but when I found out about this few days ago, it sounded fun and I mindlessly subscribed. The Venice event will be hosted at H-Farm, a very rare example of italian private VC/incubator, so it might even be a decent launchpad. I'm Francesco, a software engineer from Verona, hope to see you there!
davidw
Cool - send me email, and maybe we'll see one another there.
MPiccinato
I am not sure how they are out in your area but I have attended two here in Michigan; one in Ann Arbor and one in Detroit. The event can be hit or miss in terms of actually starting a start up but it is a great networking event for finding like minded individuals. Both times I have come away happy with how my time was spent.
davidw
What sort of people were present?
MPiccinato
Developers, designers and marketers made up the majority. There were even some lawyers and non-techies.
jwarzech
In my experience at the Detroit one marketers/social media people made up the majority. Also IMHO was one of the more poorly planned events that I have been to.
MPiccinato
And I will second that, Startup Weekend Detroit 2009 turned me off from the event quite a bit, but I still met some good people.
johns
I recently went to one in Boulder (and full disclosure, I work for a sponsor, but I participated like any other non-sponsor there) and I thought it was a great time. You're probably not going to launch an actual startup by Sunday. You will meet interesting and smart people. It's also good practice for hashing out ideas, setting priorities, honing a pitch, presenting and doing other startup-y things in front of real people. And if you're a developer you have an excuse to try new things out with framework or language you've been wanting to try using.
bjonathan
Hi, I participated in Paris Startup Weekend last december. It was amazing, I met very interesting and competent people that I still see today. And best of all I actually built a startup: http://www.submate.com we just launched the MVP 2weeks ago and it's a tremendous experience. I can assure you that we are now a real startup ! We have been selected at Plugg, The Next Web and Nonick and we are actually raising a seed round.

Startup Weekend is great !! And even better if you understand that everything actually start the next monday morning...

(in my experience, there were more marketing/biz guy than dev and very few designers)

al_
Startup weekend ( by HEC business school) in Paris was last weekend I believe.Have you heard of any other similar events in France ?
ig1
If your in Paris why not jump on the eurostar and head over to the london one, if you're willing to travel out on the very early / very late trains you can get a ticket pretty cheaply.
ichverstehe
I attended the Copenhagen edition last month. While I was sceptical, the weekend turned out to be a lot of fun, and we are actually five people working full-time on what we created that weekend, with what looks like a bright future ahead of us. But even if it hadn't turned out that way, I would still have enjoyed it. The networking possibilities are huge, and my other startup has gained from it. YMMV, of course.
ig1
I went to the London one last year, it was a good experience. It was very good for networking and also for motivation.

For making a start-up less so, but there is the possibility.

PG-13
It's a great way to kick off a wantrepreneurial career.
afarcet
I organized and facilitated the Copenhagen Startup Weekend which just ran in April and it beat all my expectations. We had 112 participants (including a lot of high caliber people), 40 of whom made one-minute pitches. Of these 40 the crowd picked 12 around which teams were formed. The mentors and jury on Sunday evening jury blown away by the progress teams made. I know of at least 3 teams which are still working on their projects - keep an eye on http://www.memolane.com who won the cash prize and are about to launch. See http://www.copenhagen.startupweekend.org for a sample of the ideas and participant feedback. Also see http://vimeo.com/10870013 to get a feeling for the vibe at the event.

We're definitely doing it again in the fall!