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Ask YC: Have you participated in a Startup Weekend?

16 points by JimEngland ↗ HN
My friends and I from Cleveland, Ohio are thinking of attending a Startup Weekend in late July. It is being hosted in Columbus, about two hours away (http://columbus.startupweekend.com/). Has anyone here attended a Startup Weekend before, and if so, how was the experience?

14 comments

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trotzke
It was a blast. I attended the Bloomington, IN weekend. The actual product didn't go much of anywhere, but that wasn't the point. The event sold out-- capped at 100 attendees. I met some great people and it really clarified to me how much startup and tech is happening in Bloomington and surrounding Indiana University.
JimEngland
That's good to hear. The main reason we're hoping to participate is to just get our feet wet and better understand the startup environment. What project did you work on and how is the startup tech environment in Indiana?

Part of the reason we're driving down to Columbus is to see different startup tech areas in the Midwest. I love the area, but Cleveland isn't exactly cutting edge in terms of technology right now.

trotzke
Bloomington is amazing for it's size. It's a university town with a ton of people focused on UI, usability and programing coming out of IU's School of Informatics. IU also has a great music and business school. The rest of Indiana is certainly behind, but I think Bloomington is starting to take shape as a little tech mecca in the Midwest.
semigeek
Hi Jim - Cleveland Local here as well. There's a few of us headed to Columbus for the event. I've attended previous SW and enjoyed it very much - I also host the Startup Drinks in Cleveland - you should check us out.

Shoot me an email (ak @ MyYCUserName . com).

JimEngland
Hey I sent an email, did you receive it?
yogione
Do many "rockstar" developers show up for these events in Midwest ? people who can architect and kick off PHP, PERL, Ruby apps without looking up documentation all the time.
keithtom
i dont know but I just signed up. I've been doing RoR for almost two years now ( 8 months at a small company, and 11 months at JP Morgan Chase).

see ya there!

sarosh
I was an attendee of the NYC event and was substantially less then impressed by either venue or product. However, the people were fun.
JayNeely
I'd like to, but Boston is ~#39 on the list, after having had one back in October. I'd say it's worth it for that nifty badge, if nothing else. :-P

Besides, networking with other startup founders is invaluable. Regardless of what you're working on, there are some business basics that you'll all be going through; getting advice for those things is great.

A bunch of us are available online in #startups on irc.freenode.net - http://www.mibbit.com/?server=irc.freenode.net&channel=%...

zain
I attended Startup Weekend in West Lafayette (we were the first team to actually launch within the weekend) and San Francisco (we were the only team to do a non-profit app), and I can't recommend it enough.

The actual startups created were worthless, but fun. And above all, it was an amazing networking opportunity: I lined up work for over six months now on two different (good) startups based on the contacts I made at Startup Weekend.

One thing though -- the original organizer who set up the SWs I went to (Andrew Hyde) is no longer the organizer. He's started working for TechStars and has handed the reigns over to a guy named Raymond.

PStamatiou
I have and have continued working on it with three others. Skribit - SW Atlanta November 2007. Things are going well and we served 3.9M pviews this past month (granted most are widget serves..)

http://skribit.com

ahsonwardak
It was a great experience in DC. We met many nice people. I don't know that the startup will survive, and there were less than a handful of exceptions. But in the end it was good to feel the energy and connect with other like-minded people. I recommend it.
wavesplash
Are they still trying to claim the bs 5% of your company?
wyliemac
No. Startup Weekend, LLC does not take an interest in any company formed out of the weekend. They used to, but changed it at some point. I think it was from the Boulder II event.