Finding time, as an entrepreneur, to launch (or even think of) innovations is often very difficult. The day-to-day tasks of sustaining a business can draw energy away from the creative impulses that originally fueled your vision.
Enter Startup Weekend. These are 54-hour events that are built to bring entrepreneurs, marketers, and people with lots of tech-savvy together for collaborations that energize, inspire and very often lead to the development of products. Here’s a description of how these weekends work, from the site:
Startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if startup ideas are viable. On average, half of Startup Weekend’s attendees have technical or design backgrounds, the other half have business backgrounds.
Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practicing LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes and receive valuable feedback from a panel of experts.
Here’s a video from the Startup site, with lots more information about these weekends.
The Startup Weekend community is global in scope, and surprisingly affordable:
Startup Weekends cost between $75 and $99 (less for students). Your ticket covers seven meals, snack, access to exclusive resources from our global sponsors, a book from O’Reilly Media and all the coffee you can drink.
For a hands-on look at what can emerge from a Startup Weekend, read about the recent Startup Weekend Women’s Edition in Seattle, where Anne Marie Ketola, a local aerospace engineer, won big with her app “Up Early.”
Described as a smart alarm, Up Early allows users to configure the alarm only if certain conditions are met, say it’s 65 degrees and sunny or if six inches of snow fell on the pass.
The idea could go even further, say an alarm if a stock fell below a certain price. Up Early still has some development work to do before submitting the app to the Apple app store.
A free app, Ketola said they plan to make money by helping users make purchases related to their activities, say a lift ticket at a ski slope or tackle at the bait shop.
Initially, Up Early plans to focus on runners, skiers and snowboarders, possibly expanding to other activities like kayaking or sailing that are dependent on the weather.
At this point, Ketola said that they are going to keep working on the idea, buoyed by the enthusiasm of the other participants.
What a great idea!
Do collaborative activities like this appeal to you? What kinds of innovations and ideas would you love to launch if you could find the time? Maybe something like a Startup Weekend could help fuel those ideas and move them toward realities!
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Let’s explore time together …
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have no material connection with any of the software tools or services mentioned here, and have not received any compensation for writing this content.
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