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Startup Weekend San Antonio WrapUp
By Jeanette Cates | May 19, 2008
Well, it’s over. The San Antonio Startup Weekend. So what happened? What came out of the weekend? Was it worth it to me?
First, I think it was well worth my time and the lack of sleep for a couple nights. Although I didn’t stay up as late as some (those crazy programmers worked till 3:00 AM the first night!), I did group work later than usual – till midnight the first two nights.
Second, the Dream Team (the programmers) actually started and completed their project. The IDream application is a fun way to interpret your dreams. They are working on (and may have already finished) a version for Facebook, Twitter and Wordpress by now. They were smart to choose a product that could be started and finished over the 51 hours.
The Military Auction site has not yet launched. But they have business plan and their site mockup ready to go. Plus, they created a small but cohesive team.
My team, those working on the Vacation Homes Rental site, did not fare as well. (It was NOT my fault, I tell you. LOL). We started on Friday with a fairly clear plan. On Saturday new people joined our group – and we rehashed the plan for them – and pretty much came up with the same plan. The designers and programmers started working on it, while the business plan and marketing people started in another room.
Following our presentation to the Venture Capitalist on Saturday (via video conference), our group became known the one most likely to make money. And now we had new people joining our group. Again we rehashed.
Then as late as Sunday morning still more people joined our group and wanted to rehash the plan. And now they wanted to take a step back and redo the plan in the “proper method.” So what started as a quick and dirty, “let’s get a site up and running this weekend” plan, has now evolved to a technical document specification, etc.
Along the way, there was a lot of internal dissention and we lost a few team members who got disgusted with the process. The jury is still out on what will happen next. We will be meeting as a team weekly for at least the next month, so most of us plan to continue in one capacity or another.
So what did I learn from Startup Weekend?
Fist of all, I am once again VERY grateful to be working as a business owner in the information marketing space. My friends and I run very lean marketing machines. And we work quickly.
I found the “committee” decision making process tedious. But then, that was one of the reasons I was happy leaving large organizations behind 11 years ago when I created TechTamers. I believe solo preneurs are at least 50-70% more efficient in their decisions and use of time than those employed by companies with 20 or more employees.
I was appalled at the layers of complexity those coming from larger companies laid on the project. With their perspectives as employees, they were into “making work” rather than making profit. What my webmaster can achieve in an hour or two at a cost of less than $100, the team budgeted 8 hours and $1000 with two people working on it.
Instead of a simple Word document with the features of a web page sketched out, they created complex drawings with a designer and two programmers working on it for five hours. For ONE web page! The concept of repurposing parts was not mentioned. Instead everything was from scratch. No use of existing tools like Wordpress or forum software. No existing scripts such as those from hot scripts or Robert Plank’s PHP books. Everything from scratch.
Finally, I met a lot of sharp, interesting people. The people made it all worthwhile. And while I found myself getting impatient with the Process (captial P), I did enjoy observing, knowing I was coming back to my lean, mean profit machine. (And yes, I made money quietly, without fanfare, throughout the weekend, from my wonderful information marketing business! I love it here!)
Take our poll about how likely you would be to attend a startup weekend. I’d love to get your comments below!
Topics: Events, Online Business |