This past weekend, I participated in Startup Weekend in Gainesville, FL. I’ve heard how great these events are, so I had to check it out for myself.
After attending, I left with a few thoughts:
- Startup Weekend is insane. – People are everywhere, heads down building for two straight days. I would expect most attendees accomplish more in the 54 hours than they would in several months otherwise.
- DEVELOPERS – At SW, I felt what every founder is going through. Demand for developers != supply. There were 100+ people at the event with ~30 developers. And don’t even think about mobile devs, there were <5. This put a serious strain on the event. People had great ideas, but no way to build.
- Summer camp – I couldn’t help but feel like I was at summer camp during SW. Between everyone staying up all night drinking energy drinks to kids giddy about their “huge” ideas, it almost seemed fake. I’m no expert by any means, but this is nothing like my experience with founders building companies. I think SW is great for projects, but doesn’t seem ideal for building companies.
- Demo Day – Most rewarding part of the weekend. Nothing makes you believe in a product quite like pitching it to a panel of judges and hundreds of people. Awesome experience.
- Comfort zone – Does not exist. I had no intention of pitching on Friday… I did. My project was selected as one of the top ideas to work on. I had no intention of presenting on Sunday… I did.
Overall, my first Startup Weekend was great. I have no plans to continue working on the product I helped build, but going through the process was super challenging and even more beneficial.
