Startup Weekend Boulder
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Posted on Jul 09, 2007 @ 11:47 am 
in weekend 
The silence since last night has been deafening, I agree. Here is some brutal honestly from an insiders point of view.
From what I could gather, the situation was that at about 3am this (Monday) morning the dev team turned in their best effort, and called it a weekend. By then, though, the sysadmins and people who knew how to deploy this thing had gone home. They all had day jobs today to get to. So they had no ability to push the project to the production servers. As of this morning, the group of 70 people have gone back to whatever it is they do all day long. Everyone is franticly trying to reach everyone else to see if we can’t at least push the 80% working version of vosnap to the production servers at Amazon EC2. We now find ourselves disbanded with most of the team leads sleeping off the weekend.
As the blogger for this event, writing almost 100 posts in one weekend, I can assure you that I am as disappointed and frustrated as anyone else that worked on this project.
Here’s an inside look at the weekend, and when we figured out that things were going wrong. Then I’ll sum up with the lessons learned and why I still think Startup Weekend was a success in one sense. Clearly it was not a success at the stated goal - to launch a startup in just one weekend. It failed.
On Friday night, the first major mistake was made. Things were just too harmonious and congenial. Leaders emerged from the type A personalities simply because they wanted to be leaders more than because they had the best experience or the most on the line. The Java platform was selected, and a design that was over-engineered for an early prototype was set in motion. People with much more experience sat on the sideline and simply watched this happen, going with the flow. I was one of them, so I know. One of the groups up front fears was that there would be too much conflict. In retrospect, there was not enough healthy conflict in the early hours.
Saturday, we had been told to expect an “ugly” prototype by around 1pm. It didn’t happen. Then we were told to expect a pretty prototype by about 6pm. That didn’t happen either. Those of us with lots of experience in watching software projects happen knew this was not a good sign and indicated likely failure. In fact, we still didn’t have a prototype by the end of Saturday! Nobody in the room had used it besides dev. A group of about 10 people starting talking in private about the fact that the product was being over engineered and not revved quickly enough. A proposal to set off a splinter group of Rails developers first surfaced then.
By Sunday morning, when still nobody had seen any sort of working prototype this mutiny hit full steam. A small mutiny was underway. By around 11am on Sunday, it was in full force and it was announced that a Rails team would set off in competition to pass the Java team. In the end, Andrew tactfully saved this by a) admitting his mistake, and b) getting the Rails team to work in concert with the Java team.
By Sunday evening, things seemed fine again. We were shown a reasonable working version by about 6pm. The energy level went way up in the room and we pumped out more buzz-crap in anticipation and with confidence.
It was then announced that it was midnight or bust. At midnight, we had to leave the temporary office we had gotten the use of for the weekend. The live camera went offline for good. A group of about 8 developers migrated elsewhere for web access and this was all that was left of the team. By 3 am this morning, they were ready to launch *something* but were crippled by the timing and the disbanding of the group. Nobody had the right passwords to the production servers, or whatever. It didn’t get done.
I woke up this morning at about 6am like a kid on Christmas, and ran to my computer to check out vosnap. Nothing but a splash page and a big WTF.
So that was problem #1 - The leaders who emerged did not clearly understand that this was a launch or bust proposition, and didn’t manage effectively towards it. But it’s not the fault of the leaders who emerged. It’s the fault of the leaders who didn’t - and I put myself in that category. I was more interested in the experiment than in making sure that it worked.
Problem #2 was that the expectations of the group at startup weekend didn’t really match the expectations that we set forth to the world. Having spent almost the whole weekend with these 70 folks, it was clear to me that this was a social experiment from the start. It was said often and early in the room that if we launch the site on Sunday night, that this would be a bonus. But this is not the image that was set forth to the world. This is nobody’s fault but ours, obviously.
So, yes, Startup Weekend failed. This is obvious. But at the same time, it succeeded in bonding the startup community here together even more tightly and giving 70 people a common goal. Five other major cities have written and want to run their own Startup Weekend. Failure is success, if you learn. I think we learned.
If there are more Startup Weekends in the future, we now know how to make them better. We understand the keys, which are:
1) To make the goals clear both inside and outside the room.
2) To make your most experienced and respected folks the team leaders. Development is hard. This is all that will matter.
3) To not be so laid back as a group about important decisions.
4) To make the Sunday midnight deadline very firm. Launch something at that time, no matter what.
So what happens next? There is a core group of about 20-30 people who plan to keep working on this. They’ll launch something in the coming days or weeks. And I’ll use it. Especially if we do another Startup Weekend.
The success here? This was a tremendous experience for everyone involved. You learn from failure and you get better. I met a ton of cool people. I’m disappointed and a bit mad. But I don’t feel like I wasted my weekend. Intellectually, I learned.
Is this is good way to do a startup? Probably not, at least in my opinion. I wondered that aloud on the first night. Most startups fail because of a failure of the team. This was certainly the case here. The odds were great that this would happen with 70 founders.
Andrew did an amazing job here. And Andrew knows more than anyone in the world now about how to build a startup in a weekend, and perhaps more importantly, how not to.
I look forward to seeing where he takes this next. Knowing him, these problems won’t slow him down one bit.
70 Responses to “Brutal Honesty: A failure, and a success”
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July 9th, 2007 at 11:56 am
[…] it was a valiant effort but it didn’t happen. Read about the success/failure in detail on the StartupWeekend web […]
July 9th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
[…] recent post on the Startup Weekend blog discusses the failure to launch in a candid and cogent post. It sounds very familiar with the oft quoted software development problems such as those found in […]
July 9th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
David.
I totally agree with everything you said here and I am definately looking forward to the next Startup Weekend and to see what Andrew comes up with next. Startup Weekend was that extra push I needed as well, to know that Boulder is the place for me to be.
Thanks to everyone who came and contributed it was a hell of a ride.
July 9th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Good effort people.
http://certifyre.blogspot.com/2007/07/startup-weekend-in-boulder-colorado.html
July 9th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I’ve got to live a little bit of the frustration with you. For this, I also think it was a success. Not all the time immediate failure means long-term failure. The next question is, What will WE do with the failure?
As an end user, I feel I have just as much stake in this project as the other 70 developers. Not the same amount of ownership, but just as much to lose or gain from this. I first started following this project Sunday morning. I was very intrigued by the concept of a company built literally overnight x3.
So, my frustration comes with great satisfaction that the project will continue to be worked on.
I will still follow this every step of the way. Please keep us updated with more blogs. If VOSNAP.COM isn’t update next time I come back, I expect this website to be. Thanks for the Brutal Honesty. This is just my two cents.
July 9th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Thanks for the very candid feedback. There definitely was a disconnect between what was going on and the perception created for the world. Ah, well, lesson learned.
I do have a serious suggestion on where to next take this. It has been on my mind all morning. I think a synthesis of this + TechStars is the way to go.
(I was going to email this, but I figured everything else is public, may as well share it.)
So here is the gist of how I would do it:
(Note — if anyone goes with any version of this, I request inclusion in it.)
Do one weekend every month. Project is decided ahead of time, along with platform and a basic long-term business model. Exact checklist of what is decided before the weekend vs. at the weekend TBD.
Founders apply for their project to be the project for the next weekend. They bring to the table the concept, some basic ideas/mockups, and the business model. They are the long-term CEO.
Startupweekend.com brings to the table the space to work, a leadership team for the weekend only, the legal help to form the company, and the masses to work.
Friday night, the whole plan is established with milestones and deadlines. Or, to use more accurate terms, we do a single-iteration scrum. Or something. We may need new terminology for all this. Strategic decisions will come from the founder, with advice from the group.
With the plan firmly established, everyone works towards it. With the proper mix of flexibility and formality, based on lessons learned.
On Sunday night, the CEO takes all deliverables and runs with it. Launched or not… that it their call. It is their company.
The next week, startupweekend.com does a debirefing, looking for process improvements for the next weekend.
Founder Gets: Big head start, if not a fully launched product. A legal company giving them the major equity and long-term control. Maybe we also set them up with an investor presentation the next Wednesday to fund their ongoing operations or Phase 2?
Startupweekend.com gets: Equity — larger stake than the masses, to support the infrastructure needed for ongoing weekends.
Masses of workers gets: Equity — Personal share. Plus a chance to express interest to founder in being an employee of their new venture.
Do this for a while, build a few companies that work, and maybe even get enough return to buy/rent a warehouse, and build a space custom-tailored to this kind of work. And hire people full time to handle the application process, develop a methodology that really works, handle logistics, etc.
Or hey, be a startup and find funding to build the space out from day one.
Of course, I have very few details here, and what I do have might need changes. But I really think there is a strong potential here.
July 9th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Failure… no way.. only lesson in my opinion is the romans figured out that the brightest leader in the room must take charge to reach a goal .. even ants and bees do it… correct if it was a social thing, not to be confused with a socialstream, then thats different but techcrunch shouldnt have covered it, maybe valley wag,, if it would have worked perfectly it would have been too good to be true.. my suggestion.. next year ,, stay home watch the incredible breakfast at Wimbledon 5 set match.. zweme a couple of friends and let them build it in fortran
rg
July 9th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Cohen’s going to build the Boulder Incubator by Christmas.. mark my words.
July 9th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
It wasn’t a failure from my perspective as an interested gawker. I enjoyed reading about what you were doing and trying to do. Thanks to all.
July 9th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” - Sir Winston Churchill.
I got nothing else for ya.
July 9th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
as a gawker I can say I think what Startup Weekend accomplished is fantastic. I’m not surprised the product didn’t launch by Sunday Nite necessarily, this was incredibly ambitious and is is actually a great lesson that sometimes more resources don’t shorten a schedule. The social experiment aspect, and the sheer interest, organization and commitment from so many talented folks speaks volumes about the tech scene here and and the entrepreneurial/creative spirit. The team should be proud for accomplishing what it did, and when VoSnap is live, that will be the icing on the cake.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Throughout the weekend I was confronted with the dualism between “we could do this one thing in a much better way” and “eh, it’s not worth stepping on any toes; this is just an experiment”. At my office and generally with other projects this division is rare. It was kind of refreshing to sit back and be creative without personal risk in failure.
I get the same pleasure when I play music that I didn’t write. In other words, it kind of felt like we were jamming over a jazz standard this weekend. The core idea was there, we just traded off solos to make it our own. It was nice…
I guess kind of like jazz, VoSnap isn’t selling very well right now.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
What I want to hear is WHO is going finish VoSnap, HOW are they going to do it, and by WHEN?
July 9th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
The last thing I feel about participating in this weekend is angry. Everyone worked to the best of their ability, and had a blast doing so. So what if I don’t get an actual turn-around on my weekend and dollar investment? I worked really hard, met some excellent people, and learned so much. I have immense respect for the developers that worked into the wee hours of the morning; I certainly hope that they are not bitter because of it.
I hope I get the chance to work with the same caliber of people in the future - for the rest of my life!
July 9th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Back on the original coloradostartups.com post:
http://coloradostartups.com/2007/06/07/startupweekend-this-is-just-wacky-enough-that-i-have-to-be-a-part-of-it/
There was a comment on Frameworks choice: LAMP, .NET, Rails, Java, etc.
In the cooker that is startupweekend.com, we learned some things. First, .NET is out, along with any other proprietary tech JBoss, Flex Data Services, Zend’s PHP optimizer, etc…
And second, any random sample of web 2.0 programmers will include more Java than Ruby. But, and this is important, all Ruby web devs know the Rails framework. Java, and Java framework knowledge, is just too broad. You can have someone with 5 years experience on Struts, than doesn’t know anything about Spring Web Flow. And there is another tricky Java speed bump around tooling. A veteran Java dev may never have used Maven 2…for example.
So after you ask, “Who knows Java?”, and get an answer like 10, and “Who knows Rails?” and get an answer like 5, you need to follow that with “Who knows Struts 2 + Hibernate 3 + JPA + MySQL?”. If you get 2 for the second question, Rails sure looks a lot better. And within one hour you can have a play for leveraging both platforms and all development resources.
I loved it and it was a stunning success in my mind, just no finished product at 3am this morning.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
[…] there were naysayers beforehand and the “told ya so” crowd” afterward (the site didn’t actually launch on time), many of whom fall into the following persona […]
July 9th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
How come so many of you guys are using the word failure? Just because we went home at midnight, doesn’t mean that the dev team has stopped working. Yea, we didn’t have a polished app at midnight, but did anyone really expect that it would be 100% functional? The PR team didn’t send out any emails saying that the project was over - so their job is unfinished. I didn’t see any banner ads except for on our site, so they were never deployed. The “core” people are continuing to work on the project and finish it up. Will there be any support for the site if/when it actually gets finished, or have we officially called this a ‘failure’ and just want to shoot it now? Personally, I’d like to finish it.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
In my mind as a social experiment this was not only a fantastic exercise but a significant success. I was continually impressed by our collective energy and people’s willingness to check their egos at the door and push the process forward any way they could. As relative strangers we were able to transcend the “office politics” that can so quickly turn a good idea into a pitched battle of perspective. It was however this same lack of social capital that made it difficult to challenge early decisions which eventually lead to our inability to execute on the stated goal.
Perhaps a few of our decisions could have benefited from additional discussion but the beauty of the vehicle was that it rewarded initiative and action. Web 2.0 is about community and participation but it is also about the speed of business and innovation. At the end of the 54 hours we had delivered the blueprints for a unique product with productivity enhancing applications and an innovative business model to back it up. It was a significant accomplishment for a weekend and fantastic example of the promise of teamwork and the entrepreneurial spirit.
I do agree however that it is important to not lose perspective on the importance of not hitting our goal. We made remarkable progress but at the end of the day we lacked the killer instinct to seal the deal. In this the exercise provides another opportunity for potential benefit, the opportunity to not make a similar mistake again.
As the experiment continues I think another interesting application would be to insert this energetic force of nature into an existing startup that has stagnated. It would potentially be a bit messy but also very interesting.
PS I too ran to my computer this morning like a kid to a Christmas tree and was disappointed but still energized.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
People are hitting the site more today than all weekend. There are > 700 emails of people waiting to hear about the product (350 last night). We can’t quit now!!!!
July 9th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Great feedback. For me it was a great experience and I am looking forward to putting more time into a cool idea with some great people. Our next startupweekend should yield a better result
maybe for the next start up weekend we might limit team sizes and create multiple start ups in one weekend :}
July 9th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
@Steve- don’t worry, I suspect that most of us still have a strong ownership mentality and want to see this baby get off the ground. I’m still planning on getting some queued work to the biz dev team tonight even though it isn’t immediately pertinent. This is our baby! Although its not quite as cute as Gambit the hedgehog…
July 9th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I don’t think this weekend was a failure at all either — the knowledge, experience, and comradery we gained far outweighed not meeting the aggressive Sunday/midnight deadline. Great job everyone! I’d like to see this thing launch for real as much as anyone, so I’ll be on call for any creative work as needed. Nice meeting and working with all of you!
July 9th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I absolutely agree guys…we are all just decompressing from 50+ hours of hard work. We will still continue to promote and develop VoSnap, Inc. IMHO this was very successful in so many ways. Not meeting a deadline is not a failure…just a small setback that should not deter us from continuing to succeed!
July 9th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
@steve - vosnap is not a failure. startup weekend simply failed to deliver a startup in a weekend. we can’t hide from that. hopefully vosnap will be great - everyone is still very vested in it’s success.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
@tomas - say that we’re going to launch a startup in a weekend and not doing it is a failure. Believe me, the world knows that was the case. Vosnap is not a failure.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
I couldn’t understand one thing. Why you guys prefer to choose JAVA over PHP ?
and someone here in the comments section include LAMP in the frameworks ? is LAMP framework or sys config…
July 9th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Failure? No way! Ever so slightly disappointing? Maybe. Were lessons learned? Of course, but beyond that, Dave is on to the real thing with his thoughts about weekend incubator. How many businesses start out doing one thing and then end up doing something different. The way I see it, even if voSnap.com doesn’t hit, maybe startupweekend.com will buy VoSnap Inc, and then deploy the VoSnap app as an internal tool. (Keg money for the founders exit party) The only thing I would add to Dave’s proposal is a free for all session like we just had but run that special session once a quarter or every other quarter. In that FFA session the incubator would repeat the very compelling multiple founders remuneration model. And perhaps some of the well-documented leadership issues might be circumvented due of the repeat attendance of some committed individuals.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Let’s make sure we distinguish the difference between the Startup Weekend goals and the VoSnap goals. A lot of people are excited about VoSnap, and let’s tell them when exactly we will be able to get it done.
Forget Startup Weekend lessons learned until we’ve launched. Don’t tell the story until it has an ending. It can still be a fairy tale ending. Who’s not heard of a period of tension before resolution?
So, are we resolved to finish it, or are we giving up just when the story’s getting good?
July 9th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
The only thing that failed, in my opinion, was the launch of the site by midnight. The concept of Startup Weekend, the product (VoSnap) and the business (VoSnap, Inc.), including the organization, were very successful. What the public saw, no launched website by midnight, failed. Everything else, while not perfect, was a success. We live and learn, and I like the ideas presented here… they should be considered for integration into SW 2.0.
July 9th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
To Craig: comment 19,
Your absolutely right. The story is NOT finished. Often times as humans we are quick to label. Often, we need to stand back, figuratively speaking, and see the whole picture. (there are many examples of this in history)
PATIENCE & TIME are often what is needed to determine the final outcome of such a momentous tasks. Building a startup in a weekend is something unique.
Don’t forget the first line on the homepage, it reads:
“Startup Weekend is an idea, an experiment” - VoSnap is and idea & an experiment, ACCOMPLISHED
“chance to get together and create something beautiful over one jam packed weekend” - It doesn’t say that it would be complete in perfect working order, ACCOMPLISHED
“will take place July 6-8th, 2007 in Boulder.” - I saw you guys on UStream, ACCOMPLISHED
While it was assumed that this was to be 100% complete Midnight as told by Starup Weekend people , remember, this is first and foremost a IDEA, AN EXPERIMENT.
For this, THIS VOSNAP PROJECT was successful and NOT anything else.
The idea, experiment, continues…
Nathan, comment 3
July 9th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
There were a lot of motivations for folks to come: try an interesting organizational experiment, meet some like-minded folks you might otherwise not, meet potential employees/employers in the local start-up scene, get a touch of equity, etc. There seems to have been a bit of a rush to cast the role of the brilliant skeptic.
My take: The largest challenge was always going to be, and is proving to be, NOW. As hard as the actual work of the Weekend was, the transition to a new structure, moving away from pure collaboration while maintaining the intent of the project, is the most unique and daunting part of this. Yes, we will lose some PR momentum with the delay, but that is ALL we will lose if we keep our act together.
We must continue to remind ourselves that a product is not a business. And since when was ANY tech organization considered a failure purely on the basis of being late on a product release?
We are all equally responsible. And that, truly, is the beauty of it.
Micah, when does Bus Dev Skype?
John Svoboda
July 9th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
As a spectator to this, I would call it a success. Starting a company is hard, building software is hard, “launch” is the beginning not the end b/c that is when you have to make a business work. I applaud the team and David for doing this. This type of event demonstrates how great people make innovation happen. A weekend is hardly enough time to bake a business idea let alone launch a company.
July 9th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I think the last few comments are spot on, Startup Weekend wasn’t in a weekend, that’s fine. But VoSnap? The foundation is there. The business model hasn’t disappeared.
We paved the way and made the mistakes for others (and ourselves) to learn from.. There’s so much I would’ve done different Friday night (in hindsight). That knowledge may or may not put future projects closer to ‘Sunday night’ releases.
July 9th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
As a non-dev, low-tech, just another Denver blogger type, I saw this as a true success story.
Your average ordinary person sits around on their ass all weekend and does not much of anything.
But not the Startup Weekend gang.
Everyone that played a part in Startup Weekend should be enormously proud of what was accomplished in such a short amount of time. Collectively you made history.
I’ll continue to follow along online and send good thoughts for the launch.
Question - What song was used for the promo? Can’t get it out of my head.
July 9th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
[…] Startup Weekend » Brutal Honesty: A failure, and a successThey tried to launch a company and product in a weekend. They “overengineered.” They missed their deadline and went back to their day jobs. Fascinating inside account of a crazy experiment. […]
July 9th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Well done guys, this is a fantastic example of hyper collaboration, great to read and very inspiring.
You should build a facebook interface for vosnap!
July 9th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Highlights of the weekend, for me at least:
-the sheer number of blogs, tweets and updates to sorts of all sites happening in real time, around me (felt at times like we were inside a newspaper and had to publish by Monday morning)
-the feeling like I was part of a team with years more expertise than me, teaching & guiding us
-the yoga
-the jokes around the creative team about “boxes”
-the evening group walk to Chipotle. Gotta say it…we looked like a ragtag bunch, but loveable every minute!
-the massage therapist, Jen!
-the 2nd massage giver, Gwen!
-Gambit, the Hedgehog. Showing up in the eleventh hour to sniff us out and raise our spirits
Because I don’t normally operate in an unlit, poorly ventilated room, I’ve been in bed sick all day. Even though the weekend for me felt like I was in an airplane for 72 hours…it was one of the best 72 hour stretches of my life. It was like a compressed version of camp when I was a kid. I wanted a t-shirt in the end with everyone’s real & twitter name on it. I look forward to deepening the relationships w/you all now that “real life” has begun again.
I love you guys!!
July 9th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Yeah, how many startups have a hedgehog as a visitor? And such a cute hedgehog at that?
July 9th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
We made the Inquirer:
http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40857
July 10th, 2007 at 5:40 am
From the information provided by the blog, my takes on it’s failure:
(1) the team is an unknown entity: the team member’s strength and weakness (or background) were not defined prior to assign the task. Therefore, the leader outcome is by nature selection (who ever want to be the leader the most… got the job).
(2) lack of project management skill and statement of work prior to actually doing the task. A common mistake by early start-up. The blog clearly faulted the lack of defined focus. Very true.
(3) 70 founder assembled in a weekend with ego is a tall order to get it working. It is like a movie with everybody is the past Oscar winner. A team must have people willingness to take order and work hard without doubt (e.g. believe the SOW).
(4) don’t get me wrong, I wish you guys all the success in the future (with few scars on my path, I view it a bit different than the others, I guess).
Good luck and move on.
Best wish.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Thank you everyone for the comments. Just to reiterate, I am defining “failure” only in terms of not launching a product in a weekend - the clearly stated goal of startup weekend. This doesn’t by any stretch mean that vosnap itself is a failure, as many of you have correctly pointed out.
I too was very honored to be a part of this, and would do it again in a heartbeat (well, in a weekend at least).
July 10th, 2007 at 9:19 am
[…] Monday morning, when I wrote the explanation for why vosnap.com was not launched on time I was fighting through being very tired and very […]
July 10th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Pathetic
July 10th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
[…] having VoSnap open for business on Monday. The software just wasn’t ready, and to that end, they admit, it was a failure. It’s clear to me, though, that the weekend was a success on many levels, and I commend the […]
July 10th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
[…] Very interesting read. Hopefully they will get it up soon. Posted by mike Filed in who knows […]
July 11th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Software projects rarely deploy on time. I have every reason to believe we have a great business model and a great team to get us there. And if the unique model of voSnap generates traffic, revenue, and buzz— but a few days late– that counts as a success in my book.
Aside from the business aspects, I had a great time and learned a lot about collaboration. What an amazing group of people!
The business development team will turn on the paid search (including the excellent banners), once the product is live.
July 11th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Just imagine if you guys had 2 weekends.
Although I know this is contrary to your stated goals, perhaps it would have been better to get the ball rolling on the first weekend, and organize everyone as a team to have it launch on the next weekend, with people working remotely after the 1st weekend. After all, part of the plan needs to be a structure where the founders can continue to work together after the initial weekend. That should/could be planned on the first weekend, with a target launch 1 week later.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Thanks to Andrew for organizing and running the show. Thanks to Jen, David Cohen, Brad Fled and Adam Rubenstein for supporting the show, setting up streaming video, and sponsoring Lunches and Dinners. Yeah, thanks to Gwen for Yoga.
Thanks to Tom Chikoore, Kevin C, Lance, Will, Mike & Mike from development group for their contributions and support.
My wife was watching streaming video, reading blogs, and eagerly waiting for the website to launch. She enjoyed watching the whole thing coming together.
This may be a crazy idea. How about turning startupweekend (similar to apprentice) into a TV show?
Thanks again.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Actually, it occurred to me today that this would make an incredible film, following on Babu’s (#45) comment. What do people love to watch even more than success!?
Failure!! And there is no better way to learn than to fail big style in front of a live audience. That’s really the only way. Andrew, ready to take this thing on the road? Let’s get a real crew to record it!
July 11th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
WOW Gwen - I love it! Let’s do it!!!
July 11th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Hey All!
We are holding a StartupWeekend in Chicago! Visit our planning wiki at: http://startupweekendchicago.wetpaint.com/
July 11th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
[…] to realizing their goal and I think that anyone who is considering a startup would do well to read their blog to read more about all of the lessons learned. In the meantime, we are anxiously awaiting the […]
July 12th, 2007 at 4:27 am
[…] diese Erfahrungen haben die Jungs in den USA gemacht: Brutal Honesty: A failure, and a success weitere Artikel: « will it blend: ein Meisterwerk der Werbung || Trackback-URL […]
July 12th, 2007 at 5:08 am
[…] building or running a company. Little wonder than that the weekend’s concluding post by David the next day indicated “Brutal honesty: A failure and a […]
July 12th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
so what’s the deal. No more updates? TV Show good idea.
C’mon Guys, gott’a get us another update. it’s almost:
starupweekends (plural)
July 13th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
thanks
July 13th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
i’m hopeful that andrew will post an update tonight or early tomorrow.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
[…] Brutal Honesty: A failure, and a success — Too many cooks in the kitchen. […]
July 16th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
[…] Startup Weekend » Brutal Honesty: A failure, and a success i’m surprised that the expectations of the participants here would be anything _but_ a sociological experiment (tags: startupweekend colorado boulder socialdynamics leadership) […]
July 17th, 2007 at 12:35 am
[…] The ‘f’ word we all know David used was failure. […]
July 17th, 2007 at 12:41 am
[…] startup weekend a permis de suivre l’avancement du projet durant le week-end et même si le résultat est mitigé, l’expérience aura permis de tirer des conclusions sur la gestion d’un tel […]
July 17th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
[…] minutiös nachlesen - von der Entscheidung für eine konkrete Idee - über die zwischenzeitlichen Rückschläge bis zum Launch der Webseite für das Produkt vosnap: VoSnap is a social quick voting tool that […]
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:38 am
[…] muy interesante, no obstante, leer las conclusiones iniciales tras el fin de semana, en las que se analizan algunas de las razones por las que no se llegó a terminar un prototipo a […]
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:46 am
[…] muy interesante, no obstante, leer las conclusiones iniciales tras el fin de semana, en las que se analizan algunas de las razones por las que no se llegó a terminar un prototipo a […]
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:25 pm
[…] muy interesante, no obstante, leer las conclusiones iniciales tras el fin de semana, en las que se analizan algunas de las razones por las que no se llegó a terminar un prototipo a […]
July 25th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
[…] up a web company from “concept to completion” over the course of a single weekend. It didn’t quite work out that way, but the end result, vosnap, is moving […]
July 28th, 2007 at 7:26 am
[…] Boulder, Colorado was a hit, as many attendees though it was a great learning experience, although the delivery and development failed brutally. Hosted by David Crow, Toronto will now be staging a startupweekend this mid-september, with over […]
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:02 am
[…] sich die Unkenrufe nach dem schwierigen Event in den USA bewahrheiten, oder ob sie verstummen werden? Fraglich. Was man aber in jedem Fall jetzt schon […]
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:56 am
[…] ist (wie so oft) die USA, bei der dieses Projekt allerdings erstmal als “gescheitert” bezeichnet […]
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 am
[…] a very ambitious idea: Create and build a startup over the course of a single weekend. Although the experiment kinda imploded, the entire experience was well-documented and eventually yielded a real working web app as well as […]