Startup Weekend Boulder

Dev meeting, new site + Swag

Posted on Jul 16, 2007 @ 04:50 pm in Planning

Swag is in!  We have our VoSnap Moleskins for all our great founders.  I will make this a tradition to all the weekends I go to.

Devs are meeting tonight.

StartupWeeekend.com will have a new look very soon, making it easy for new weekends to plan and archiving the old weekends.  With the launch we will be announcing 5 other weekends!

Nights and Weekends for VoSnap

Posted on Jul 16, 2007 @ 01:14 am in Planning

We set off to build a web application in a weekend.  It was the first Startup Weekend and we learned numerous lessons on what to do and what to avoid.   At the end of the weekend there were four choices relating to the question ‘what to do next’ the group chose from:
1) Everyone keep working on the app when they could
2) Elect a core team to run the company
3) Elect a CEO to run the company
4) Not finish the app

The VoSnap founders chose a modification of 1 and 2.  A core was elected to run the company (basically one person from each major team).  This core group would also act as project managers for whoever wants to stay involved.

After a week, the core team has met as a whole twice.  The biggest challenge VoSnap faces now is in the developments (Devs) hands. Once the Devs have something up and running, the rest of the team will kick back into gear and work on a successful launch of VoSnap.  The milestones have been set for a July 23rd launch of VoSnap.

What is very interesting to me is the core meetings carry the same energy as the weekend did.  Even though the company is now a ‘nights and weekends’ operation, there still is a strong passion to work on and finish this application.

I was sitting at Trident today enjoying my first day without a todo list longer than my inseam, and was able to explain what VoSnap is to the manager in 30 seconds.  He had some great ideas on how he could use it for the shop, and for his life in general.  It is fun to work on an app that gets this type of reaction out of almost total strangers.

One of the founders emailed me today explaining how urgent he felt in releasing the application.  He is a developer working at a large company that releases a product about once every three years.   At first I didn’t get why he was in such a hurry.  After some thinking, I figured out that he wants to finish something, he wants to be able to explain what  he does in an interesting way at a dinner table, and almost most importantly, he wants to continue the energy and community that this weekend instilled in so many of us.

We now have 4 Startup Weekends planned around the nation and even one in Canada, which I will be publicly announcing later today.

Moving Forward

Posted on Jul 12, 2007 @ 04:10 pm in Planning

First let me say thank you to all the founders from last weekend.  We had an amazing group put in some serious hours.  It is now Thursday and I am almost fully caught up with the thousand emails I received on the event.

VoSnap’s core team has a meeting tonight to discuss the release of the Beta version of the product.  One outstanding founder Steve has built a solid Alpha version that we have been using over the last few days, and it is compelling and fun to say the least.  I can’t wait to release it to everyone!  With the pressure of a weekend launch off, we are taking time to build a Beta that will be used over and over by our community.   We will be changing up the site tonight to show you more of what we are up to, and add a blog to keep everyone up to date.

The growth of this idea has been phenomenal.   It has spread throughout the world, with 13 cities requesting we come to town.  Of those, 3 have started planning and one (Houston) has set a date (the weekend of Sept. 28th).  I am seeing if this can reach to London as well.  It is going to be fun seeing this spread.

If you want to host a weekend or be part of this crazy idea, send me a note at andrew@endoze.com.

VoSnap’s not live! What gives?

Posted on Jul 09, 2007 @ 10:20 am in Planning

A website you were working on or watching didn’t launch. This is because:

a) Planned to do it at 4am
b) Got too excited to launch it
c) The server ate it
d) People are really excited to see it

Text your answer to 44… (if VoSnap was working, we could get your opinion). Since it is not, we have the comments on this blog.

I really wish the site is live. Some core guys worked really late into the night, far past where my energy level dropped off. I awoke with excitement, wanting to see our Quick Vote application live. It was not, and I am not sure why. As people wake up today I will poll everyone to see where we are and how close we are to launching. I will keep everyone updated on the progress.

You can visit vosnap.com and sign up to be notified the minute it launches.

What Is Next?

A core team of 12 people have signed on to work to launch VoSnap and take it to a ‘post Startup Weekend’ level. We hope to launch very soon, get user feedback, improve the usability and quality of the service, and build upon what we have built.

I am going to update this site today as soon as I learn more.

Beta, Pre-Alpha or a StrawTank

Posted on Jul 08, 2007 @ 06:57 am in Planning

What should we name our first public release?

StrawTank?  Gamma?  DirtyAlpha? AlphaBetaTrucka?

I wish we had a way to quickly vote…

Damn.

10 Reasons Startup Weekend Is Working

Posted on Jul 08, 2007 @ 02:56 am in Planning

This weekend is working, really well. But why? Here is a quick list of things that come to mind

10. Humble people + talent
9. Equality of equity and mental model of meeting for a weekend and make the unthinkable possible
8. What the ‘…’ looks like in the ‘1)Idea 2)… 3)Profit’ equation
7. Passion
6. Get it done attitude
5. Opportunity to finish something beautiful
4. Support from mentors and awesome people dropping by
3. The People
2. Healthy distraction
1. The water

Yes, the water is key. Must be this budget beer.

Can’t decide?

Posted on Jul 07, 2007 @ 07:03 pm in video, Planning

Just a little teaser for you folks following along at home.

Promo video for vosnap.com, launching at the end of Startup Weekend (StartupWeekend.com). Music credit: Tullycraft, “Stowaway” on Magic Marker Records and PromoNet.

Lunchtime

Posted on Jul 07, 2007 @ 03:02 pm in Planning

Lunchtime here at StartupWeekend, lots of milestones on the way.

David is off to lunch, so I am going to do a quick update.

We got a call from the great group over at iPhoneDevCamp to see if we can join our app with their iPhone developers.

Facebook app is starting, logo is nearing completions, interface is polishing up, and we even have a paper prototype of the whole damn site.  Very exciting to see the teams working so well, not knowing each other until less than a day ago.

The live stream is getting some serious views, I have said hi a couple times.

Thanks for the comments!  We are reading and loving them!

Photos

Posted on Jul 07, 2007 @ 12:21 pm in Planning

We’re now sticking photos of flickr with the tag of startupweekend.

Tonight is the Night!

Posted on Jul 06, 2007 @ 10:54 am in Planning

See everyone at 6pm. The location has been emailed to everyone a couple times now, give me a call if you didn’t get it or can’t find the location  (303-817-6662).

Ideas session starts at 6pm.

See you soon!

« Previous Entries