3 ms·

Startup Weekend failed, but lessons learned

17 points by waleedka 19y ago

8en 19y ago
Is anyone else confused by the premise of startup weekend? It sounds like a fun idea, but the whole concept seems a little silly to me.
- pg 19y ago
  I think they were trying to combine two ideas, "startups are cool" and "bring a bunch of people together." But not all combinations of good ideas are themselves good ideas. This was a particularly bad combination, because one of the defining qualities of startups is that they're small.
  - erik 19y ago
    If they had split the 70 into 30 teams of 2 to 3 people, and each team tried to build their own prototype over the weekend, some interesting results would have been produced. Put the prototypes online, and have the participants select the best one through a vote. That would bring a bunch of people together without violating the "small startup" principle. Also, completion between the teams would help with motivation.
    - willarson 19y ago
      The way they did it I think 2-3 is too low. They have too many support types: lawyers, designers, business, public relations, etc. I think they'd have needed to have teams be 7-10 to fit that many types into a startup. Which is too many for a startup... so I think that retrying without the deadweight of support roles might help (not that lawyers/designers/business/public relations people arn't great, but its hard to perform their roles before there is a product in existance).
- mechanical_fish 19y ago
  It's obviously silly, but does it really sound like fun? My takeaway from this writeup is that these poor folks forgot to have fun. I really loved the part where the heroic manager talks the Rails programmers out of embarking on an entertaining game of competitive hacking in order to keep the entire, gigantic 70-person team focused on... waiting around. Imagine the consequences if he had failed!
tuukkah 19y ago
They learned a lesson indeed: "Development is hard. This is all that will matter."
gyro_robo 19y ago
> The Java platform was selected /Nuff
- willarson 19y ago
  If only they'd have a mob of framework elitists to save them from such perils. ;)
  - jaggederest 19y ago
    They did! Some rails guys tried to splinter out a prototype at the 11th hour but were convinced not to. Now we'll never know whether rails would have helped
mynameishere 19y ago
70 days and 2 people would work much better than 2 days and 70 people.
ivankirigin 19y ago
This is the first I'd heard of startupweekend. They seem to be off on some basic ideas, as other comments here concur. Throwing more developers at a problem doesn't usually solve it. A weekend is barely enough time to think about an idea thoroughly. But it does sound like fun though. A barcamp should take the idea to the illogical extreme and hold a startup-hour session. :)

17 points by waleedka 19y ago

8en 19y ago

Is anyone else confused by the premise of startup weekend? It sounds like a fun idea, but the whole concept seems a little silly to me.

pg 19y ago
I think they were trying to combine two ideas, "startups are cool" and "bring a bunch of people together." But not all combinations of good ideas are themselves good ideas. This was a particularly bad combination, because one of the defining qualities of startups is that they're small.
- erik 19y ago
  If they had split the 70 into 30 teams of 2 to 3 people, and each team tried to build their own prototype over the weekend, some interesting results would have been produced. Put the prototypes online, and have the participants select the best one through a vote. That would bring a bunch of people together without violating the "small startup" principle. Also, completion between the teams would help with motivation.
  - willarson 19y ago
    The way they did it I think 2-3 is too low. They have too many support types: lawyers, designers, business, public relations, etc. I think they'd have needed to have teams be 7-10 to fit that many types into a startup. Which is too many for a startup... so I think that retrying without the deadweight of support roles might help (not that lawyers/designers/business/public relations people arn't great, but its hard to perform their roles before there is a product in existance).
mechanical_fish 19y ago
It's obviously silly, but does it really sound like fun? My takeaway from this writeup is that these poor folks forgot to have fun. I really loved the part where the heroic manager talks the Rails programmers out of embarking on an entertaining game of competitive hacking in order to keep the entire, gigantic 70-person team focused on... waiting around. Imagine the consequences if he had failed!

tuukkah 19y ago

They learned a lesson indeed: "Development is hard. This is all that will matter."

gyro_robo 19y ago

> The Java platform was selected /Nuff

willarson 19y ago
If only they'd have a mob of framework elitists to save them from such perils. ;)
- jaggederest 19y ago
  They did! Some rails guys tried to splinter out a prototype at the 11th hour but were convinced not to. Now we'll never know whether rails would have helped

mynameishere 19y ago

70 days and 2 people would work much better than 2 days and 70 people.

ivankirigin 19y ago

This is the first I'd heard of startupweekend. They seem to be off on some basic ideas, as other comments here concur. Throwing more developers at a problem doesn't usually solve it. A weekend is barely enough time to think about an idea thoroughly. But it does sound like fun though. A barcamp should take the idea to the illogical extreme and hold a startup-hour session. :)