

Those Build-a-Business-in-48-Hours Conferences are a Lie - pyrmont
http://inqk.net/weblog/2011/857

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sarbogast
The real lie in those events is the promise to create a team in 48 hours. And
I say this from my own experience. Kodesk won the grand prize of the jury of
the Startup Weekend Brussels in last January and a week after the event, it
was clear to me that I could just not create a business with people I had met
a week before. Co-founding a company requires trust, complicity and
complementarity. And if you don't have that, your "team" can blow up a good
concept with a good visibility.

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damncabbage
48 hour hack challenges? Group gatherings? Learn-from-each-other meetups
sponsored by a grant or some friendly companies? Great.

I agree, this sort of stuff is just a cash-in.

(Or providing more grist for the local VC/Angel mill.)

~~~
gerad
I help run <http://nodeknockout.com/>, a 48-hour hackathon. It's free and we
run it as a service for the community. One or two of the best apps of the
contest usually become legitimate businesses.

Not all of that happens in 48hours, there's a lot of strategizing that happens
before the competition, and a ton of work that happens afterward. BUT, you can
create a hell of an MVP in 48 hours if you know what you need to do.

~~~
damncabbage
Oh, definitely! I'm a huge fan of the Node.js Knockout.

(My point is that you're not charging people $100 for the privilege.)

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aculver
If you put the right team together in the right environment, you can launch
something valuable (MVP, prototype) in a weekend.

My main experience with this was a corporate hackathon where a bunch of
developers just decided they wanted to build a new product that was different
than the one we worked on everyday. That was 7 developers for 24 hours and I'd
say we launched a pretty cool product.
(<http://www.metrodenverapartments.com/> , and about 9 other domains. Looks
like the images have broken since.) Also, I was able to demo the product I'm
currently working on to potential customers after less than 20 hours of
development. At that point the demo was enough that people were willing to
commit to paying for it.

It's experiences like this (and seeing others doing the same thing) that make
me think these events have value. Here's a quote from
<http://startnorfolk.com/> (an event my employer and other local businesses
are putting on.) Emphasis is mine.

"an intense 48 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile
application _which could form the basis of_ a credible business"

Where is the snake oil in that? My experience is that you really can do
something awesome in one weekend if you get together with the right people. It
could also form the basis of a credible business. The registration fee is well
justified, as it covers food and drinks throughout the weekend. The $10,000
prize is paid for by sponsors.

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rtoy
I think the author is being unfair. On the Launch48 link provided, I don't see
any copy promising riches to developers.

I attended a StartupWeekend before and didn't feel that anyone thought it was
a get rich quick scheme or anything close to it. I personally learned a lot
from the weekend, and while the odds are not high, startups have gotten
funding through it.

