

Launch or Die at a Startup Weekend Near You - dariusmonsef
http://500.co/2012/04/27/launch-or-die-at-a-startupweekend-near-you/

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lopatin
We never got paid our UIUC StartupWeekend winnings, even after emailing the
organizers countless times. Yes it's more about the connections and experience
over the prize money, but just a fair warning.

~~~
ohashi
Each event is put on by a set of organizers, I would look at it slightly more
from a franchise perspective. It's probably not Startup Weekend's fault. I've
been an organizer before and I am sorry you didn't get what you won; but don't
go for prizes. I've organized and been a participant, I've never seen any
'substantial' prizes other than some fun stuff. The last one in Washington DC
I think had some Think Geek stuff like a lightsaber.

But that's not why you go to these events. It should only be about the
experience and building something. If there happens to be a prize, that's
gravy.

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bmull
I've never done a Startup Weekend, but posts like this make me want to try it.

As someone who has iterated and launched a lot of stuff in the past year, I
love this approach. I think 54 hours is crazy small to release a quality
product, and dont know if I could do it, but Bubs is right with the framework.
If you have to do it, this seems like a great method.

~~~
bmelton
You'd be surprised -- I certainly was, about how quality a product someone can
release in 54 hours.

Regardless, it really isn't about that. It's MVP at its truest sense. Does the
world need this product? That can be answered in 54 hours, with enough talent,
caffeine and motivation.

To cram everything in, you cheat. Use Django, Rails (or better), Flask,
Sinatra, whatever. Use an off-the-shelf authentication schema (Facebook,
Twitter, whatever). Get a themed template from Themeforest or wherever.

If you're lucky enough to have a designer, let them put polish on it. If
you're lucky enough to have (or be) a developer, let them choose the language
and framework.

At the last Baltimore SW, Dave Troy built and launched a couple of addons for
(the not yet launched) Shortmail[1] service. Yasmine Mustafa (seen on HN front
page[2] recently) was building 123Linkit, which was later acquired, and the
winner, Parking Panda[3] was built and demoed (and looked spartan, to say the
least), and they were recently featured by Mashable.

Things can happen, and 54 hours is enough. Getting everybody involved to see
that isn't necessarily the easiest thing in the world, but it's a great way of
whittling down even modest ideas into their smaller kernels.

[1] - <http://shortmail.com>

[2] - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3881825>

[3] - <http://mashable.com/2012/04/20/parking-panda/>

------
joyce
These are all good tips to follow for any new team trying to get to MVP,
regardless of if you are in a startup weekend, and test out the idea and the
team.

