We covered Startup Weekend Atlanta a week ago. Now the team has rolled in to San Francisco for a multi-day event with the single goal of building a new startup, from idea to launch.
The new company will be called helphookup, a site to connect people who want to volunteer their time to good causes with the people who need help. Follow their progress here.
The group says 132 people showed up to co-found the startup.
If you’re at the event, please tell us how it’s going. Any fights yet? Squabbles over equity? When will the site launch? Tell us all the drama.
Update: The first comment below says these events are a waste of time from a ROI perspective. I disagree. Yes, it’s unlikely any of these startups will be a commercial success, but the opportunity to spend time with people who share your interests, make new friends, etc., is well worth the time. See my thoughts here and comments to that post by participants.
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frankly it seems these collaboration projects are complete failures. First of all there is not much you can achieve in a weekend. Second of all these ideas are pretty much carbon copies of stuff thats been out there, so its not like they are coming up with something creative. Thirdly with 132 founders, even if a site turns out to be successful, and they end up clearing a million bucks a year, thats a mere $30K a piece, at those rates you are better off working at Starbucks
I think they’re doing that for fun.
Very cool idea but I agree with post #1, don’t know what they plan on doing in a weekend with 132 diff opinions.
GuessLotto.com
I’d like to be part of this if I had the time just for the experience, forget the money.
To me, this is great as an opportunity for more experienced entrepreneurs to teach younger entrepreneurs the key things it takes to get a project off the ground. I think it’s fantastic. Even if every company fails, there’ll be a tonne of great lessons for those who are involved!
Lots of great people, really an amazing time.
It has been really fun seeing the talent and individual drive of the San Francisco tech community. Thanks to all the founders that have stayed through the weekend and all the sponsors that make it so the event can take place!
What’s UP with the logo /:
don’t say hook.
I’m at the event now. If you think the only value of these events is in owning shares in the startup that emerges then you’ve missed the point and comments #1,3 will be how you feel. But the value of attending this event is:
1. in the learning and knowledge transfer that occurs in a hyper-accelerated lifecycle of a startup (if you’re a developer, float around and see how usability people collaborate with marketing, how legal works with biz dev).
2. in the connections that are made. The nature of the 3-day event filters out people so that the ones left on the last day are there out of passion and are likely people that have startups of their own and are good people to know.
It’s easy to dismiss these types of events as scams. I can say from having been here all weekend, hanging out with the organizers and having run our our own startup for the past yr (JumpBox.com) that this is legit and is an absolute firehose of valuable info/experience for anyone who wants to do a startup.
sean
I think it has been awesome so far! I just made 5 amazing friends. It really gets your creative juices flowing. I feel very lucky to be in the same room with so many intelligent and driven individuals. Highly recommended.
Vosnap, the first StartupWeekend company, just landed a revenue producing deal.
I wouldn’t count these startups out when it comes to having a future. It really depends on the team that is left behind.
It is a different kind of networking event.
Thanks Michael. I’m in the event right now and the energy level is incredible. It’s a super fun project, and everyone is excited. And we’re optimistic about the product and believe we’re addressing a real need.
As a DC startupweekend participant it’s interesting to see the “ROI” playing out in the form of a newly envigorated community with separate and interesting collaborations taking place as a result of the connections made during SW.
All I can say is if SW is coming to your city…get in on it. It’s the best way to spend a weekend.
http:/www.twitter.com/corbett3000
Positives of this event have been:
1) Watching just how much can get accomplished in an amazingly short time (and basically no funds) by a bunch of committed, talented, skilled people.
2) Meeting motivated, cooperative, talented (and fun) people, and seeing how they work.
3) You can easily see what skills and personality traits you would want in an employee/team, what makes a person (and an idea) succeed. Would be an amazing place to recruit people.
4) The challenge, and rising to it. Learning new things, testing your skills under the tightest of deadlines.
5) Creating something of value.
Lets see some quick ROI calculations:
Assumptions:
- Average StartupWeekend last approximately 50 hours;
- Average StartupWeekend attendance is 50 people;
- Average wage of a StartupWeekend participant is $25/hr. ($50k/annually)
So, more than $62.5k in work value is put into each weekend’s idea. There is a completed business plan, a network formed, a demo-ready product, creative work completed, buzz created, etc.
In 2.5 days. For no real money.
Sounds like value to me.
In addition, the concept of ROI (return on investment), bodes the question what is the individuals return on the effort. If we use the example from #1 — $30k per person, thats not bad for 2.5 days of work with little to no cap ex.
So $30k on $1325 invested work value…a simple ROI calc puts its at about … ~20x.
Man thats a bad investment for sure!
Its sad to see people posting negetive comments about this initiative.
Lets not forget, its a great cause. Its interesting to know that 130+ ppl came together to work on this platform at startup weekend and chose to work on somethign which is not FOR Profit, but rather NON-Profit gig.
I mean really how many times we have heard people working on such a community focus platform ,devoting their time,ideas,creativity and energy to make this happen.
As per Startupweekend is concerned, I think its a very great learning exeprience , not to mentione some of the good points mentiond in last few comments above
Its seems promising and headed in right direction
what mr. hyde and his crew are doing with startup weekends is fantastic, it represents so much of what motivates a large number of entrepreneurs in the first place; coming up with ideas, having a vision, a dream/hope, the desire to create, to DO something - and all on everyone’s own personal/weekend time. i think these weekends are a great way to test drive potential working relationships for future projects, and anyone who’s been at the very beginning stages of a startup, knows how critical it is to find the right partner, the right team. so having said all that, this kind of thing brings tremendous value. perhaps the first comment belonged to someone along the East Coast?
#15
Do you calculate ROI when you are visiting family for a weekend? Or attending a party? Hopefully no–because those activities are fun.
Same way, StartupWeekend is fun.
I’ve been to two now (DC and Atlanta) and can honestly say I’ve never learned so much in such a short period of time (and as someone with an advanced degree and a professional career, I’m no stranger to intense learning experiences). I co-wrote the press release that got TechCrunch to cover SW Atlanta, so hopefully that means I contributed something relevant as well.
Maybe for someone who has worked in a startup already, or who works in the tech industry by day, it’s not such a big deal, but for someone like myself who doesn’t have a tech day job, it’s exposure to a whole new world. And considering all you have to lose is a weekend of your time and at most, a $20 buy-in, it certainly beats hundreds or thousands of hours or dollars lost if it doesn’t work out.
In calculating the value of Startup Weekend, you can’t just calculate the value of what’s created onsite. I think it’s highly likely that many if not most of the participants are going to learn lessons and/or make connections there that are going to give wings to all kinds of successful business ventures.
And if not, it will always be a helluva weekend.
You should approach this as mainly a learning/networking experience, and maybe - if the rare perfect storm hits…a nice, little paycheck (but don’t count on it)
If you come into this for money, this isn’t for you.
besides, the people who come to these are a bunch of B-level employees, lol - no true A-alpha employee would engage in this shenanigans
As other’s have said, it’s about networking. And, if you ever hope to be successful in a startup (or in life for that matter) you better get out there and start meeting people. Otherwise you’ll always live your life as somebody else’s tool (see artists and inventors).
For those getting started, check out Harvey Mackay’s, “Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty.”
I am here and this is an awesome DIY and networking opportunity. One place where the “do-ers” stay and all the fluff is non-existent. Doesn’t matter what the value of the site/company we build - some of the conenctions made here will lead to some of the best startups!
…speed dating for nerds?
“Yes, it’s unlikely any of these startups will be a commercial success, but the opportunity to spend time with people who share your interests, make new friends, etc., is well worth the time”
I come from the go to the office and do your job no matter what, boss top down hierarchy world. Corporate America burned that into me at a young age. I do see why you would like that though.
Looks like a good project to be a part of.
http://www.whatshottoday.com
I think what Mike is suggesting is similar to Linux installfests or the homebrew computer clubs of the 70’s.
“If you’re at the event, please tell us how it’s going. Any fights yet? Squabbles over equity? When will the site launch? Tell us all the drama.”
How does this work? You show up and you instantly start slicing equity pie???
What capital drives the equity?
BTW, in reference to my last comment, I actually started working here after school at 16
http://www.gorbel.com/ I was in data entry at the headquarters. It was so long ago.
any discussion about legal and bizdev in a 2 day old startup just cracks me up, but commenters say it with zombie like sincerity, drinking the kool-aid all the way to the bottom I guess
Great idea. I’d like to offer to be the first partnership to this new company. They plan hook up volunteers with good causes, we already hook up donors and charities.
Let’s work together.
Drew McManus
President and Co-Founder
Bring Light, Inc.
http://www.bringlight.com
Absolutely awesome idea, and all the people complaining of course don’t have to show up. A lot more goes into building something than simply the roi for each developers time.
HOWEVER…cool logo that doesn’t really fit and…well…a bad name if you’re not helping people have sexual relations with others
Cool though, look forward to seeing the results
@Micah,
OH SNAP, way to drop some knowledge on this crowd. I could not agree more with you, and as a member of SW DC, the value I got out of the event had nothing to do with money, it was all about the community, which is the foundation that Andrew has instilled in this process, and has shined through in each and every weekend.
I encourage anyone who is thinking of bashing this to take some time and check out the event when it comes to your city (and what I mean is just don’t show up Friday night and bail after an hour, stick it out through Saturday). After that, if you still feel the same way, the by all means say what you think. Until then, try to be a good web citizen and keep it quiet.
“any discussion about legal and bizdev in a 2 day old startup just cracks me up, but commenters say it with zombie like sincerity, drinking the kool-aid all the way to the bottom I guess”
http://sf.startupweekend.com/
“In the lawyer’s corner, some members of Marketing, Dev, BizDev and Creative have been hashing out privacy policies, incorporation considerations, not-for-profit status, and licensing agreements.”
“As it stands, we’re incorporating a C-Corp, owned by Startup Weekend LLC and an LLC controlled by this weekend’s founders. Additionally, a separate not-for-profit company will be instantiated with tax-exempt forms ready to go for a manager to-be-determined.”
Yeah, it’s a little something the rest of us call reading.
I was actually one the 132 that attended on Friday. I couldn’t attend the rest of the weekend but I was fortunate enough to at least experience the events of the first night. The amount of energy and talent, the differing personalities all working together towards a single goal made for a very interesting experience. I could care less about my share of the company. That’s not the main point. It was the connections I made that night that are what’s most valuable to me. I can definitely see myself working with some of the people I met that night in future projects. Kudos to Andrew for putting SW together and good luck to the team of HelpHookup.com!
I agree with Will (#30). When I came here, I didn’t really expect to build a real startup. I came for the community and the experience and to have a fun weekend. However, now that I met so many great people here, and that I see the thing coming to live, I’m very optimistic that it could be a great product.
Seems like this blog is capturing the spirit of this event excluding the always dependable nay-sayers (full disclosure, I am a participant).
The unique chance to throw 130+ random folks together, vet an idea and bring it to life in 54 hours is simply astonishing - in fact, I would challenge any MBA program to emulate this platform for their students, you learn a ton - my single biggest take away is that at the end of the day is that any company is only as good as the people in it - ideas, market places, market share, etc., toss it all out the window if you can’t work together - this demonstrated that not only is that possible, but you can really achieve amazing things with a bunch of strangers…that alone is profound and illustrative of the modern entrepreneur.
Read anything by Tim Sanders to get a great perspective on this.
rd
What a fun weekend, great group, great minds, all in one weekend!
Sounds like a great time. Good luck with the launch!
Great! Let’s see all the bullshit ideas, the re inventing the wheel, money sucking start ups.
i agree #37
Nobody impressed me, c’mon people, I have 2 Billion to spend before the end of the quarter!
@37/Anewday: WTF is wrong with you?
Startup Weekends take NO money from anywhere. It’s sweat equity from a group of willing volunteers. If you pulled your head out of your ass and read a little before speaking, you’d know that.
But then reading and thinking is probably something you consider bullshit too…
Maybe when you’re done with your current Billion Dollar idea, you can move out of your Mom’s basement and get enough daytime schooling to not be such a gargantuan crap-spraying iTool all of the time.
p.s. I’m sure your Mom would appreciate the change too.
Well, as one of the members of this interesting experiment, I can say that is was worth it. I spend most of my time running the dev group, and despite the normal issues of platform, framework, schema, etc.. I watch a bunch of really talented programmers learn how to build, destroy, rebuild again. A few came away will new skills and others with insights into approaches to solving problems. As the weekend flew by, I would ask around if people ‘thought this was fun’, and each person who stayed the full 2.5 days, I got a non hesitant YES!
As I write this I am VERY tired from what seems like non stop action since the beginning. Even if NOTHING came out of this effort, I met some great people, watched human drama, disappointment, elation and bonding happen in fast foreword. All I can say is; what a rush.
It’s all very well saying “Well it’s not meant to make money, it’s just an event”, but Young Enterprise groups all over the UK do a similar thing - they come together in order to form a small business, and they have to come up with an idea for it themselves. Many of them manage to make at least some profit. And the entrepreneurs are all aged 16-18.
So there’s the challenge to HelpHookup. Make at least some money, or Web 2.0
…isn’t as good as a bunch of school kids.
(Last post got cut off because I tried to use a ‘less than’ sign. Odd bug.)
Thanks for covering us Mike, I just had an entertaining read through the comments. I was involved in the weekend and loved it. I’ve never had an opportunity to be part of such a fast-forming community.
I’ve approached this with the open mind of going on an adventure and participating in an experiment. I was extremely pleased with the quality of folks I met and the opportunities meeting them will likely lead to. I think this format has a lot of value both to entrepreneurial schools and also large companies who want to inject some randomness and energy into a project.
Tyler
Perhaps because I am one of the oldest attendees of startup weekend (I went to the D.C. one), I take a longer-term view on assessing the ROI generated by the process. Yes, the companies formed at startup weekends may or may not lead to much direct revenue. But in D.C. we spent 2+ months coming up with and sharing ideas before the weekend, and both that and the intense energy of the weekend have forged connections and possibilities that are likely to generate very substantial ROI’s from new ventures in this area over the next few years.
As to the quality of the people attending, many of them are A-list, and most of the others are aiming to become A-list in the near future. I think the people who don’t participate in processes like this will find themselves later on surprised at what they have missed.
i agree #35
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