dev
January 2008 
StartUp Weekend Reflections
Posted on Jul 10th, 2007
by 
Gwen
Gwen
Well, I'm nearly back to 100% following Startup Weekend and the near-launch of a new soft innovation, VoSnap. The idea of VoSnap is that you can make a quick vote, or a "decision in a snap." Hence the tagline: It's decided. (To read more about the weekend, check out the extensive & comprehensive break-down of what went right/wrong, here.)
I'd like to just take a few minutes and free-form on how the weekend and subsequent days have been for me. As one of only five women (one on the marketing team, one on the CSS team, one on the dev team, one on the lawyer team plus me equals five) I think I have a pretty unique perspective on what went down this weekend.
First of all, because I had no expectations going in, I approached the weekend with beginner's mind. I was like, ok, I start companies all the time and this will just be like that only bigger. My hunch was relatively accurate. It was "bigger" in one sense. But when I first heard that we'd be launching a web app that would allow us to spend even more time online, I guess I was kind of bummed. It seemed like too small an idea and too many people. I figured we'd wrap the project up by Sunday morning at the latest.
Again, I was wrong. As the room began to break up into teams on Friday night I had a choice to make. At first I went over to the "I'll do anything to get it done" team. Sort of a catch-all team for people that weren't sure where they fit in. I saw that the team was too big and "floaty" for me, so I went over to the Designer's table. (We soon began to call it the Creatives Table, which made more sense). My role over the next 24 hours or so was to gather the information, bits and pieces from all the teams, really, aggregate it and then explain it in designer-friendly terms to the Creative team. I was like a Real Life Feed Aggregator. Once the Creatives executed an idea it was my job to explain it to the whole room of 70 some odd people in a way that everyone could understand.
Oh, and then there was the yoga.
When you get a bunch of tech-types in a room with bagels and Red Bull, you can pretty much forget about any sort of physical exercise. Friday evening, before we even went home, I pitched the idea to Andrew that we do a minute or two of yoga at each meeting. As it turns out, we had 8.5 minute meetings on the hour (almost every hour) with 1.5 minutes spend stretching, twisting and laughing. Because so much of moving around like that is getting a smile back on your face. It really worked wonders. At first there was some mild resistance to the idea. By Sunday, when we missed a "yoga session," I had the dev team coming up to me asking for us to do yoga at the next meeting. This is no joke.
There was some tension in teams at time throughout the weekend, but overall a sense of quiet harmony pervaded. It was so different than how I remember teams working together in high school. Back then kids did as little as they could to get by. Over the weekend there was a buzz of energy. Even people that weren't producing very much tangible stuff were outside throwing around ideas for the next viral video, blogging or twittering. Everyone got involved somehow.
By Saturday night when I finally went to sleep around one a.m. my mind was buzzing with frenetic thoughts. I wasn't able to wind down right away and knew that I would probably get sick. I woke up on Sunday morning with a sore throat but determined to go "into the office" and potentially make everyone sick. :P Sorry, guys. So, I went and kept my spirits up for most of the day. I read some of the more cruel comments left at Techcrunch but just let them pass over my radar. I hung out a lot withe the Biz/Dev team and had a great time getting to know them.
Then, Gambit arrived (see pic).
When Gambit the Hedgehog arrived around 11 p.m. on Sunday night I pretty much knew that we wouldn't have a project to launch. Gambit cheered me up and I bid folks farewell as they packed it in and called it a night around midnight. And that was that.
Tonight, Tuesday, I hung out with the TechStars of Boulder at New Technology night at the Law School. The energy from StartUp Weekend every bit as palpable as it was on Sat/Sun.
Right before the house burned down I was really committed to leaving Boulder and doing some traveling. Following this weekend, my faith in Boulder and the tech scene is truly restored. And I'm thinking I might give it another go.
I'd like to just take a few minutes and free-form on how the weekend and subsequent days have been for me. As one of only five women (one on the marketing team, one on the CSS team, one on the dev team, one on the lawyer team plus me equals five) I think I have a pretty unique perspective on what went down this weekend.
First of all, because I had no expectations going in, I approached the weekend with beginner's mind. I was like, ok, I start companies all the time and this will just be like that only bigger. My hunch was relatively accurate. It was "bigger" in one sense. But when I first heard that we'd be launching a web app that would allow us to spend even more time online, I guess I was kind of bummed. It seemed like too small an idea and too many people. I figured we'd wrap the project up by Sunday morning at the latest.
Again, I was wrong. As the room began to break up into teams on Friday night I had a choice to make. At first I went over to the "I'll do anything to get it done" team. Sort of a catch-all team for people that weren't sure where they fit in. I saw that the team was too big and "floaty" for me, so I went over to the Designer's table. (We soon began to call it the Creatives Table, which made more sense). My role over the next 24 hours or so was to gather the information, bits and pieces from all the teams, really, aggregate it and then explain it in designer-friendly terms to the Creative team. I was like a Real Life Feed Aggregator. Once the Creatives executed an idea it was my job to explain it to the whole room of 70 some odd people in a way that everyone could understand.
Oh, and then there was the yoga.
When you get a bunch of tech-types in a room with bagels and Red Bull, you can pretty much forget about any sort of physical exercise. Friday evening, before we even went home, I pitched the idea to Andrew that we do a minute or two of yoga at each meeting. As it turns out, we had 8.5 minute meetings on the hour (almost every hour) with 1.5 minutes spend stretching, twisting and laughing. Because so much of moving around like that is getting a smile back on your face. It really worked wonders. At first there was some mild resistance to the idea. By Sunday, when we missed a "yoga session," I had the dev team coming up to me asking for us to do yoga at the next meeting. This is no joke.
There was some tension in teams at time throughout the weekend, but overall a sense of quiet harmony pervaded. It was so different than how I remember teams working together in high school. Back then kids did as little as they could to get by. Over the weekend there was a buzz of energy. Even people that weren't producing very much tangible stuff were outside throwing around ideas for the next viral video, blogging or twittering. Everyone got involved somehow.
By Saturday night when I finally went to sleep around one a.m. my mind was buzzing with frenetic thoughts. I wasn't able to wind down right away and knew that I would probably get sick. I woke up on Sunday morning with a sore throat but determined to go "into the office" and potentially make everyone sick. :P Sorry, guys. So, I went and kept my spirits up for most of the day. I read some of the more cruel comments left at Techcrunch but just let them pass over my radar. I hung out a lot withe the Biz/Dev team and had a great time getting to know them.
Then, Gambit arrived (see pic).
When Gambit the Hedgehog arrived around 11 p.m. on Sunday night I pretty much knew that we wouldn't have a project to launch. Gambit cheered me up and I bid folks farewell as they packed it in and called it a night around midnight. And that was that.
Tonight, Tuesday, I hung out with the TechStars of Boulder at New Technology night at the Law School. The energy from StartUp Weekend every bit as palpable as it was on Sat/Sun.
Right before the house burned down I was really committed to leaving Boulder and doing some traveling. Following this weekend, my faith in Boulder and the tech scene is truly restored. And I'm thinking I might give it another go.
Access: Public
I really should get out to Boulder at least once before your wanderlust takes you away. I haven't been there since a trip while I was in high school, but I clearly remember the backdrop of the Rockies rising impressively in the backyard of the city … anyway, the same thing happens to me when I try to work too late and then sleep. My mind buzzes like a high tension wire (which, by the way, if you've ever stood underneath one and are at all energetically sensitive, you'll know what I mean!!!)
So glad you had a great experience, even if it wasn't the next big thing and it didn't launch on time. The energy of working on an excited team is thrillig (and the blithy toves) … er I mean thrilling.
I built some hedgehog houses for the family some years ago - which provide a seperate living compartment in the rear and an area at the front, for water & food containers, which is exited by tunnel. My children, partners & grandchildren have ALL seen their own hedgehog families and my eldest son-in-law watches them at dusk regularly.
I feed “our” hedgehogs 365 days a year with hedgehog food BUT still to this day have never seen ANY of the family. I suppose that hedgehog family could tell US a thing or two about dealing with difficult people !
@Jake: Come on Down!! Err..over. You know you always have a couch to crash on. Well, it'll take a month at least to be totally sure, but yeah. What's mine is yours!
@Michael: That's so cute! The hedgehog owner I met this weekend said she feeds her hedgehog cat food. Works for her! Your set-up sounds like hedgehog heaven.