Archive for the ‘Portland’ Category
Monday, June 2nd, 2008
Startup Weekend has had a major impact on the communities it has touched and there is often a lot written about a particular weekend after it has ended. Although we can’t cover all the great feedback that is out there, I thought I would post something I read the other day about the Portland experience. This post comes from Varun Thota, student at Portland State, who attended the weekend and posted a great reflection. Link to the live post is here:
As a newbie to the Startup community, the 54 hours that is “Startup Weekend,” was one amazing, hectic, fun filled event. I was able to learn a lot from some very experienced people, meet and network, get advice and also help in a new web startup that I can’t wait to use and hopefully see it grow.
Introduction
Startup weekend is an event where a group of people show up, network, chart a bunch of ideas out and hopefully at the end of the day, produce a product. And if they don’t, it’s just fun to meet people, have some good food and just immerse yourself in Web 2.0 culture.
I showed up with @dodeja Friday night and slowly started mingling with the crowd. The first few words I had with a couple of people were, “Hey, I follow you on Twitter! Great to finally meet you!”
Soon we settled into groups after a number of ideas were written on the board, and people chose the ideas they really wanted to work on. I think the format for startup weekend has changed, where instead of producing one startup, we came out with not just 1 or 2, but 4 startups! I happened to get involved with the crew, where founder @Dodeja, had an idea for a site providing an online streaming service for the trance community. Head over to his blog to learn more about the site Mugasha.
What I’ve Learned
As a business student, learning about the beginning of any startup and being involved in it, is very valuable. Darius A. Monsef, creator of colourlovers.com was a great mentor, who thought of the name Mugasha and provided some valuable feedback/advice on getting a startup on its feet. We were also the youngest team, comprising of a coder, design and graphics, marketing and business dev, pretty much a perfectly balanced team. We were able to collaborate easily, and with no framework, be able to agree/disagree on various aspects of the site. It quickly came together, and before you knew it, we had a working prototype.
I was able to learn what it takes to get a web startup started and working. How to market it, and where to start, what were the essential first steps and what to look out for in the future. With the experience of the Colourlovers team and the ambition of the rest of the team, I was lucky enough to soak up so much information that will be so valuable for me once I decide to have my own startup. As part of the business development team, we looked into different aspects of the site such as what service it will provide, what the legal issues were concerning sharing artist content, whether or not to incorporate or form an LLC. We also looked into different ways of monetizing the site, weather or not we could and what steps we would take to implement these strategies.
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Needless to say, some very great stuff in his article and check out his blog to read the rest of that post with a bit more about the companies coming out of the weekend.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Tags: venith
Posted in Portland |
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Despite near meltdown, the Portland Startup Weekend turned out to be a great event with some pretty cool developments at the end of the weekend. Jeremy Tanner and Erica O’Grady were the facilitators involved in organizing the whole thing and needless to say, Jeremy’s reference to Winston Wolfe (Pulp Fiction) was definitely appropriate. Here’s a quick excerpt from his thoughts on the weekend:
OK, a Startup Weekend on the rocks is no dead body in the back of a Chevy Nova, that can be fixed with some bleach and a blanket. Startup Weekend required a few more phone calls…Over the next days I was Club SW Doorman/Bouncer, Food Finder, Meeting Master, Motivator, Referee and Donut Taster. (I recommend the Bacon Maple Bar) The weekenders brought their A-game forming Mugasha (Random access DJ Set sharing and listening), GetGathered (Meeting Scheduler), Treasurecycle (Barter your old stuff), Life Grant (Dream / Goal Funder) and Startup River (Idea -> Profit!).
With all the confusion taken care of, Portland weekenders were able to pull together and form several different groups all tackling unique problems. Here’s a bit more on what they created:
Treasurecycle –Junk trader project that allows users to trade and barter for goods as one man’s junk is another man’s treasure (sorry, had to say it)
LifeGrant — Essentially a project set up to help fund dreams for those less fortunate than others
Mugasha — For those that want to listen to an individual song within a massive DJ set, this is the app for you
Get Gathered — A pretty cool schedule sync service for those of us that lack all organizational skills
Startup River – As Jeremy summarized it best, Idea –> Profit!
Overall the Portland community really pulled together and made this weekend a huge success. Congrats to everyone on their developments and I hope to see some of these developing further into the future. Feel free to check out some pictures from the event here.
Popularity: 16% [?]
Posted in Portland |
Monday, May 19th, 2008
This weekend is the Portland Startup Weekend, just after the great WebVisions event (and I have heard some amazing stories about this event).
Sorry for the lack of communication, the person that was in charge of putting together this weekend quit last weekend without notice, and the lack of communication was worse than I realized. If you have any questions, please email me at andrew@startupweekend.com and I will get right back to you. I am very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused everyone.
Here are the quick questions I can answer:
We need help putting on the event. If you have any spare time this week, we would love to have some help:
- Last minute chatter about the event. We are almost sold out, so what has been done already has been stellar
- Food Czar, anyone want to figure out the meals? Free ticket!
- Blogging, we are going to launch the subdomain soon, need someone to do their magic
- Facilitation of ideas. There have been plenty floating around, does someone want to help encourage this?
- Registration setup help
Feel free to leave a comment or say hello to me at andrew@startupweekend.com and I will point you in the right direction.
Because of my involvement at TechStars, I will not be able to attend the event (also the first week of TechStars). I would love to come out, but it just isn’t meant to be.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Posted in Portland |
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Lots of things are in the works at Startup Weekend. Here is a quick update:
- We are opening up the schedule. If you have participated in a Startup Weekend before and want to run your own, drop me an email and lets work on setting one up. It is still not decentralized project.
- I have been working on setting up several weekends. Expect a launch of 3 new weekends in the next week.
- Sales to the Boulder Startup Weekend and the Portland Startup Weekend have been brisk. I will post when they are close to selling out, but you have a little more time to procrastinate before buying your ticket.
- The feedback has been amazing. Thank you to everyone that has contacted me offering kind words or support.
- Startup Weekend is hiring! This project began with very humble beginnings, and is now growing and expanding beyond what I though was ever possible. More on this later this week.
- Guest writers are needed! This blog is getting a fare amount of traffic from all sorts of amazing startup folk. If you have a topic that that you are passionate about, let me know and we will set something up.
Hope February is treating you well (and you are staying away from the flu and colds that have been so bad this year).
We added two widgets to the sidebar of this blog. The nPost job board is a very cool recourse for anyone looking for a job in this area, and the User Voice is a great way for collecting feedback.
Popularity: 68% [?]
Tags: , boulder startup weekend, portland startup weekend
Posted in Boulder, Portland, Thank You |
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
You ready?
Startup Weekend is proud to announce that the Portland Startup Weekend will be held May 23-25 2008. This is Memorial day weekend, so plan accordingly. Surprisingly, this date worked the best when a sample from the cityvote project was polled. It will be great to have a nice northwestern spring day on Monday to enjoy as a holiday (which is a huge plus). This will be the 17th Startup Weekend to take place across the globe.
Please blog, twitter, IM and tell your friends about the weekend (and feel free to use this logo and link to this post). Oregon is my home state and I can’t wait to get back.
A nice intimate set will be provided by the great folks at SMtvMusic.com. We already have quite a few surprises planned for the first Startup Weekend in Oregon.
So, you want to get involved? Contact cities@startupweekend.com if you would like to help plan the event.
So what can you do?
Tickets for Startup Weekend Portland will be sold here for $40. This is really a RSVP cost, and you will receive your fair share of food, swag and memories. If you or your company is interested in sponsoring a meal, shirts or massive amounts of caffeine, email sponsor@startupweekend.com.
Buy your ticket here!
There are 8 main areas of expertise that you can sign up for:
- Design
- Developer
- PR/ Marketing
- Business Development
- User Experience
- Legal
- Project/ Product Management
- Cook (your skillset isn’t represented here or you would like to help with the food for the weekend)
Make sure to get tickets early, it will sell out.
Leave your questions in the comments!
Popularity: 100% [?]
Tags: Announcements, Portland, portland startup weekend, Startup Weekend
Posted in Announcements, Portland, Startup Weekends | 17 Comments »
