Startup Weekend

DC Startup Community

The weekend is about community, it always has been and always will be.

Headlines like this make me happy: DC’s Red Hot Internet Scene.  I love to see strong tech communities, built in the recent years by great conferences and unconferences alike.  One of the great joys of the weekend for me is watching communities build.

I will remember the DC Startup Weekend as one of the most unique and amazing weekends of the 7 I have attended. But why is this? Every weekend has great people, compelling products and an energy like nothing you have ever seen. What was special? Everything was set up to go so wrong. Friday night ended with no really clear direction on what the product we would be making was, and many people came back Saturday to give it a shot (perhaps until noon). What happened Saturday blew me away. Just 24 hours from a scattered, almost argumentative tone to the room and the action in the room was everyone hitting the ground running as a united team. The developers were amazing. Same for the designers, PR folks, Usability and hosts. The rapid change was what made DC special.

The idea started as a ‘condo social network’ and evolved into a user defined social network, which I absolutely love.  If you have not checked out HolaNeighbor yet, test it out!

Deb Lavory (a DC founder) has some great thoughts on her blog (this section is about the Weekend in general):

Startup weekend is as interesting as an anthropological study as it is anything else, however. Watch how teams and leaders emerge. Watch how conflict is resolved in an environment where it is very low risk for everyone, mostly a-political, and where everyone has at least one shared goal, and minimal hidden agendas. A very collegial environment, where all we have to gain is some fun and a little local reputation, and all we have to lose is some time.

Will Kern, Matthew Vanden Boogart, Brian Williams, and Andy Rankin were amazing organizers, and Viget Labs (Andy and Brian’s company) was a top notch host.
I am going to need a day to revolver from this one.

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