A presentation I gave at bizcamp on startup weekend dublin.

1. www.slideshare.net/seanrmurphy @seanrmurphy Startup Weekend Dublin Lessons Learned

2. Overview What is Startup Weekend? So what? Getting Startup Weekend to your city Dublin Startup Weekend People Preparation The event itself Outputs Current status of projects Final thoughts

3. What is Startup Weekend? Weekend focused on building stuff… …which could form genesis of a startup Typically web or mobile applications Relatively easy to pull together in short space of time Mix of skillsets present Business people, graphics people, software developers Outputs should be working app with story around how it could form a startup

4. History of Startup Weekend Founded by Andrew Hyde in 2007 Andrew works with Techstars More recently owned by Clint Nelsen & Marc Nager Seattle based not for profit Has been held in many cities throughout the world 52 cities, 12 countries Aggressive development in 2010

5. So what? Wanted to host event in Dublin Political line… Silicon Valley of Europe Blah, blah, blah Realistically… Rapid web development tools make amazing things possible in short time Dublin has quite strong community of developers Thought it would be a fun experiment

6. Getting Startup Weekend to your city Startup Weekend crew facilitate Bring a wealth of experience Need to establish interest Voting mechanism on startupweekend.org Startup Weekend will engage once sufficient interest established Need venue, local sponsors, speakers, etc

7. Dublin Startup Weekend Nov 2009 Set up poll on Startup Weekend’s website Dec 2009 Had enough interest to run event – 232 votes Approached NDRC to see if they were interested in being involved Jan 2010 Decided to run the event with NDRC

8. Organizing team

9. Preparation work Venue Sponsorship Speakers Publicity Attract participants Logistics Network access Catering

10. Format of the event Fri evening 7pm: welcome, intro talks 8pm: participants pitch ideas 9pm: networking/discussion 10pm: team formation Ideas selected Filters out unpopular ideas Sat Development of functionality and business case

11. Format of the event Sun 9am-7pm: Further development of concept 7pm: pitches start 8pm: pitches end 9pm: winners announced

12. Participants Just over 50 participants Mix of developers, business folk, graphics folk Good contingent of developers Abt 2/3 either developers or student developers Graphics folk a little shy Excellent bunch of people Keen to roll up their sleeves and do something

13. Team formation 17 ideas presented Varying quality Presenter had to pitch idea in 2 mins Participants discussed ideas with promoters Attached name to idea Teams (somehow!) formed Many good ideas not progressed Not enough folk to tackle them all

14. The teams

15. The dynamic Excellent work ethos People paid to work! Excellent atmosphere Everyone in good form Teams had ‘soft’ leaders No tension in teams Some knowledge sharing between teams Not so much

16. The dynamic (in pictures)

17. Evaluation All teams had 10 mins to present their work Describe working functionality Give some thoughts on business perspective Evaluation criteria a little vague Best output over the weekend Best commercial potential Three judges Glen Poor, Noel Ruane, Mark Kearns

18. The Results Winner: GeoDealio Mentions: Classometer Bragbet Also noteworthy Hit the Road CauseHere

19. GeoDealio Two components to system Web and mobile component Mobile component used by people to find nearby deals Iphone app, location based Web component for merchants to create account Control publication of offers Business based on charging merchants to publish offers

20. GeoDealio

21. GeoDealio

22. Hit the Road Developed simple UI to determine routing on Dublin public transport Bus, Dart, Luas Enter origin, destination Site will advise route Dart from A to B, walk, Bus 46A from C to D Working on timetable stuff

23. Hit the Road Demo http://hunter.ucd.ie/commutable

24. Classometer Web based tool to ease management of classes Yoga, dance, karate, language, etc Track schedule, attendees, payments SMS members of class via website

25. Classometer Demo www.classometer.com

26. Moving forward? GeoDealio have progressed further Further developed technology Working up to launch Looking to talk to people Classometer Live website Looking for friendly users Part time activity Hit the Road Launched website Adding more bus routes Adding timetable information

27. Moving forward – ownership Team needs to work this out No substantive discussion over weekend Focus is on doing something Dependent on who has time/energy/interest in moving forward Clearly a key issue

28. Value of this event Networking Brings people together to work on something Not just to talk Ideas touted are interesting Teams and outputs Outputs definitely impressive Unclear if they will go anywhere Good way of finding people for incubators

29. Can do better… Not enough graphics folks Not enough work on pushing bizfolk and techies together Tighter evaluation criteria Encourage prep work People give 3 slides on idea and how to make it

30. Future developments Keep watching teams that produced working code Planning on running another event Probably Sept timeframe

31. A word from our sponsors…

32. Links http://www.web2ireland.org/2010/05/12/first-dublin-startup-weekend-a-great-success/ http://flinter.com/2010/05/11/at-dublin-startup-weekend/ http://eoinbailey.com/blog/dublin-startup-weekend-analysis-and-our-prototype-hit-road http://www.techme2.eu/now/2010/05/startup-weekend-dublin-and-paris/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/benarent/sets/72157624017775318/ http://www.jimscollins.com/startup-weekend-dublin-2010/

33. Links GeoDealio www.geodealio.com Classometer www.classometer.com Hit the Road http://hunter.ucd.ie/commutable/ CauseHere www.causehere.org

34. That’s all folks! Questions? www.slideshare.net/seanrmurphy @seanrmuphy