Comments on: Having the Right Team – A Lesson From Startup Weekend DC

By: Startup Weekend DC: Re-cap and run-down. :: Leslie Bradshaw

Startup Weekend DC: Re-cap and run-down. :: Leslie Bradshaw — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 23:47:57 +0000

[...] Justin Thorp, who I have seen at a number of events these days , had a very interesting and respectful perspective after bowing out on Friday night. He noted that it was about “Having the right team – a lesson from Startup Weekend.” [...]

By: Will

Will — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:54:22 +0000

Justin,
You are right, Friday night was chaotic and you did what was right for you. However, come Saturday morning and the rest of the weekend their was clear leadership from each and every team, as well as over all leadership.
Keep in mind that there is a little dance to be done in the beginning when you bring 80 people together that do not know each other. Everyone, for the most part, does not want to step on each other’s toes, and it takes awhile for things to gel so the leaders can rise to the top.
That is what happened, unfortunately for you it happened too late and you did not get to see it.
Nonetheless, I am glad that you came out and hopefully we can work together in the future.

Will

By: Paula

Paula — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:01:37 +0000

I really can appreciate people who can make a quick judgment and say “this isn’t for me, and my time is too valuable to waste.” It’s a trait I could use more of, because I have a tendency to stick things out until the bitter end — and then some.

That said, as it relates to StartupWeekend, I’m so glad I’m the latter. We ended up with three ideas that no one was really thrilled with, and had significant concerns about. Then the one selected was one that a majority preferred (although the vote was very close), but that UX thought sucked. Hard. As in: we ranked it a five, with the others we completely rejected. The idea seemed to have been picked just because a potential competitor didn’t want us to do it, not because it was so great on its own.

But as Andrew explained, UX is the key to taking an idea to implementation. Most of the UX heavy lifting is at the beginning. After that, the developers will tell you what can’t be done, and marketers will tell you what can’t be sold, and bus dev will tell you what can’t be financed — it’s a process of elimination from there.

The problem was that everyone in every team wanted to be UX at the beginning, and this is an event that by its very nature attracts alpha males (and alpha females). People worked way too hard to push through their substitute ideas, and alienated a lot of other people in the process. The people who ultimately were UX had a hard time not fighting the idea at first, because we thought it sucked. The UXers again voted to scrap the idea at midnight on Friday, but we lost.

But when we arrived the next day, we had an idea that was significantly better than anything that existed when we left. I’m still not sure who was the team who figured it out, but they had something that all of us could work with. And work with it we did.

I came back to give it until noon on Saturday. I ended up staying until Sunday midnight. The alphas all found good homes, and the teams all resolved themselves. Will, Matthew, and the Boulder crew all kept us talking to each other. And ultimately it was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. I’m glad I stuck it out. You’re glad you didn’t. And we’re probably both right.

By: Jared Goralnick

Jared Goralnick — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:53:23 +0000

I agree that the first night was a bit painful because we had some trouble focusing and figuring out how to divide who was responsible for what…

But that changed. Yesterday and today have been invigorating and surprisingly productive. I wouldn’t have guessed that from Friday night, but now I can say I’m proud to have played a role.

That said, all your perspective on this is spot on…but I guess the contrary point is that when enough good people want to make something happen, eventually they’re able to move on and accomplish.

By: Day 2 Wrapup

Day 2 Wrapup — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:14:44 +0000

[...] was afraid that the debates of Friday night would scare people away, and in some cases it seems to have. By 10am, we were back up to about 40 people and through out the morning more and more people [...]

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:15:41 +0000

Day two was better. I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a little chaos by design though. At the end of the weekend there will be re-usable code and other elements that have some value…

By: john f croston iii

john f croston iii — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 04:11:52 +0000

There was not a lot of talking between those that Justin mentioned. I have been there for both days along with Martin and Jared.

It was a bit of a difficult time for me being a developer and they had chosen Ruby on Rails and I did not know the language. There was no time to teach me or help me set up the environment on my PC. Since most of these guys were Mac people that did PC stuff a long time ago not much help. The other issue was some of the installs they wanted me to load were having issues. I learned a bunch about big projects ad big teams (not such a good idea).

I’m going to be going back Sunday to see it go live. I will do some of the testing and trying to get it as accessible as possible. While still making it function.

By: Justin Thorp

Justin Thorp — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 00:51:49 +0000

Hey Nick! There were teams… like there were UX, development, buiz dev, and creative teams. There didn’t seem to be roles within those teams.

By: n!ck

n!ck — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 00:23:58 +0000

I wasn’t able to attend this weekend’s festivity so I am happy to see some insight on the event.

A team full of people with similar skills sounds like a great opportunity to run continuously in circles. Establishing a leader is valuable – even more important is simply identifying roles for everyone.