Startup Weekend pep talk: It ain’t the code

http://blog.asmartbear.com/startup-weekend.html

by baha_man • 15 years ago

43 4 15 years ago

blog.asmartbear.com

untog• 15 years ago

"You and I know you can code an app and produce a simple clean home page. Everyone here can."

In my experience, that is absolutely not the case. I've only attended one Startup Weekend, but as a developer I was outnumbered 3-1 by 'business' people. That is not a problem in and of itself, but this article goes a little too far for my tastes.

"The code" has to feature in there somewhere- without developers an event like Startup Weekend would become a massive echo chamber of people throwing out and presenting wonderful startup ideas that might not even be technically possible. It has to have a slight 'hackathon' element to it in order to establish what you can do, and you need to create basic prototypes to validate whether you ideas actually work in the real world.

"If all you build this weekend is a landing page that describes what your company will do and asks for an email address to be notified when ready, and if you manage to get 50 emails, that is far more of a real company than a team who builds something that works but no one asked for it."

I'm not so sure. I could create a landing page for my web site that will interface with your toaster through a public API, and allow you to remotely prepare a bagel whenever you want it. That doesn't make it a viable business because what I am describing isn't possible (well, yet...)

nolite• 15 years ago

You see alot of this at startup weekends in France.. "checkout my startup! a Wild idea, powerpoint presentation, and my launch rock page" umm.. no

5hoom• 15 years ago

Awesome, so basically if I'm already a great engineer/designer I don't have to worry about engineering or design anymore!

But hey it is true that it can be too easy to get lost in the joy of building and forget about the business.

There's just so much out there to explore and try when you're a creative type that it can really help to stop and think about the 'big picture' point of what you're doing and why on earth anyone else (customers, etc) should care ;)

btcoal• 15 years ago

The one exception to this, which may really not even be an exception, is if you are your target customer. If you really need the product you're building that is a good starting point. I think for turning a website/app into a business the most important first customer is you.

Startup Weekend pep talk: It ain’t the code

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