Startup Weekend in Yekaterinburg, October 15. Personal opinion of the participant

We have a startup project "Newsochkin." This is an information service, in the basic version allowing residents of multi-storey buildings in a timely manner, i.e. almost in real time, receive SMS information about accidents, blackouts, electricity, and other important news.

Typically, start-up events are held in Moscow. But having learned that the next Startup Weekend will take place in Yekaterinburg (October 15-16, 2011), they decided to come from Chelyabinsk with their project in search of investments, advice, etc.

In the description of the event we were interested in phrase-zavlekalochki

1. "... Runet's guru, top managers of large companies ... will think with you, share experience and make your project better ..."
2. "... Arkady Moreynis, the main Russian start-up investor ..."
3. "... will give the teams the best projects up to $ 100,000 per project ..."

As a result

They came, they saw, they won, the main thing - they took part :-) The article was written to record the experience gained and share impressions, because for the first time they attended an event of a similar format.
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So, personal opinion

1. Startup Weekend is a single investor show.
2. The best projects are those that Moirais himself liked. However, he does not hide such evaluation criteria. I suppose that even before the event, Arkady already knew by 90% what projects he would select for further communication and possible investments.
3. Experts evaluate projects based on their own life experience (“I don’t need it, it means no one needs it” or “I would use it, it means an interesting idea”) and professional knowledge. To evaluate from a business point of view, you need to go to businessmen.
4. Experts' opinions on the monetization of ideas are divided 50/50. Some people think that you need to immediately think about profits, others say that you first need to do something interesting, good and useful, and then think about money.
5. Due to the constant rotation of participants before the experts, with repeated dialogue with them a lot of time is spent on restoring the context from the time of the previous communication, even if several minutes have passed.

Wishes to the organizers that will increase the efficiency of the presence

1. On the badges of experts, in addition to the name and surname, also indicate their area of ​​expertise.
2. Team members to issue badges indicating the name, surname and name of the project.
3. Lists of experts and authors print with photos so that you can easily find the right person.

Organizational issues

1. I liked the strict adherence to the stated schedule. If it is written that at 16-00 the second “pipe” begins, then at 16-00 it begins.
2. During the coffee break, the little cooler didn’t have time to heat the water.

If they knew where to lay the straw, then ...

1. Next to the places where communication constantly occurred, would place their business cards.
2. We would prepare presentation printed materials for our project and arrange them in a prominent place.

The usefulness of participating in Startup Weekend

1. The ability to show yourself and look at others: self-promotion and dating over time can give an easier start to other ideas.
2. Communication with the authors of interesting ideas from the point of view of possible cooperation.
3. Almost continuous interaction with a large number of people and the “pipe” is an excellent training for increasing stress resistance during intensive communication.
4. There are several new ideas for the further development and promotion of our project.

And yes, we (the author of the project and the “Creator” development center) are looking for investments for our project, because the task of “Newsochkina” is to send announcements from housing and communal services by SMS to the residents on time - although simple at first glance, it requires a serious approach!

Still, of course, I want feedback to know if we are doing the right thing, so I want to ask the hack readers to answer the questions on the housing and utilities questionnaire . Thank you in advance!

PS We want to change the world for the better, starting with utilities as the most boring.