Startup Weekend Report in Haifa
In this article I would like to share with you my impressions of the Startup Weekend in Haifa a few days ago. If someone does not know, this is a large city in the north of Israel - the third largest - which has offices of such giants as Intel, IBM, MS, Google, Motorola, Yahoo! etc., as well as not obscure Technion. In general, all the prerequisites for the most interesting event are obvious!
Let's go to the details:
Time : November 16 - 18 (attentive Habr-user will note that this is not exactly Weekend, more precisely - not at all. What can I say - Cultural References: war is war, but Shabbat is on schedule)
Language : English (although sometimes the people, because of faint-heartedness or laziness, “rolled down” into Hebrew)
Cost : about 1500 r.
Number of participants : 130
Ideas submitted : about 45
Jury selected and presented : 11
Winners : 4
Jury : 5 people
The main prize : a couple of "candy" from the IT giants
')
Under the cut photo-traffic and a detailed description of the event: what and how was organized, how ideas were selected, teamwork and which projects became the winners.
If someone is interested just to get acquainted with ideas and winners, you can scroll down to the "Projects" label. I will tell in order.
The first day.
Startup Weekend started on Wednesday, at 16-00. This was somewhat alarming, since there was a high probability that the "hard workers" would not be able to take time off from work. But apparently, this problem has not shown itself acutely. Of the eight people on my team, four were hired employees (two from Intel and two from offices are fewer), and four were CEOs, Co-Founders, and startups.
It was a nasty St. Petersburg rain that didn’t help the innovative thinking and expansion of horizons! But the room was quite comfortable and the weather was only remembered when leaving the building late at night. Kst, the room itself was provided, as I understood, by the city - a certain Young Adult Center. In general, some youth center, of which a million in Israel. Inside throughout the event, 4 wifi points worked, each of which gave 10-15 Mbit. In fact, over 100 people turned out to be not very much.
After an hour of general water speeches, participants were asked to voice their ideas in the presence of the entire audience for further voting. But before that, the “domestic” mentality made itself felt: one of the repatriates, who was sitting to my left and showing all his know-how in the form of 3D-postcards with the words “Holy Land” in Russian, asked where guarantees that his idea is not squeezed by the sly! Judging by his postcards - it would be better if she was really communicated)
In general, for about another hour or one and a half people came out one by one and within a minute or two told the main idea of ​​their startup. Eddie - the main organizer of the event - quickly wrote down the idea in two words on a large drawing paper. After that, the paperman were hung all over the floor, and the participants were given three self-adhesive sheets of Post-It, which had to be pasted on the paper that they liked. For about an hour the people talked, clarified each other’s ideas, someone merged ideas into one, voted, just fooled or eaten. Kst, like a trifle, but damn nice. All three days we were carefully fed - breakfasts, lunches and afternoon snacks) there were no full-fledged dinners, but since everyone constantly kusochnich in the evening didn’t want anything but sleep)) One meal, it seems to me, was three times more than the cost of the ticket assumed. In general, a separate respect to the organizers!
After identifying 11 projects with the most votes, the funniest part began: the winners (they are the authors of the ideas) went "to the people" to look for performers. The people, in turn, moved to a meeting, selling "themselves." It turned out a certain labor market and employers. Quite predictably, ios-developers turned out to be in short supply (it seems to me that only the lazy are not looking for them in Israel) and designers. Kst, when registering for a project (buying a ticket), you had to choose a techie or a non-techie (ie, a marketer, product manager or just a business). Moreover, the number of tickets for those and others was the same - 75 pieces. Thus, all teams were plus minus balanced!
Unfortunately, I could not “sell myself” as a product manager — the authors of the ideas themselves preferred to do this — and in the end I turned out to be an interface developer. Fortunately, there is experience. And in fact, it was not so important that in order to look at all this disgrace from the inside, to take part, to breathe in the air of innovation, one could even wear a secretary of coffee. All the same, all issues were discussed within the team, and the concepts were revised and settled several times. Kst, I think this is very important - most of the projects have undergone major changes after the start of their discussion in the team. Those. The authors were open to dialogue and search for more effective solutions!
Forgot to mention some more buns:
Microsoft provided samsung smartphones with a “self-aware” OS for everyone. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to touch them, but some teams even decided to write applications just for WM. In addition, MS provided remote consultants! Amazon distributed coupons for $ 500 to raise services on their cloud system. Again - our team was not useful. Qualcomm, it seems, gave its SDK to create applications using augmented reality, but this also turned out to be unclaimed.
In general, by the end of the first day we outlined the concept of the application and made a plan of battles for the next two days.
Second day.
At night, at home, I downloaded a couple of applications similar to what we were going to develop, and threw an approximate interface. In the morning, the concept of the application was once again clarified, approved the interface, the application logic and sat down to work. Using the best practices of my main startup, I put the necessary graphics and interface design on the guys for the day.
In addition, mentors, successful prospectors, E & Y consultants, the mayor of Haifa visited us during the day. Among others, Arkady Moreynis was seen. They sat down in teams, got to know each other, listened to the concept of the project and straightened it whenever possible. We talked with the investment manager Qualcomm Ventures. But the general advice - “think better about marketing” - cannot be considered as very useful.
The evening ended with a beer and a concert at a nearby bar, and, accordingly, additional networking.
Third day.
Many finished their projects, but I was stupidly fooling around - I went and looked what others were doing and how. It was interesting to follow thedegradation of the evolution of ideas: for example, from indoor navigation to an advanced shopping list. At 11-00, we began to be pulled out for trial presentations in order to practice and get useful advice from the organizers. At 13-00 the bride began. 5 minutes to the presentation, plus 5 minutes to questions. All strictly - a man with a stopwatch, warning for 1 minute about the end of time. About three announced the results, which personally became partially unexpected for me (in any case, it is difficult to trace the logic of the jury). Kst, the composition of the jury: three men, two women. Everything is somehow connected with the efforts and innovations - Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Granot Ventures, Afterdox Angels Investment Group and APM & Co.
Projects (+ links to presentations):
1. Locification - SDK for the developer of mobile applications. The basic idea is that when two devices come closer and when they are at close range, the user receives some kind of notification. 1st Place!
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/8/AKueBvCNTa8
2. collecTVise - the most controversial project in every sense, IMHO. If you couldn’t get to the concert for one reason or another, but you really want to see it, then those who went there can organize an online broadcast via a smartphone.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/1/dTRXeyMuDv8
3. Vicoboo - our project - step-by-step cookbook for smartphones and tablets. Features: iconography; stepwise; built-in timer; monetization model.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/6/c_q5_lK91lk
4.Commentivity - visualization of comments in forums and blogs. 3rd place!
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/5/wD5JDleXLJI
5.Where is it? - the very project that has turned from the navigation index into an advanced shopping list. The idea is as follows: you create a list, you go to the store, and the application already knows where the products you need lie in (the layouts of the store’s products have been created in advance). You note that you just took milk and it tells you where to go next. Cheap and angry.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/0/TuxvdWRYBwI
6.Pick It Up - IMHO the most interesting project. The idea is to bind sharing files not to a web address, but to a physical address via a map.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/0/0dfLDs39Lbg
7.Video Chef - video communication with the chef. IMHO, boring and nothing original.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/0/uaWF_bO0E-M
8.Wfuly - quite an original service. The idea is to take a picture of the bar code on a smartphone after purchase. A month before the expiration of the guarantee, the application will remind you of its expiration. 2nd place!
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/7/pFdtYzYYu40
9.FollowApp is also an original idea to remind the user via FB / SMS that it would be nice to write to a friend,girl , grandmother, they say you are fine and ask how they are doing.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/2/EU-Y43996eg
10. Seemple - simplified distribution of presentations in the audience to mobile devices. IMHO, a good idea. 3rd place!
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/4/9exYA3Gg1Xw
11.Batterz is a book exchange service. Boring something and not very original.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/9/luhlMZ3Djp0
Winners (behind the jury):
Conclusions :
1. Despite the fact that Israel is a “start-up nation,” the percentage of spherical horses in a vacuum was still large. Anyway, more than I expected. But really cool ideas were 2-3 projects.
2. To not choose you, and you choose, it is better to startup weekends to come with your ideas! But even if your project does not make it to the final ten, or to the winners - this is a great way to check it, hear other opinions, get a feedback!
3. It is not realistic to develop something less technically decent in 2 days (application, web service, etc.)! Yes, and do not need, as practice has shown! You need to prepare the right presentation, hone the concept of the project (what problem do you decide who your users are, what are you better than competitors, monetization model, marketing strategy). By and large, neither the jury nor the potential investors present at the event expect you to develop a full-fledged working project in 54 hours. That would be stupid to expect. All they want is to hear a clear explanation of why your project will be successful, and you are the team that can implement it!
4.Startup Weekend is a great way to get to know people closer. At the usual gatherings (lasting several hours), you still do not have time to commit yourself, to get to know the people more closely. There is also a common cause that unites you, the need to work in a team, etc. So, for example, I got acquainted with the scrapers who, with their entire team of three people, came to participate, and specifically went to work in different projects.
Observations :
1. In spite of the fact that I personally associate startups with young hot guys, the average age of participants was around 30-35 years old! But maybe just another feature of Israel.
2. After the results were announced, investors did not lined up for the winners. Moreover, one of the investors suggested Where Is It to develop a project that was left without a coveted laurel wreath.
PS From December 9 to December 11, a similar Startup Weekend will be held in St. Petersburg, organized by GlavStart Arkady Moreynis. Since I will be in these numbers in my native city, I decided to register (already with my own idea) and take part in order to compare the Startup climate in Israel and Russia - externally (by organization) and inside (by ideas, market vision, etc.). Be sure to write an article about my impressions.
Let's go to the details:
Time : November 16 - 18 (attentive Habr-user will note that this is not exactly Weekend, more precisely - not at all. What can I say - Cultural References: war is war, but Shabbat is on schedule)
Language : English (although sometimes the people, because of faint-heartedness or laziness, “rolled down” into Hebrew)
Cost : about 1500 r.
Number of participants : 130
Ideas submitted : about 45
Jury selected and presented : 11
Winners : 4
Jury : 5 people
The main prize : a couple of "candy" from the IT giants
')
Under the cut photo-traffic and a detailed description of the event: what and how was organized, how ideas were selected, teamwork and which projects became the winners.
If someone is interested just to get acquainted with ideas and winners, you can scroll down to the "Projects" label. I will tell in order.
The first day.
Startup Weekend started on Wednesday, at 16-00. This was somewhat alarming, since there was a high probability that the "hard workers" would not be able to take time off from work. But apparently, this problem has not shown itself acutely. Of the eight people on my team, four were hired employees (two from Intel and two from offices are fewer), and four were CEOs, Co-Founders, and startups.
It was a nasty St. Petersburg rain that didn’t help the innovative thinking and expansion of horizons! But the room was quite comfortable and the weather was only remembered when leaving the building late at night. Kst, the room itself was provided, as I understood, by the city - a certain Young Adult Center. In general, some youth center, of which a million in Israel. Inside throughout the event, 4 wifi points worked, each of which gave 10-15 Mbit. In fact, over 100 people turned out to be not very much.
After an hour of general water speeches, participants were asked to voice their ideas in the presence of the entire audience for further voting. But before that, the “domestic” mentality made itself felt: one of the repatriates, who was sitting to my left and showing all his know-how in the form of 3D-postcards with the words “Holy Land” in Russian, asked where guarantees that his idea is not squeezed by the sly! Judging by his postcards - it would be better if she was really communicated)
In general, for about another hour or one and a half people came out one by one and within a minute or two told the main idea of ​​their startup. Eddie - the main organizer of the event - quickly wrote down the idea in two words on a large drawing paper. After that, the paperman were hung all over the floor, and the participants were given three self-adhesive sheets of Post-It, which had to be pasted on the paper that they liked. For about an hour the people talked, clarified each other’s ideas, someone merged ideas into one, voted, just fooled or eaten. Kst, like a trifle, but damn nice. All three days we were carefully fed - breakfasts, lunches and afternoon snacks) there were no full-fledged dinners, but since everyone constantly kusochnich in the evening didn’t want anything but sleep)) One meal, it seems to me, was three times more than the cost of the ticket assumed. In general, a separate respect to the organizers!
After identifying 11 projects with the most votes, the funniest part began: the winners (they are the authors of the ideas) went "to the people" to look for performers. The people, in turn, moved to a meeting, selling "themselves." It turned out a certain labor market and employers. Quite predictably, ios-developers turned out to be in short supply (it seems to me that only the lazy are not looking for them in Israel) and designers. Kst, when registering for a project (buying a ticket), you had to choose a techie or a non-techie (ie, a marketer, product manager or just a business). Moreover, the number of tickets for those and others was the same - 75 pieces. Thus, all teams were plus minus balanced!
Unfortunately, I could not “sell myself” as a product manager — the authors of the ideas themselves preferred to do this — and in the end I turned out to be an interface developer. Fortunately, there is experience. And in fact, it was not so important that in order to look at all this disgrace from the inside, to take part, to breathe in the air of innovation, one could even wear a secretary of coffee. All the same, all issues were discussed within the team, and the concepts were revised and settled several times. Kst, I think this is very important - most of the projects have undergone major changes after the start of their discussion in the team. Those. The authors were open to dialogue and search for more effective solutions!
Forgot to mention some more buns:
Microsoft provided samsung smartphones with a “self-aware” OS for everyone. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to touch them, but some teams even decided to write applications just for WM. In addition, MS provided remote consultants! Amazon distributed coupons for $ 500 to raise services on their cloud system. Again - our team was not useful. Qualcomm, it seems, gave its SDK to create applications using augmented reality, but this also turned out to be unclaimed.
In general, by the end of the first day we outlined the concept of the application and made a plan of battles for the next two days.
Second day.
At night, at home, I downloaded a couple of applications similar to what we were going to develop, and threw an approximate interface. In the morning, the concept of the application was once again clarified, approved the interface, the application logic and sat down to work. Using the best practices of my main startup, I put the necessary graphics and interface design on the guys for the day.
In addition, mentors, successful prospectors, E & Y consultants, the mayor of Haifa visited us during the day. Among others, Arkady Moreynis was seen. They sat down in teams, got to know each other, listened to the concept of the project and straightened it whenever possible. We talked with the investment manager Qualcomm Ventures. But the general advice - “think better about marketing” - cannot be considered as very useful.
The evening ended with a beer and a concert at a nearby bar, and, accordingly, additional networking.
Third day.
Many finished their projects, but I was stupidly fooling around - I went and looked what others were doing and how. It was interesting to follow the
Projects (+ links to presentations):
1. Locification - SDK for the developer of mobile applications. The basic idea is that when two devices come closer and when they are at close range, the user receives some kind of notification. 1st Place!
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/8/AKueBvCNTa8
2. collecTVise - the most controversial project in every sense, IMHO. If you couldn’t get to the concert for one reason or another, but you really want to see it, then those who went there can organize an online broadcast via a smartphone.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/1/dTRXeyMuDv8
3. Vicoboo - our project - step-by-step cookbook for smartphones and tablets. Features: iconography; stepwise; built-in timer; monetization model.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/6/c_q5_lK91lk
4.Commentivity - visualization of comments in forums and blogs. 3rd place!
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/5/wD5JDleXLJI
5.Where is it? - the very project that has turned from the navigation index into an advanced shopping list. The idea is as follows: you create a list, you go to the store, and the application already knows where the products you need lie in (the layouts of the store’s products have been created in advance). You note that you just took milk and it tells you where to go next. Cheap and angry.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/0/TuxvdWRYBwI
6.Pick It Up - IMHO the most interesting project. The idea is to bind sharing files not to a web address, but to a physical address via a map.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/0/0dfLDs39Lbg
7.Video Chef - video communication with the chef. IMHO, boring and nothing original.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/0/uaWF_bO0E-M
8.Wfuly - quite an original service. The idea is to take a picture of the bar code on a smartphone after purchase. A month before the expiration of the guarantee, the application will remind you of its expiration. 2nd place!
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/7/pFdtYzYYu40
9.FollowApp is also an original idea to remind the user via FB / SMS that it would be nice to write to a friend,
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/2/EU-Y43996eg
10. Seemple - simplified distribution of presentations in the audience to mobile devices. IMHO, a good idea. 3rd place!
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/4/9exYA3Gg1Xw
11.Batterz is a book exchange service. Boring something and not very original.
www.youtube.com/user/newsgeekcoil#p/u/9/luhlMZ3Djp0
Winners (behind the jury):
Conclusions :
1. Despite the fact that Israel is a “start-up nation,” the percentage of spherical horses in a vacuum was still large. Anyway, more than I expected. But really cool ideas were 2-3 projects.
2. To not choose you, and you choose, it is better to startup weekends to come with your ideas! But even if your project does not make it to the final ten, or to the winners - this is a great way to check it, hear other opinions, get a feedback!
3. It is not realistic to develop something less technically decent in 2 days (application, web service, etc.)! Yes, and do not need, as practice has shown! You need to prepare the right presentation, hone the concept of the project (what problem do you decide who your users are, what are you better than competitors, monetization model, marketing strategy). By and large, neither the jury nor the potential investors present at the event expect you to develop a full-fledged working project in 54 hours. That would be stupid to expect. All they want is to hear a clear explanation of why your project will be successful, and you are the team that can implement it!
4.Startup Weekend is a great way to get to know people closer. At the usual gatherings (lasting several hours), you still do not have time to commit yourself, to get to know the people more closely. There is also a common cause that unites you, the need to work in a team, etc. So, for example, I got acquainted with the scrapers who, with their entire team of three people, came to participate, and specifically went to work in different projects.
Observations :
1. In spite of the fact that I personally associate startups with young hot guys, the average age of participants was around 30-35 years old! But maybe just another feature of Israel.
2. After the results were announced, investors did not lined up for the winners. Moreover, one of the investors suggested Where Is It to develop a project that was left without a coveted laurel wreath.
PS From December 9 to December 11, a similar Startup Weekend will be held in St. Petersburg, organized by GlavStart Arkady Moreynis. Since I will be in these numbers in my native city, I decided to register (already with my own idea) and take part in order to compare the Startup climate in Israel and Russia - externally (by organization) and inside (by ideas, market vision, etc.). Be sure to write an article about my impressions.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/133179/
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