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

We have a startup project “Vestochkin”. 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 via SMS information about accidents, blackouts, electricity, as well as other important news.

Usually startup events are held in Moscow. But having learned that the next Startup Weekend will be held in Yekaterinburg (October 15-16, 2011), they decided to come from Chelyabinsk with their project in search of investments, tips, etc.

In the description of the event, we were interested in phrases that attracted

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

As a result

They came, saw, won, most importantly - took part :-) The article was written to capture the experience gained and share our impressions, because for the first time we visited an event of this format.

So, personal opinion

1. Startup Weekend - a show of one investor.
2. The best projects are those that Moorenis himself liked. However, he does not hide such assessment criteria. I suppose that even before the start of the event, Arkady already knew 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 this, then 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. Expert opinions on the monetization of ideas are divided 50/50. Some people think that you need to immediately think about profit, 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 in front of experts, in 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, which will increase the efficiency of the presence

1. On the badges of experts, in addition to the name and surname, also indicate their expert area.
2. Issue badges to team members with the name, surname and name of the project.
3. Print lists of experts and authors with photos so that you can easily find the right person.

Organizational moments

1. I liked the strict adherence to the declared schedule. If it is written that at 16-00 the second “pipe” begins, it means that at 16-00 it begins.
2. During a coffee break, a small cooler catastrophically did not have time to heat the water.

If you knew where to "lay straw", then ...

1. Near the places where there was constant communication, would place their business cards.
2. We would have prepared presentation printed materials for our project and placed them in a prominent place.

Startup Weekend Benefits

1. The ability to show oneself and look at others: self-promotion and dating over time can give an easier start to other ideas.
2. Communication with the authors of ideas interesting 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 to increase stress resistance during intense communication.
4. Several new thoughts appeared on 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 Vestochkina is to deliver ads to residents from housing and communal services via SMS in time - although simple at first glance, it requires a serious approach!

Still, of course, I want feedback to know whether we are doing the right thing, so I want to ask the habiturators to answer the questions of the housing and utility sector questionnaire . Thanks in advance!

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