Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours
Read Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours Online
Authors: Marc Nager,Clint Nelsen,Franck Nouyrigat
Contents
Foreword: Carl Schramm and Steve Blank
Introduction: Why Starting Up Is All about Trust and Empowerment
Marc Nager and Clint Nelsen
How Trust Led Us to the Greatest Adventure of Our Lives
Franck Nouyrigat
How We Empower People to Get the Most Out of Startup Weekend
Why You Have to Have Trust to Be a Successful Entrepreneur
Chapter 1: No Talk, All Action: Action-Based Networking
You
Must
Join a Team
Breaking Down Barriers
Taking Advantage of High-Energy, Low-Risk Settings
Get Out of Your Bubble
If Not an Actual Startup, at Least Always Build Relationships
Diversity of Backgrounds Is Key
How Do You Keep the Momentum Going?
Chapter 2: Good Ideas Need Great Teams: Pitch for Talent Not for Funding
The Magic of 60 Seconds
Deliver a Solution with One Sentence
Build a Team
What You Need—Talent and Energy
Chapter 3: Experiential Education: Step Outside Your Comfort Zone While Working Together as a Team
The Importance of Context, Deadlines, and Instant Feedback
Braindump
So You Have a Viable Idea—Now What?
Learning by Doing
Risk Mitigation
Allocating Tasks
Recognizing Failure
The Three Main Criteria
Chapter 4: The Startup Business Model: Adapt, Stay Lean, and Reiterate
The Customer Development Revolution
Getting Lean, Staying Agile, Preparing to Pivot
Communication Is Key
Stick with the Basics
The Missing Pieces of the Entrepreneur's Curriculum
Chapter 5: Mapping the Startup Ecosystem and Subversive Reconstruction
The Entrepreneurship Leap
The Cofounder Leap
The Startup Leap
The Funded Leap
The Scaling Leap
External Growth Leap
Leaping More Often
The Future of Startup Weekend
The Startup Foundation
Viva la Revolution
The Entrepreneur Culture
Your Next Iteration
Copyright©2012 by Startup Weekend. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Nager, Marc, 1985-
Startup Weekend: how to take a company from concept to creation in 54 hours / Marc Nager, Clint Nelsen & Franck Nouyrigat.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-118-10509-2 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-1-118-15963-7 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-118-16023-7 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-118-16024-4 (ebk)
1. New business enterprises. I. Nelsen, Clint. II. Nouyrigat, Franck. III. Title.
HD62.5. N335
658.1 '1-dc23
2011024064
This book is dedicated to entrepreneurs.
Because of you, the world is a better place.
Foreword
Carl Schramm and Steve Blank
The Art and Science of Startups in Revolutionary Times
In the future, we will look back at this decade (2010 to 2020) as the beginning of an economic revolution as significant and world-changing as the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth century and the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century. We are currently standing at the beginning of the
entrepreneurial
revolution. This doesn't mean just more technology-based products (though we'll certainly get our share of those). Rather, this is a revolution that will permanently reshape business as we know it, and more importantly, change the quality of life across the entire planet for all who come after us. And organizations like Startup Weekend are at the very forefront of this groundbreaking development.
The Barriers to Entrepreneurship
Over the past 40 years, startups continued to innovate as each new wave of technology took hold. However, the
rate of innovation
was constrained by limitations we are just beginning to understand. Only in the past few years have we come to appreciate the fact that startups in the past were constrained by factors like:
1.
Long technology development cycles (how long it takes to get from idea to product).
2.
The high cost of getting to first customers (the cost to build the product).
3.
The structure of the venture capital industry (that there were a limited number of venture capital firms, each of which needed to invest millions per startup).
4.
The expertise about how to build startups (which was clustered in specific regions like Silicon Valley, Boston, and New York).
