Sometimes, the hardest part about starting something is, well, actually starting. That’s why I’ve always loved the Startup Weekend format of getting something off the ground. Right out of the box, you get a team, mentorship, collaboration, and a swift kick to actually start doing that thing you want to be doing. And the PSU Kickstart Weekend is a shorter version of that same sort of programming and support.
This is one of the last weekends before the holiday craziness begins. Good craziness. But craziness nonetheless. So why not take these last few waning moments to spend time with the Portland startup community? We’ll all be better for it. And there are a couple of great options to do so, this weekend.
They’re all in various states of startupedness, currently. But, rest assured, I’ll be dedicating posts to each of these projects as they gain their footing.
For now, let’s focus on Portland Startup Weekend, itself, with a good ol’ fashioned Silicon Florist round up:
At Portland Startup Weekend
“Most participants do it as a challenge to push themselves and see how much they can get done in a weekend. Some take it as a complete business. This reflects on their working style. Those who want to push fast (i.e. Mugasha) focuses on rolling out a working prototype as soon as possible. Those who want to build a business (i.e. TreasuReCycle) starts with an implementation/project plan. No approach is right or wrong, but they have to achieve something by Sunday at 6.”
The Evolution of Startup Weekend
“The day Startup Weekend Portland was announced I was very excited and have been looking forward to it ever since. I have been following Startup Weekend in other cities and the way it has been evolving from city to city for a while.”
Portland Startup Weekend, Day 1
“In the end we settled on five projects, and clustered around those which caught our interest. Except for one group which disbanded for lack of participants (though they had a promising idea), the skillsets seemed to distribute pretty well.”
No doubt more posts will be emerging as the participants recover from the weekend. And I’ll work to capture them here.
If you’ve posted something that I’ve missed, please comment and I’ll make sure to link it up.
Heads up! There has been a last second location change for Portland Startup Weekend. The event will now be held at the Vidoop offices in Old Town. The event begins tonight, May 23, at 6:00 PM.
On a side note, I’m not sure if a Twitterhashtag has been proposed (or if Twitter will even be functional), but I thought I would propose one for those folks watching from the sidelines. How about #pdxsw?
[Editor’s note: As much as I’d love to be in attendance, I’ve been sidelined by illness. That said, I will definitely try to swing by during the weekend. Best of luck to the participants.]
Roughly six months ago, the Portland startup community put its collective effort into casting votes for “Portland Startup Weekend,” a local version of the successful Startup Weekend events designed to test our collective entrepreneurial mettle by challenging participants to form a company in a 54-hour period.
In the following months, the Startup Weekend team expanded to support its rapidly growing popularity. Founder Andrew Hyde stepped aside to hand off the planning for Startup Weekend—including Portland Startup Weekend—to the someone who could focus on the events full-time.
Everything seemed to be moving in the right direction.
Sorry for the lack of communication, the person that was in charge of putting together this weekend quit last weekend without notice, and the lack of communication was worse than I realized. If you have any questions, please email me at andrew@startupweekend.com and I will get right back to you. I am very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused everyone.
It’s unfortunate that any Startup Weekend encountered these difficulties, let alone our Startup Weekend.
But, Andrew and his team are working overtime to recover the fumble.
This is disappointing to the planning process, but not breaking the spirit of the event (This being Startup Weekend and all). This is an incredibly talented group, and I can’t wait to see what the group can accomplish in just 54 hours….
The real goal of Startup Weekend is community, and I can’t wait for SWPDX to show what it has. Plan on meeting some brilliant folks, working with those you have only known through twitter, and showing what you can do. Don’t expect to create the next Google, unless you are on my team, which, then it would be totally cool.
What now?
But now, comes the real question: How will this stumble affect attendance?
If you were planning to go, are you still going? Have you opted out? Never thought about participating?
I’ve heard some rumblings about attendance on Twitter—both positive and negative—but that’s far from conclusive. So I thought I would take the opportunity to launch a quick poll. Just to gauge the interest—and possible attendance—this weekend.
[polldaddy|626477]
Please take a second to respond, either via the poll or the comments.
I’d really appreciate hearing from you on this topic.
