SWLansing Schedule and Logistics
Startup Weekend Lansing is Tomorrow!
Here is the tentative schedule:
Friday
- 6:00pm SWLansing Begins at the Hatch
- 6:30pm Pizza, courtesy of msuEnet
- 7:15pm Pitches
- 7:45pm Group Formation
- 8:00pm Start working, or Beer at TBD
Saturday
- 7:30am Doors Open again at SWLansing
- 9:30am Coffee and Bagels
- 12:00pm Lunch
- 1:00pm Mentors arrive
- 5:00pm Dinner
Sunday
- 7:30am Doors Open
- 9:30am Coffee and Bagels
- 12:00am Lunch
- 4:00pm Start migrating to the Henry Center
- 5:00pm Pitches start at the Henry Center
- 8:00pm Conclusion of SWLansing
Participants will have 24/7 access to the Hatch.
Here’s a PDF on how to get to the event:
Directions to the Hatch/TIC
If you have any questions regarding the event, feel free to contact me:
(616) four six zero 2053
nwestr@gmail.com
-Nate
Announcing Startup Weekend Lansing 3.0
Last fall, the greater Lansing community was brought together for Startup Weekend Lansing 1.0. Excitement lead to a spiral of events and amazing conquests for entrepreneurs of Lansing and East Lansing. The area has been buzzing with entrepreneurial activity – including some of the best hacking and hustling Lansing has seen in some time.
Startups are now being built overnight – It’s amazing to see the progress that Michigan has made in the past year and a half. I’m proud to announce that at Startup Weekend Lansing 3.0, we will be continuing this trend. Who will build the next Thoughtback, or the next SoapBox? (which by the way, just won the Lean Startup Challenge in Chicago, resulting in $75k in cash and prizes – Amazing!)
Let’s hack. Let’s hustle. And let’s start changing the world!
February 24th – 26th, 2012
lansing.startupweekend.org/tickets/
Nate West – SWLansing Organizer
Lean Startup Weekend – Nathan Bashaw
How to put lean startup ideas into practice during Startup Weekend.
Here are a couple of tricks I’ve discovered in my adventures trying to figure out how this whole startup thing works. Hopefully they should help you build something awesome during the weekend and gain valuable experience putting lean startup techniques into practice. So without further ado, here are my top 3 tips for making your startup weekend experience a little leaner:
1) Build, but not too much – Just asking people if they like your idea isn’t enough. They will have a hard time conceptualizing what you’re trying to sell them, and they might say “yes” just because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. After all, if your product is just a dream, how can they objectively (or constructively) criticize it? You’ll need to show them something you’ve made before they’ll understand it. It doesn’t have to be the full product. In fact, it shouldn’t be. Everything you build is worthless until proven valuable. Sinking a lot of time and effort into an unproven concept is a recipe to achieve a failure. Much better to build small things first, like a fake screenshot or landing page. Show them to people, learn from what they say, iterate, repeat. Plan on throwing away a lot of good ideas in order to get to the great ones.
2) Be a human – Have you ever noticed how the best conversations tend to wander away from the original talking point, and head towards interesting, uncharted territory? When you’re talking to potential customers, do everything you can to let these types of engaging discussions emerge. Don’t stop them when they’re leaning forward in their seat with their eyes wide, adrenaline surging, paying rapt attention to the conversation. I used to take a rigid, formal approach to customer development interviews until I realized that I never got many good ideas or feedback from those conversations. My scripted questions made people uneasy, and they weren’t willing to open up with what they *really* think. Now, I don’t think of these interviews as anything more than an opportunity to build a relationship and learn from an interesting person. I ask about their story, how they got started doing what they do, what they’ve been reading lately, where they want to be in five years. This gives me a holistic understanding that no survey will ever be able to replicate, because it takes a genuine human connection for people to feel comfortable opening up. Bonus tip – be vulnerable, and they’ll reciprocate.
3) Understand your corner – Startups are small, fragile creatures. You can only dominate the world if you start out by capturing a small corner. In order to do that, you’ve got to know it like the back of your hand. Talk, read, listen, ask, argue, and stumble your way towards figuring out what makes your niche tick. That means you have to figure out who all the players are, what they do, how they relate to each other, etc. Think of yourself as a zoologist studying an anthill. Watch the flows of resources and information, figure out the strong and weak points, who has power, who doesn’t, and who to *actually* be afraid of. Give each team member homework to do, and let them present their findings to the group. Do all this, and maybe you’ll begin to understand 1% of whats actually going on. It’s important to realize that blogs and newspapers are trying to tell stories for entertainment, not for truth value. The best info comes from discussions with real people. Don’t be afraid to email useful strangers with “random” questions for your research.
So those are my 3 ideas for how to be a little leaner during startup weekend. The most important thing to remember is that advice = limited life experience + over-generalizations. Take all this with a cup of salt 
Startup Weekend – The Book!
Just got an email from the boys at Startup Weekend Central – thought I should pass it on to the SWLansing crew. So if SW changed your life in some awesome way, you met someone amazing, or just had a great experience this is your chance to get published, and tell the world about it!
Following is copied copy from the SW HQ:
Startup Weekend is writing a book and we want to hear from you!
Did Startup Weekend change your life? Did you meet a co-founder, quit your job to join a company founded at Startup Weekend, or change career paths after attending one of our events?
Startup Weekend is writing a book about our philosophy and model and we would like to include testimonials from our alumni—you!
Submissions to the book are due by April 8th and should be between 300 and 500 words. All submissions should answer one or more of the following questions:
- Did you meet someone at Startup Weekend who empowered you to found or join a startup, switch careers, or learn a new skill set?
- Were you inspired to become more involved in your startup community after attending a Startup Weekend event? Are you now a leader?
- How was your local startup or tech community changed following a Startup Weekend event?
- Did you secure funding or get accepted to an incubator or accelerator after meeting peers or mentors in your local startup community at one of our events?
- Have you changed the way you view yourself—are you an entrepreneur first and an employee second?
- What about the Startup Weekend model do you find most transformational? The emphasis on creation? The collaborative nature of the events? The mix of people you meet? The pitch-to-presentation in 54 hours model?
Please send your submissions to book@startupweekend.org. Be sure to include your name, the Startup Weekend event(s) you attended, your startup’s name (if applicable), and any additional information you’d like us to have.
