Startup Weekend

I want to start off by expressing my gratitude for the opportunity to attend Startup Weekend. It was quite the experience and I'm very happy that I was able to participate.

I tried to limit any expectations I had beforehand, I began the Weekend not with the hope of winning, but with the hope of gaining as much as I could (be it knowledge or networking connections). Regardless of whatever predetermined notions I had, no part of me expected that I would have to do as much work as I did.

Groups were formed on Friday, after several ideas were presented. I joined a team consisting of Paul Shahid, Katie Vaughan, Ryan Sprowles, Ron Raithatha, Luke Burrows and Brianna Mawra. A quick rundown on the foundation of our idea: creating groups can often be a hassle. Members are often reluctant to provide a clear yes or no answer regarding their availability or attendance to an event and there is a lot of room for dissent amongst the invitees (conversations can splinter off and many times people can change their mind on the event details based on these conversations.) The idea, as presented by Paul Shahid and Ron Raithatha, was to create a mobile application (termed Groupr) that would facilitate the organization and creation of groups and group events.

To start with, we had no idea of what was expected. All we knew was that we needed a minimum viable product. Disappointingly there seemed to be more of an emphasis on business and design rather than software. Our team consisted of entirely developers and students, so it was difficult to achieve exactly what would've been needed in order to win. This was further reflected during the judging period, where the majority of the questions asked (for all groups) were regarding marketing, business models and profit strategies.

We tried to divide our team into areas where they would contribute the most, but it was still difficult. Personally, I worked on coding the actual application. We used the Ionic framework to create the app. I focused mainly on creating an appealing (and functioning) UI that would have a good display factor as well as providing a proper user experience. Upon arriving on Saturday I started coding at around 9:30am and didn't stop until 10pm. The ionic framework utilizes AngularJS which I was completely unfamiliar with. During Startup Weekend I learned while working and came away with a confident (but still beginning) understanding of how it works.

I am happiest that I could learn. Admittedly the business aspects did not interest me as much, but I did learn a bit about that from listening and talking with the coaches.

As a side note, I was disappointed in the amount of people who complained about going to Startup Weekend. However, it was not designed for students and I feel that having a blanket requirement to attend was not the best course of action. It was a great opportunity and I was appreciative of it, but I think it would be better to (if there were future Startup Weekends in Charleston) offer the chance to go for those who really wish to attend (and will, as a result, get the most out of it) rather than forcing everyone to go. It was a lot of work, and for many probably overwhelming in scope.