Organizing Team

Team Roles and Responsibilities

A Startup Weekend organizer is part of a team with a typical size of 4 to 8 members.

Team members take on various roles and work together to run a great event, bringing the greatest value to participants. 

Responsibilities are usually divided between team members. Here are our recommendations for some of the main roles that can be divided between team members and a description of each role:

Lead Organizer

While we define this role as ‘lead organizer,’ we are not encouraging any hierarchy in the team and good teams share tasks equally.

Responsibilities include:

• overall team direction and making sure the team meets regularly

• being the project lead and making sure each task is assigned to a team member

• organizational execution and keeping everything on schedule

• driving consensus on big decisions including sponsors, speakers, mentors, and judges

• having a good understanding of the organizer requirements and event management tools

Finance Lead

The event finance lead manages the budget from start to finish.

 Responsibilities include:

• tracking revenue coming in from ticket sales

• tracking revenue coming in from sponsorships 

• ensuring the team has enough funds to operate

• keeping track of all receipts

Sponsorship Lead

This role is responsible for securing sponsorships and managing sponsor relationships. 

Responsibilities include:

• working with the team to create a sponsorship shortlist

• managing sponsorship outreach

• following up with sponsors about payment terms and the process for releasing funds

• documenting the sponsorship agreement 

• getting all sponsor logos

• post-event sponsor reporting 

Mentors and Judges Lead

The mentors and judges lead will be responsible for: 

• recruiting a diverse pool of mentors and judges, and managing the relationship with these stakeholders

• ensuring that each confirmed mentor and judge is added to the website and mentioned on social media

• informing mentors and judges about the event schedule, their roles and responsibilities, and when they are expected to join the event

• briefing mentors and judges on Techstars Startup Weekend best practices and their role at the event

Logistics Lead

This role is all about people and vendor coordination.

Responsibilities include:

• procuring a suitable venue

• being the main point of contact for the venue

• confirming all venue information, including emergency procedures, building access times, security support, and accessibility

• securing and coordinating healthy, delicious local catering and snacks for the whole event

• coordinating those supporting during the weekend — volunteers, mentors, judges, and speakers

Marketing and Promotion Lead

This person keeps track of ticket sales and leads the outreach effort to a diverse participant pool. 

Responsibilities include:

• owning and maintaining the event website and ticketing page, and making sure all information is uploaded and up to date

• creating and executing a promotional strategy for community outreach for ticket sales 

• responding to participant questions via the ticketing site and on social channels

Technical Lead

The person in this role should ideally have some technical knowledge and be connected to the local tech community to do outreach to potential technical participants. 

Responsibilities include:

• providing technical troubleshooting support for the team throughout the planning process — for example, with any ticketing page issues

• setup support of the audio/visual equipment at the event venue

• testing the Wi-Fi at the venue and sharing that with all event support

• supporting on-stage presentations

• making sure all microphones at the venue are working

• bringing extra power cables, adaptors and power strips to the venue

• playlist support

Some roles may overlap, and other roles may need more than one person for support. Please reach out to us for support and guidance in developing an effective, diverse, and inclusive team. 

Essentially most of the work involved in planning the event is the same, the main difference being related to event logistics. Since the event will run online, the venue and catering related tasks will be replaced by the responsibility of managing online tools and platforms, and creating a great experience for virtual networking and collaboration. Read here for more information.