What can you do in 54 hours?
(Previously published in the Galway Advertiser ‘Startup City’ section)
The Local Enterprise Office in Galway is headed up by an entrepreneur, Breda Fox. One of the initiatives they run is the food academy programme. Last year, 10/10 of the companies on this made it through to the shelves at SuperValue. That’s aside from the ongoing events like the one last Monday in our Michelin starred restaurant Loam, where 30 high quality local food producers met everyone there is to meet in the food industry.
We also have the likes of Cait Noone and JP McMahon bringing 40 world famous chefs to Galway to speak over a two day symposium at Food On The Edge. All speakers are chosen for their innovation, passion and influence on today’s food culture and it shows in the impact the 2015 event had that lead to bigger plans for this year’s event.
There’s something happening with food, and with Galway, and with the great startup ecosystem we have. That’s why I’m so delighted that Bank of Ireland are powering Ireland’s first food and technology startup weekend, supported by LEO and hosted in SuperPixel Labs.
The weekend is happening from April 8th — 10th, and although we have some free tickets in the workbench, most tickets can be gotten on the website, or through Twitter or Facebook at ‘galstartweekend’. The registration of €45 covers all food and drink for the weekend, mentorship and many creative surprises.
Startup Weekend Galway is owned by local community leaders who run this in their spare time, in this case, Ashlee Chin of IMS, Erika Miklos of Ex Ordo, Keith Farrell of BiteSize, Oggie Hollywood of SCCUL Enterprises and Olivia Lavelle of LingoHost. The goal of Galway Startup Weekend is to build connections among the startup community and the food experts in the region, providing the space and time for collaboration on innovative projects.
Here’s how it works:
On Friday you come in and meet the organisers. We get you some great food and give you a shirt with a colour for designer, developer, or general. We generally do ‘Half Baked’ then, where we give everyone random words and you pitch an idea that forms from those words and the brainstorming of the group. Then it’s onto the real stuff and you pitch the idea you want to work on in 60 seconds (this part is optional). Using super techy sticky notes, votes happen on the best ideas, the best 10 pitch again and then teams are formed with different skill sets.
On Saturday we bring in some great mentors across tech, design and business. You have all the support you need to build, build, build which leads us on to Sunday. Sunday is more building and then pitching to a panel of judges, winning some great prizes and finally celebrating a great but challenging weekend!
In terms of ideas, go as big as you can. When the BOI innovation team dropped by London’s food Startup Weekend, ideas ranged from better ways to label food, to finding restaurants that suit allergies, to ‘FoodWizard’ which makes your fridge smart to help you know what’s in there and what delicious meals to make.
I’ve organised 4 startup weekend’s now and facilitated one. It’s not about coming in on Friday and running a startup on the Monday, although you will have more than likely built a product, it’s much bigger and much longer term. The first mentors I had at Startup Weekend Dublin for that short weekend in 2013 have stayed with me over the years, and I can quite confidently put the majority of good decisions I’ve made since down to them.
You absolutely will not regret attending it, and if you’re unsure, feel free to contact us and drop by for an hour or two. Last year, Ogie did that after seeing the updates on Twitter and he loved it so much he’s co organising it!
Dublin Startup Weekend – Shane Grimes Part 2
From a technical point of view there is always an urge to just build something straight away as the time frame is so short and having a functioning MVP by the pitch time is one of the judging criteria. Depending on what the idea is your MVP might be a landing page to gather signups, it might be a data gathering program, it might be an app and it might a piece of hardware. Your MVP will depend on your team and if it’s software related you’ve got some tools to help you with setting yourself up over the weekend including a free domain and some server time.
But the end product of the weekend is going to be your pitch on stage so if what you’re doing doesn’t add value to that goal then maybe rethink if you should do it. Does what you’re building contribute to validating your idea and will it enable you to start gathering data (signups, users, products etc)? If so then go forth and build, if not, maybe check your premises.
Validation of your assumptions, goals and business plan is really the focus of the first half of Saturday; what is it we’re solving and do people want it? Identify your customers and get out and talk to them is a good step and it can help you identify if your value proposition is attractive to them.
There’s ongoing talks throughout the day from some great speakers and if you can split your team to take in those talks and build those learnings into your process as well as taking on board your mentors advice you’ll be making the most of the weekend.
The second half of Saturday is then really a hell for leather run at finalising your strategy, building out your MVP and working out how to clearly tell the story of your product in the 4 short minutes you’ll have on stage.
Oh and not to forget the tasty Google food to keep you going throughout the day and the few drinks at the end of the day to carry out your post-mortem.
Sunday is more of a minor panic mode as you work towards finishing your pitch with those presenting practising and getting feedback from mentors. Before you know it you’re in the Google auditorium and watching twenty or so pitches up on stage along with doing your own and then it’s all over, winners announced and everyone on stage for a picture and celebration.
And it seemed like only a moment ago you walked in the door on a Friday evening whereas now it’s Sunday and even though everyone can’t win the judge’s prize everyone who has taken part has had some fun and learned something new along the way.
It really is a great experience and you’ll meet plenty of interesting people and listen to some cool ideas throughout the weekend. Technical people and designers are in pretty high demand when it comes to the team forming stage as everyone wants someone to build or design their mvp but if you’re a non technical person have no fear you’ll get just as much out of the weekend.
Startup Weekend is as much about idea validation and learning how to take an idea from a random thought through to validation as much as building something. A killer pitch is really an idea with a defined and reachable market, a well thought out business case, a great looking slide deck and an MVP. How you decide to define all those is up to you.
So make the most of your time by learning from your team-mates, mentors and speakers and you’ll be making the most of what a great weekend has to offer. It’s not the destination that matters it’s the journey!
Dublin Startup Weekend – Shane Grimes Part 1
We came, we learned, we built, but mostly we had fun. This was my first Startup Weekend after finally having an open weekend at the same time and I’d hoped it was going to be as good as previous feedback had suggested. Thankfully it turned out to be even better.
Before I start rambling on about my first startup weekend it goes without saying that these events don’t organise themselves and all the organisers, mentors, speakers and sponsors deserve special mentions for putting together what was a great weekend. It’s no easy task and they’re giving up their time to create a great event and they did a splendid job indeed.
For the uninitiated the premise is simple, gather a bunch of people who are interested in starting businesses, solving the world’s problems or just building stuff together. Everyone who has an idea gets up and pitches their idea to the masses, votes on the best, splits into teams to work on those ideas over the weekend and pitches the final products on the Sunday
What’s not to like? Cloistering yourself away for a weekend with a bunch of other smart people in the confines of google HQ to see what can be achieved if you work on an idea over the space of a single weekend. As it turns out, you can achieve a hell of a lot!
I arrived Friday evening a little bit late as I was coming from the airport and there was a big crowd milling about feasting on the typical startup event sustenance of pizza and beer. If it’s your first Startup Weekend I’d advise you to arrive early and talk to as many people as you can about their idea or your idea that you’ll be pitching. If you’re pitching an idea it’s good to get some awareness out there already and you’ll start getting people interested in your idea. It’s also pretty difficult to remember so many pitches so any recognition you have at this stage is good.
So after some getting to know people and a few beers it’s time for an intro and some pitches. Pitches are short and you really need to be able to communicate your idea in as short a time as possible so go for the trusty “Here’s a problem and here’s how I’m going to solve it”. If your idea is interesting and the pitch resonates with people then hopefully you’ll get enough votes. The ideas ranged from a solution to clean up oceans to a interactive voting system for nightclub music.
I pitched a marketplace for getting jobs like cleaning and delivery done for people that didn’t have the time, one that I came up with the previous week while lamenting the need for ironing and having no clue where to find someone who might take away my need to complete this arduous task! And yes if that’s the most major of my problems in life then things aren’t too bad.
After pitches everyone votes on their favourites and as with meeting people at the start it’ll do you good to get out there and canvas for peoples votes. It’s difficult enough to be memorable amongst over 50 ideas so there’s no harm in being vocal about reminding people what it is you’re doing again.
After the best get chosen it’s all about creating the teams. Alas my job marketplace idea didn’t make the cut and I joined up with Conor Mulloy who was gathering a team aiming to be the surveymonkey of competitions. I’d talked with Conor prior to the pitches, we’d talked about some of the data aggregation that I had done previously and I’d said I would join his team if my idea didn’t go anywhere. So it’s definitely useful to talk to as many people as you can beforehand, you might find an interesting idea or person to work with.
Conor pulled together a great team with quite a few developers and business minds and off we set on the journey to revolutionise the world of competition creation, though not before a few pints were consumed prior to heading home on the Friday night.
Pitching Supremo’s Advice on How to Pitch at a Startup Weekend!
This is post is thankfully reposted from the blog of our pitching master class leader Ed Fidgeon Kavanagh of Clear Preso.
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Just do it
First and foremost if you have an idea that you would like to try and turn into a business then pitch the idea on the day, just do it, it’s a fantastic opportunity to essentially change your life as you know it, and so many people let that chance slip away because they are “nervous” or “not feeling up to it”. Don’t worry about being nervous, you will be, and so will everybody else pitching, just get up there and give it your all for a minute.
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Understand how the process works
It’s important that you go into this understanding exactly how things work in terms of the opening night of a Startup weekend.
- The pitch. You will have 1 minute, with no slides or props, to explain who you are, what you do and indicate who you are looking for to the audience.
- The vote. Once all the pitches are done the audience will be given 3 post-it notes and you will be given a big page of flip chart paper which ideally the attendees will stick their post-its to.
- The hustle. The pitchers with the most votes/post-its get through to the final 2 days (typically 10-12 ideas), be prepared to get out there amongst the attendees and campaign for those votes.
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So, lets look at that piece by piece.
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The pitch
One minute is shorter than you can ever imagine, and it will seem even shorter on the night. A single minute, depending on how fast you speak, will probably afford you about 120 words to describe what your idea is all about. This isn’t long at all so you must make sure that you use that minute well!
How to get the most out of your 1 minute pitch.
1. Have a name for your idea, and make it a relevant one that is memorable
Firstly it’s important to show that you have thought about the branding of your potential business, but also on a more practical level it will help people rememver you. The attendees will be making mental notes on who they will give their vote to, and given that there might have been 40/50 pitches at any opening night you need to have a name that is at the very least memorable and sticks in the attendees mind.
2. Use a story to explain your idea
Try and come up with a short story-based example that can explain the problem you are addressing, how big it is and in simple terms what your proposed solution does. If you don’t sell the problem well, people won’t care about your solution.
I saw this achieved well at a Student startup weekend where one pitcher told the story of how he went to the shop yesterday to get a pint of milk. Upon returning home he had bought a few things… but had forgotten the milk. He then talked of how is predictive shopping list app would mean that next time he wouldn’t be forgetting key items.
3. Use reference points that people already know
Sometimes you can get other products/services do the explaining for you. By using reference points that we all understand it can mean saving chunks of time that you would have spent trying to explain things from the ground up.
A recent example of this I saw at a startup weekend was “Uber for bin collection” – this tells us all we need to know instantly.
4. Know who you are looking for
In the run up to the event have a really good think about the sort of skills you are looking for in potential team members. Try and be as specific as possible about who you are looking for during your pitch as this will mean that the most relevant people come up and chat to you afterwards.
5. Be respectful
“I suppose I’ll need some techies or whatever” and “I’ll need some pr, marketing or bullshit artists” are both lines I have heard at these events, saying the above will make sure that no serious attendees are going to want to touch your idea with a long stick.
6. Be human
People will always want to work with people they like, or people like them, there’s no need to put on a “business persona”, just be yourself and show your enthusiasm for your idea.
7. A few things to bare in mind:
a. They WILL cut you off at 60 seconds on the dot, I have been to several of these events and I’d say about 30% don’t even get to finish their pitch. It’s rare that any of these ideas progress to the final 2 days.
b. Rehearse your pitch to death. It’s always very obvious who has prepared and who hasn’t. If you want to come across as confident, coherent and convincing you need to practice this thing out loud, and in front of people, over and over. If you have rehearsed your pitch out loud a few times and time it you’ll know exactly how long it takes, so there is no excuse whatsoever for being over time on the day.
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The vote
So, now that all the pitches are done you will be at the mercy of the masses and their post-it notes/votes.
At the very least have the name of your idea atop the page in very clear to read writing (They will give you a marker). Smart pitchers tend to include a short 1 liner and/or a drawing or two to remind people of their brilliant ideas.
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The Hustle
Don’t just cower in a corner with your sheet and expect votes to find their way to you. You need to be approachable and have a “hey come and chat to me” look about you. If the votes aren’t coming in don’t be afraid to go around to people asking for their votes. Hell, politicians do that all the time, and sometimes it works. Your job here is to get enough votes to get through to the next day… so do whatever it takes.
While doing a bit of research for this blog I came across a great comment, that is pretty on the money:
One hidden truth to Startup Weekend is that it’s not really about the pitch.
It’s about recruiting. (which is pitching beforehand 1on1 or to groups)
It’s really hard to remember any of the pitches but I remember the people I liked before the pitches. Most won’t remember your pitch but you want them to remember you.
So realise that the event really starts before the event, and that as I said before people want to work with people they like!
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I hope the above helps you in your quest to pitch like a pro at your next local Startup Weekend. And as I say, if I have left anything out, leave a comment with some tips for would-be pitchers.
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PS Startup weekend is coming to Galway, Ireland on 2nd-4th October 2015, in the awesome GMIT.
Find out more on the Author by following Ed Fidgeon Kavanagh on Twitter or checking out more of his work at Clear Preso.
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PPS If you need more convincing on why you should attend a Startup Weekend, then read my previous post on the matter by clicking here.
Tips For Branding Your Startup
Luca Boschin is the co-founder and business leader of LogoGrab. He has extensive expertise in the development and commercialization of computer vision technologies.
It was great to have him touch on an important part of the Startup Weekend experience – Branding.
LogoGrab chief executive Luca Boschin and chief technical officer Alessandro Prest
Q. Can you share tips on coming up with a brand name for an idea/product?
Regardless if you are a tech company or selling cupcakes your first stop is domaintyper.com. If you ever want to scale forget of any name for which .com is not available (some businesses could get away with other extensions such as .io). If you really wanna use a name anyhow at least be sure that no big player is using it and you’ll have the chance to buy the .com one day or the other.
It is also important to base your brand name on something that is relavant to your business – your actual product, a feature of it, your creativity, or anything that shares in a way or the other what you do or who you are. Finally, keep it simple, and make it as easy to remember as possible.
Q. To what level should [prospective] consumers be involved in brand development?
When you come up with a name / logo design you can make some simple polls to be sure prospective consumers would like/understand the name.
An easy way to do it? Prepare and copy/paste a message to 50 friends or so via Facebook messenger asking if they like/understand the name/logo. Make it simple, so to drive them to a simple yes/no answer.
The answers should guide you to an educated choice if you wanna proceed with that name/logo or consider working on it a bit more. This is how we actually did it at LogoGrab when we redesigned our logo.
Q. How can a team at #SWDub decide on a branding in the shortest possible time?
Again, for your name brainstorm with the with team in front of domaintyper.com. Write a list of each name you like (or sort of like, it will help to keep going) and for which the domain name is available. Keep brainstorming for 10 minutes maximum and then choose your favorite candidate off the list. When we started LogoGrab we decided our name in 10 minutes or so.
However, it does get a little harder when it comes to logo but you can also think of / edit your logo at a later stage. At LogoGrab we re-designed our logo 1 year after launch. I wouldn’t be so concerned about a cool logo at this stage. One tip, regardless: come up with an icon that fits in a square, in case you ever have to do an app.
Many thanks to Luca for taking time out to share these branding tips. You can catch him on twitter at@LucaBoschin. He’d also be around mentoring and coaching teams at the Startup Weekend Dublin. Do share and stay tuned for the next post in the #SWDub Mentor Series.
Tips For Branding Your Startup
Luca Boschin is the co-founder and business leader of LogoGrab. He has extensive expertise in the development and commercialization of computer vision technologies.
It was great to have him touch on an important part of the Startup Weekend experience – Branding.
LogoGrab chief executive Luca Boschin and chief technical officer Alessandro Prest
Q. Can you share tips on coming up with a brand name for an idea/product?
Regardless if you are a tech company or selling cupcakes your first stop is domaintyper.com. If you ever want to scale forget of any name for which .com is not available (some businesses could get away with other extensions such as .io). If you really wanna use a name anyhow at least be sure that no big player is using it and you’ll have the chance to buy the .com one day or the other.
It is also important to base your brand name on something that is relavant to your business – your actual product, a feature of it, your creativity, or anything that shares in a way or the other what you do or who you are. Finally, keep it simple, and make it as easy to remember as possible.
Q. To what level should [prospective] consumers be involved in brand development?
When you come up with a name / logo design you can make some simple polls to be sure prospective consumers would like/understand the name.
An easy way to do it? Prepare and copy/paste a message to 50 friends or so via Facebook messenger asking if they like/understand the name/logo. Make it simple, so to drive them to a simple yes/no answer.
The answers should guide you to an educated choice if you wanna proceed with that name/logo or consider working on it a bit more. This is how we actually did it at LogoGrab when we redesigned our logo.
Q. How can a team at #SWDub decide on a branding in the shortest possible time?
Again, for your name brainstorm with the with team in front of domaintyper.com. Write a list of each name you like (or sort of like, it will help to keep going) and for which the domain name is available. Keep brainstorming for 10 minutes maximum and then choose your favorite candidate off the list. When we started LogoGrab we decided our name in 10 minutes or so.
However, it does get a little harder when it comes to logo but you can also think of / edit your logo at a later stage. At LogoGrab we re-designed our logo 1 year after launch. I wouldn’t be so concerned about a cool logo at this stage. One tip, regardless: come up with an icon that fits in a square, in case you ever have to do an app.
Many thanks to Luca for taking time out to share these branding tips. You can catch him on twitter at@LucaBoschin. He’d also be around mentoring and coaching teams at the Startup Weekend Dublin. Do share and stay tuned for the next post in the #SWDub Mentor Series.
Dublin Startup Weekend – Shane Grimes Part 2
This post is continued from here.
Saturday is when you really start going and there are a huge number of varied mentors and advisors about during the day to give you input and advice (and to drive large buses through some of the holes in your business plans). We went through many lean canvases, talked through and round the ideas and finally ended up full circle about midday but we learned quite a bit on the way there.
From a technical point of view there is always an urge to just build something straight away as the time frame is so short and having a functioning MVP by the pitch time is one of the judging criteria. Depending on what the idea is your MVP might be a landing page to gather signups, it might be a data gathering program, it might be an app and it might a piece of hardware. Your MVP will depend on your team and if it’s software related you’ve got some tools to help you with setting yourself up over the weekend including a free domain and some server time.
But the end product of the weekend is going to be your pitch on stage so if what you’re doing doesn’t add value to that goal then maybe rethink if you should do it. Does what you’re building contribute to validating your idea and will it enable you to start gathering data (signups, users, products etc)? If so then go forth and build, if not, maybe check your premises.
Validation of your assumptions, goals and business plan is really the focus of the first half of Saturday; what is it we’re solving and do people want it? Identify your customers and get out and talk to them is a good step and it can help you identify if your value proposition is attractive to them.
There’s ongoing talks throughout the day from some great speakers and if you can split your team to take in those talks and build those learnings into your process as well as taking on board your mentors advice you’ll be making the most of the weekend.
The second half of Saturday is then really a hell for leather run at finalising your strategy, building out your MVP and working out how to clearly tell the story of your product in the 4 short minutes you’ll have on stage.
Oh and not to forget the tasty Google food to keep you going throughout the day and the few drinks at the end of the day to carry out your post-mortem.
Sunday is more of a minor panic mode as you work towards finishing your pitch with those presenting practising and getting feedback from mentors. Before you know it you’re in the Google auditorium and watching twenty or so pitches up on stage along with doing your own and then it’s all over, winners announced and everyone on stage for a picture and celebration.
And it seemed like only a moment ago you walked in the door on a Friday evening whereas now it’s Sunday and even though everyone can’t win the judge’s prize everyone who has taken part has had some fun and learned something new along the way.
It really is a great experience and you’ll meet plenty of interesting people and listen to some cool ideas throughout the weekend. Technical people and designers are in pretty high demand when it comes to the team forming stage as everyone wants someone to build or design their mvp but if you’re a non technical person have no fear you’ll get just as much out of the weekend.
Startup Weekend is as much about idea validation and learning how to take an idea from a random thought through to validation as much as building something. A killer pitch is really an idea with a defined and reachable market, a well thought out business case, a great looking slide deck and an MVP. How you decide to define all those is up to you.
So make the most of your time by learning from your team-mates, mentors and speakers and you’ll be making the most of what a great weekend has to offer. It’s not the destination that matters it’s the journey!
Dublin Startup Weekend – Shane Grimes Part 1
We came, we learned, we built, but mostly we had fun. This was my first Startup Weekend after finally having an open weekend at the same time and I’d hoped it was going to be as good as previous feedback had suggested. Thankfully it turned out to be even better.
Before I start rambling on about my first startup weekend it goes without saying that these events don’t organise themselves and all the organisers, mentors, speakers and sponsors deserve special mentions for putting together what was a great weekend. It’s no easy task and they’re giving up their time to create a great event and they did a splendid job indeed.
For the uninitiated the premise is simple, gather a bunch of people who are interested in starting businesses, solving the world’s problems or just building stuff together. Everyone who has an idea gets up and pitches their idea to the masses, votes on the best, splits into teams to work on those ideas over the weekend and pitches the final products on the Sunday
What’s not to like? Cloistering yourself away for a weekend with a bunch of other smart people in the confines of google HQ to see what can be achieved if you work on an idea over the space of a single weekend. As it turns out, you can achieve a hell of a lot!
I arrived Friday evening a little bit late as I was coming from the airport and there was a big crowd milling about feasting on the typical startup event sustenance of pizza and beer. If it’s your first Startup Weekend I’d advise you to arrive early and talk to as many people as you can about their idea or your idea that you’ll be pitching. If you’re pitching an idea it’s good to get some awareness out there already and you’ll start getting people interested in your idea. It’s also pretty difficult to remember so many pitches so any recognition you have at this stage is good.
So after some getting to know people and a few beers it’s time for an intro and some pitches. Pitches are short and you really need to be able to communicate your idea in as short a time as possible so go for the trusty “Here’s a problem and here’s how I’m going to solve it”. If your idea is interesting and the pitch resonates with people then hopefully you’ll get enough votes. The ideas ranged from a solution to clean up oceans to a interactive voting system for nightclub music.
I pitched a marketplace for getting jobs like cleaning and delivery done for people that didn’t have the time, one that I came up with the previous week while lamenting the need for ironing and having no clue where to find someone who might take away my need to complete this arduous task! And yes if that’s the most major of my problems in life then things aren’t too bad.
After pitches everyone votes on their favourites and as with meeting people at the start it’ll do you good to get out there and canvas for peoples votes. It’s difficult enough to be memorable amongst over 50 ideas so there’s no harm in being vocal about reminding people what it is you’re doing again.
After the best get chosen it’s all about creating the teams. Alas my job marketplace idea didn’t make the cut and I joined up with Conor Mulloy who was gathering a team aiming to be the surveymonkey of competitions. I’d talked with Conor prior to the pitches, we’d talked about some of the data aggregation that I had done previously and I’d said I would join his team if my idea didn’t go anywhere. So it’s definitely useful to talk to as many people as you can beforehand, you might find an interesting idea or person to work with.
Conor pulled together a great team with quite a few developers and business minds and off we set on the journey to revolutionise the world of competition creation, though not before a few pints were consumed prior to heading home on the Friday night.
