StartUpWeekendBrusselsChangemarkers2015, November 13 to 15

#swbru on Twitter, identi.ca, Live Cast, TwitterStreamGraphs, Collecta, flickr

Own objectives

  1. go from theory to practice regarding start ups
  2. getting a fun kick out of learning and connecting

Attended activities

(to update from actual weekend, not the preparation)

  • preparing the Fire Pitch
    • cf Qspace content to add
  • preparing the MVP
    • cf Qspace content to add

Fire Pitch

60 seconds to get the audience interested in your idea. You will have no slides or props -just your voice. You won't have time to go over features, so just focus on the core of the idea and make your enthusiasm contagious. Here is the format for pitches that we recommend:

  • Who are you and what is your background? (5-10 Seconds)
    • Fabien, work in IT for marketing
  • What is the problem that your product is solving? Or, begin with a story (10-20 Seconds)
    • You go to StarBucks and you get a coffee, how does the 10€ coffee cup split? Is each part for the coffee beans, the design, the renting of the space all fair for YOUR values?
  • Explain the product and how it solves the problem (10-20 seconds)
    • Value Pie displays how the cost is split in colourful slices when you scan an item with your phone so that you can understand it, pay it and eventually change it to match your values.
  • Who do you need on your team (a developer, marketing, designer?) (5-10 seconds)
    • Priority to for B2B2C market research and a designer to make a beautiful UX and overall anybody excited by the idea of killing the barcode and understanding the depth of pricing
  • Finally, make up a name for your startup so the facilitator can give it a title
    • Value Pie

Video Iterations

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9oyvxNsRW0
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP0IoZxqxMA

Back to the Menu

MVP

Back to the Menu

Overall remarks and conclusions

  • meet him
  • could be improved by doing that
  • see also that other event

Back to the Menu

Other reviews or coverage

  • here

Lessons learned

motivating, social, technical, learning skills, discovering methods, wanting to do the next step

Personal view

  • touch people more and meaningfully, everybody, including stern serious or shy people, in particular e.g. if they seem
    • tense grab them by the shoulder in a nearly massage way
    • are on the verge of panicking, put a hand on their forearm and ask them to look at you then breath
    • come out of a huge demanding rush, relief them of the tension with a warm tight hug
  • don't be shy with meaningful compliments
  • obverse the interaction dynamics, straight away show the ones detrimental to the group without making it personal
  • reverse the process back from the deliverables
    • if the work you did is not shown in the deliverables, for the audience it is literally equivalent to NOT having done that work!
  • focusing on happiness will increasing productivity and creativity
    • people will tag along and follow your group if you keep that in the big picture
    • smile more, make yourself and other, not just your team members, feel comfortable
  • the first step is always ugly and perfection is a barrier, not a healthy goal
  • soft skills do not trump technical skills, both are required individually and as a group
    • both must be managed efficiently
  • if you do work hard even if in the background, smart people will notice
  • skills are not solely in your technical domain, e.g. IT, even your are the only person in the group with those skills the team might still benefit more from your other skills
  • a prototype or MVP does not have to be technical at all
    • the core does not need this or that only available tomorrow
    • you start it with what you have RIGHT NOW
  • customer feedback will tell you what you need to know, your gut feeling is just to kickstart the project then validation comes from tries and tries and tries and even more tries
  • a good pitch has only one secret, repetition repetition repetition not just tips and ideas and beautiful slides
  • a team can be split in smaller elements ONLY if it is periodically synchronized
    • e.g. we go our ways but in 2hrs we tell each other what
      • has been done
      • has NOT been done and WHY
      • restate our priotities
      • consequently has still has to be done
      • schedule the next meeting
  • you do NOT need to draw well to do visual thinking
    • take a large piece of paper, a marker then draw!

Critical review of our own project, Qspace

We did not properly check the one and only deliverable : the content of the pitch from the perspective of the jury. Maybe it was because we were too confident on our product, maybe something else.

Related materials

Added after the even and personal review

Other links

To do

  1. improve Template
  2. add map data (:ola-point lat= lon= text='':)