Mobile Weekend
In the mids of November the second edition of Mobile Weekend took part at the Ironhack campus. Mobile Weekend is an innovative and unconventional event that connects brilliant minds for the creation of successful Startups. It’s a world-class technology 3-day event organised by Capptains Venture Builder, a Barcelona based company, with a focus on creating and expediting groundbreaking mobile tech ideas.
Day 1
On the first day we were very warm welcomed and had a brief presentation of all the projects we might be developing during this weekend. Then each of the participants had one minute for the personal presentation, mentioning on what project he/she would like to work. There were over 40 professionals with different backgrounds, and I was truly festinated about so many delightful minds in one room. These personal presentations helped to the leaders to build teams, taking into account the backgrounds of the participants and their preferences regarding projects to work on.
After this introduction it was a moment for the networking. We had a chance to meet each other, talk and discover more about the participants. I’m coming from the art world and end up discussing the artificial intelligence, physics, business algorithms and horses. How cool is that? Yeah!
Later it was time to announce the teams and the projects to work on. So I was in “Advertising on cars” with Philippe, Liliana, Susana and Bernard. Few minutes later we were brainstorming at the cosiest corner of the Ironhack.
Day 2
On the second day we had a breakfast all together, people were discussing the ideas they had overnight. In general it was an amazing vibe, everybody was full of energy. Lately every team went to their table and we started to develop the project. We were doing research (survey and even couple of interviews), we looked at the deepest of the internet for the references and benchmarks. There were a great product idea but we were not sure if it’s feasible. I remember sending tones of messages to Roger, a product designer who usually solves any kind of my doubts. That’s incredible how many things can be done in just one day. We had a mentorship, a wall of post-its, and many, many question. We diverged it so much and it was time to decide how exactly we are going to solve our problem. In our case we were dealing with 2 different user-personas, and it even might become to be 3. What kind of business model shall we use to make it profitable for each of the involved parts?
It was getting late, there were pizzas and beers. And it looked like a great way to give yourself a break.
Day 3
It was a last day and we had to decide. So we’ve focused on our main user-persona. Looked like we knew who is our guy, I think each of us could perfectly recognise the target and their needs. Would it be viable? Well, the numbers we got during the research proved that our idea is a good one! After we had it all clear it was a time to prepare it all. We had a name, logo, roadmap, business canvas and some brilliant data that was inspiring us a lot. The team prepared the strategy and we were working on a presentation — 8 minutes pitch. We were in a rush, first team to expose their project. I can’t describe how stressed I got cause I realised we won’t be on time to finish a presentation. But there is nothing to worry about when you has such a great team! Each of us designed few slides and we were ready just on time!
Philippe is a great person, incredible professional and everyone from our team decided that there is no one better to lead this till the end. So he presented the project we were working during the 3 days and it was just brilliant.
Afterwards we watched the presentations from the other teams. There were a lot of great and fresh ideas. Everyone had 3 cards (each card symbolized 20.000€), to invest in some project you liked the most. The only requirement was that you can’t give any card to your own project. This way all the participants voted for the one they thought was the best idea.
The moment of truth
The judges were ready to announce the results. They started with the 3rd place — congratulations for Benoit Lochin (personalized gifts idea). The second best idea — claps for Kamran Karbassi (concierge car repair). And the winner idea is… (Goddamn, it should be us!)
The winner idea is Advertising on cars!!!
Then I started jumping and shouting something like “uooooooh hell yeeeeaaaahhh!” I was so proud of us! Nothing of that would be possible without the amazing team-work! Afterwards it was time to announce the dream team — 3 most brilliant participants of the Mobile Weekend. Here I was so proud once again when Philippe won an award!
This is what we lived during the Mobile Weekend. 3 delightful days and so many great people! Let me know about your hackathon experience. Cheers from the AdDrive team!
