How to win a Startup Weekend

The 54-hour startup marathon that you should be going to and winning

I really hope that since you’re on a search for a less-boring life, at this point you’ve already heard about the Startup Weekend. In case you haven’t gone to one, you’re still on time.

This time I’m gonna tell you how to win. That’s it.

Nope. I haven’t won a Startup Weekend (yet). But since there’s no right answer to what to do, I do have some practical advices that you can learn about what you should not do.

Here are some straight forward points. About how to do it.

1. Don´t waste time with the brainstorming— That´s one of the most boring/time-consuming dynamics you could do. Yes, I know you want to be fair. But you don’t need more ideas, in fact what do you need is less ideas. More clear ideas of course, but less ideas. You need less work. You need an objective.
2. Don´t waste time naming— Choose a semi-happy word related to the product or area you’re working. Trick it a little bit and you’re done. That should not take you more than 20 minutes.
3. Buy a domain name fast— As I’ve already said, don’t waste your time. If you have the name of your product buy the domain fast. Really fast. That would let you gather emails, make users, a little buz and sell. If there’s no .com available, just add a word before or use a .net or .co
4. If you don’t know how to code, sell— And by selling this means getting users, get traction. You don’t need to code, just to use simple technology tools. Landing pages and mailing systems are your best friends. Bonus: use icon sites to pump a little bit of your products.
5. Make a good pitch— How? Simple: just be clear and don’t say bullshit. I’ll make a post about this later.
6. Democracy don´t work— Don´t ask everyone and don´t let everyone vote. If you’re the leader try to set a clear direction for the team. The collective ideas are c
7. Focus on a good design— You could be making the same solution than an already existing product, but if your design is really awesome it would stand out. Design it’s not a feature but your product itself.
8. Results more than expectations— Instead of making projections of how your product will work.Validate. Remember that the ultimate validation is when someone gives you money. So if you have some kind of traction ti would be useful.
9. Fuck the business model— As the last point, don´t waste any minute. In fact, one of my mentors once told me that all the business plans should be sent to a black hole so they can never come out. So sell instead of talk.
10. Don´t fuck up the culture— I stole this one from Brian Chesky, the co-founder of Airbnb. This works because if you let your team fall apart it will never work. Of course you’re not on a billion-dollars company.