Digital Prototyping Weekend: Get your idea out of your head
The last Digital Prototyping Weekend took place place November 18–19th last fall. It’s a bootcamp where the participants go through team formation, business development and prototyping. Different workshops help them develop their idea, do basic prototyping and pitch on the final day.
Lily and Constantin joined the event without really knowing what to expect and left with a bigger network, new friendships and a boost in confidence for their entrepreneurial adventures.
Do you have an idea that’s been in the back of your head for months, maybe years? You might never have had much time to really do something about it.
Where should you start? What should you do next? How do you even start to make an idea come to life?
Enter Digital Prototyping Weekend. This is a place for you, to not only start discussing your idea, but find like-minded people and start doing.
Lily and Constantin both have have been on their entrepreneurial journey for a while, but when they met during the team formation at The Shortcut’s Digital Prototyping Weekend in the fall, something very special happened.
“The networking night, was when i met Constantin. He had his idea, creating a marketing service, and i had my idea, which is to help solopreneurs, and we combined both of our ideas, sort of merged them. We changed the clients to be startups. What I loved was this feeling, that we come from a similar root andthat we wanted to build something that came from the same foundation.”
Lily and Constantin obviously have a connection. Sitting with them you can feel the energy and the excitement. They finish each other’s sentences and seem to know what the other person will say next.
Both Constantin and Lily decided to join the event without much prior involvement with The Shortcut. They were intrigued by the concept of a prototyping weekend and liked having an entire weekend to connect with people and really immerse themselves in the process.
“When you participate in something for an entire weekend, there is more time to connect and really engage. You just have to join and see what happens. So i just showed up. I didn’t want to have too high expectations, I have a family, so when you choose to spend a whole weekend away, I knew that too many expectations would set me up for disappointment and regret for not spending the time with my family.”
Lily agrees. For her an open mind was key as well.
“I had a similar feeling, I knew I had to be open to whatever I was getting myself into to get the most out of it. If I weren’t open to it or had too many predefined ideas or expectations, then I don’t think I would have been able to meet all these amazing people and really be open to the experience.”
After the team-forming on Friday there were two days filled with workshops, working time, mentoring from experienced entrepreneurs and an introduction to lots of new tools.
“I always had this entire idea in my brain, but getting these new, easy-to-use tools, like Envision, helped me put everything on a piece of paper. Constantin and I both had our ideas all developed in our heads and together with the rest of the team, we just bounced off each other and started getting everything down on paper. Finally I was able to really see it.”
Lily really emphasises the tools and the confidence boost in herself as an entrepreneur:
“Meeting everyone, connecting and building friendships was amazing and also getting a clear structure and framework for how to develop ideas in the future. Furthermore though I really gained the confidence to believe that I can do this. I can develop my idea, pitch it to people and make it happen.”
Constantin adds:
“Personally I got new people in my life. That’s at the top of the list. I would also say the confidence, that you can meet people, a bunch of strangers and in two days come up with something. It is not just an idea you contemplated for many years, it’s real! You actually figure out how it would work and see it come to life. That felt really good, we felt the pressure, and that forced us to come out of our normal thinking boxes. We constantly had to think about what to do next. Every team had strengths and weaknesses, our drawings were not the best, but it didn’t matter because we had that special vibe in our team.”
In the end, their idea didn’t win but neither of them think this is the end:
“How do you keep up the momentum when you don’t win? In this world there’s going to be bad days and often people only talk about the successful days. There are tough days, but do you just sit there and let yourself be, probably for a little bit. But then the day after or the next day, you pick yourself up and you take the next step and the next step. I’d rather share a story like that, to the people that come here, because that is the reality. You might not win. And people need to learn the process of what to do next. I think The Shortcut does a really good job, figuring out how to support you, both on good and bad days.”
It is clear that Constantin and Lily had a hugely impactful experience. But why should other people join the next Digital Prototyping Weekend?
“For the fun, the knowledge, the networking. Basically the entire experience. It’s a lot of work and a lot of fun.”
Lily agrees with Constantin and also adds:
“For me it’s really about uncovering a new part of yourself. One girl was really shy, very uncomfortable pitching her idea, but I could tell, she uncovered something that weekend. She stepped outside this circle of comfort. I think a lot of people did that weekend. The Shortcut gave us the support to figure out a better form of ourselves.”
If you feel inspired by these two, you’re in luck! There’s still time to sign up for the next Digital Prototyping Weekend coming up this weekend 24–25th of March 2018. Sign up here.
