Startup Weekend Edinburgh - 16-18th Nov - NOW WITH PROMO CODE

[Kate Ho]

Hey folks,

We are running Startup Weekend Edinburgh edition! It's going to be
held in Summerhall (by the Meadows) - next to TechCube, between
16th-18th Nov. For anyone that's been to a SW event, you'll know what
a blast it's going to be.

For those that haven't, SW is a 72 hour event where coders, designers
and business people come together to work on the latest world changing
ideas. The event provides a perfect opportunity to learn new skills,
to meet new people, and to get a feel for what it's like to work in a
startup. We've got judges from Skyscanner with a few more being
confirmed in the pipeline!

There's a code for the first 10 coders to sign up, just use TECHMEETUP
in the code box and you'll get 20% off.

For more info about the event, go to:
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4245624778 and
http://edinburgh.startupweekend.org/

Sign up - quick :)

Kate

[Kate Ho]

Jo

The money is going towards food and drink for the weekend, that's all.

Kate



On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 3:26 PM, Jo Walsh <meta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to pay to be judged, now? What is the world coming to? Etc

> --
> Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.



--
Kate Ho
Managing Director
Mobile: +44 (0)7877 112 430 | Techcube, 1 Summerhall Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1QD

Interface3 Digital
Web: http://www.interface3.com | Twitter: @interface3

Tigerface Games
Web: http://www.tigerfacegames.com | Twitter: @tigerfacegames

[Jo Walsh]

I have to pay to be judged, now? What is the world coming to? Etc

[Anand Kumria]

Hi Kate,

I think you (and startupweekend) need to highlight that more then.

Like Jo, I've boycotted these events since they started charging.

They felt like a money making exercise, rather than encouraging a
group of people trying to build something.

Regards,
Anand

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“Don’t be sad because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

[Kate Ho]

Anand,

Completely understand why you might think that. Having gone to quite a
few of hackdays, sometimes I'm a bit reluctant to shell out the money
too (after all, I'm going to work the whole weekend, right?)

Most of these events cost money to run. We've been really lucky in
that TechCube has provided the venue, but we still have food and drink
to cover. Our choice is to either a) run a 2.5 day event with no food
at all, b) find enough sponsorship to cover all expenses (very
difficult especially since we're doing this in our spare time) or c)
ticket sales from people who want to come to the event.

We've got some sponsorship from Skyscanner already (btw, if anyone
else wants to chip in, please do!) which covers some of that budget,
but not all.

I think if you take the approach that the £45 (or £36 with the
discount) is a great investment in a weekend of trying to do/build
something with potential friends/co-founders and as a really good
opportunity to learn (in 2.5 days), then it makes sense. And I really
hope to see people do want to do that! :)

Also, if anyone really wants to come and is struggling to for
financial reasons, drop me a line and we'll see what we can do.

Kate

[Chris Fleming]

The other advantage of charging some money is that it reduces the number of people who sign up and then don't turn up, especially important if you have limited spaces.

I am going to try and make one of these things, but am far too busy at the moment :(


Cheers
Chris

[HH Veldstra]

If you don't want to pay, then don't go. What's the problem?

Anyone who thinks that charging £30-£45 would turn a profit needs to
recheck their math.

(I am not affiliated with Startup Weekend, never been to one, and
won't be attending the upcoming one - just to make that clear.)

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 12:42 AM, Anand Kumria <aku...@acm.org> wrote:

[Michael Clouser]

*45 seems fair enough for the food and to weed out the slackers and no-showers; bootstrapping entrepreneurs will find a way to get the 45 sponsored by some 3rd party through clever maneuvers ;-)

[Jo Walsh]

My problem isn't with the money, but what it means.

I've heard an argument that there's only the appearance, not the
reality, of startup activity in Silicon Valley. People are leaving
Facebook, Google et al, and setting up kind of boutique startups which
work as showcases for themselves. They may not even get the company
bought, just get themselves bought. The whole thing devolves into a
beauty contest. It feels like there's something sordid about paying to
enter a beauty contest.

Meanwhile, I've read that if one admits to VCs out there that one is
aiming to make a mere $50M, they're not fundamentally interested. That
doesn't scale round these parts, so what else is the funding path?

It was Tim Howgego who commented strenuously to me that what is needed
here in Edinburgh is not support to develop yet more startups; it is a
service that supports businesses that suddenly succeed, helping to
scale up their operations quickly and gracefully.

But Microsoft is not going to fund such a service. Google is not going
to fund such a service. Because that would actually help develop
businesses that might grow and shift to threaten them. But Microsoft
and Google will happily fund a lot of activity to support the
development of small, new startups. I wonder what it is that they
gain, here.

I would say to kids leaving University; become a wage slave for a few
years, see if you can stand it, get perspective, skills, contacts.
Wait, perhaps, until you *have* to do something. Because a passion for
something unsolved, burning you up, may be necessary to succeed. And
if you've got that, then sitting in a room full of people saying "it
would be good to have a startup, what innovative idea shall we have"
is not going to help much.

However, the consequences become harmful when kids out of college are
rushed into realising their startup dreams, with various
University-supported, innovation-funded schemes offering them a soft
cushion for the short term. The market for several-thousand-pound
modular robotic snakes sadly fails to appear in time, they burn out,
find hard times not much happier than student lives, and more
willingly accept wage slavery [not my term! dig dig]

[gra...@heliocentrik.net]

Jo,
I'm not sure what your contribution has to do with charging for a
Startup Weekend. You haven't explained what the money 'means' at all,
why the organisers shouldn't charge, or how you would propose
alternative funding.

It's a fine endeavour, and the fees being asked for are not
unreasonable. Startup Weekend Glasgow was £30 for an early-bird ticket,
and was an excellent event under the auspices of Michael Hayes and
Entrepreneurial Spark. I don't know the organisers of this upcoming one,
but to trivialise it as a 'beauty contest' is a bit unfair to the likely
attendees, who might well start businesses out of it (for all we know at
this point). They might be a bit more diverse, and motivated, than you
imagine them to be.

The organisers have indicated that they have some sponsors already, and
that the ticket prices are primarily for catering. If you think you can
run a catered 2.5-day event for less than £30-£40 per head then I have a
bridge to sell you in Brooklyn*.

Graeme

* slightly storm-damaged.

[Chris Bainbridge]

On 31 October 2012 10:29, Jo Walsh <meta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But Microsoft is not going to fund such a service. Google is not going
> to fund such a service. Because that would actually help develop
> businesses that might grow and shift to threaten them. But Microsoft
> and Google will happily fund a lot of activity to support the
> development of small, new startups. I wonder what it is that they
> gain, here.

In case that wasn't a rhetorical question - what the large
corporations gain from startups is cheap R&D on their platform,
performed by motivated and energetic young people who are often
working below minimum wage in the hopes of someday striking it big
(ie. the same reason drug dealers work for $3.30/hour, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudhir_Alladi_Venkatesh ).

Average salary at Google is reported to be $141k, at Microsoft it's
$127k. A small internal startup team, plus costs of supporting admin,
management, office space etc. could easily be over $1m/year, and most
(~90%) will fail to build a commercially viable product. That's a lot
of wasted money, much cheaper to get people coding and eating noodles
in their basements and then buy up the rare success when they go for
funding.

[Dale Harvey]

This seems like a poor venue for a personal rant about what your narrow scope of a startup is, I dont speak for startup school but this isnt a funding vehicle, this is a chance to get together with others in the community whether you want to learn something / share some ideas or meet others with similiar interests.

Cheers
Dale

On 31 October 2012 10:29, Jo Walsh <meta...@gmail.com> wrote:

[John Hewson]

> However, the consequences become harmful when kids out of college are
> rushed into realising their startup dreams, with various
> University-supported, innovation-funded schemes offering them a soft
> cushion for the short term.

As someone who did exactly this (and failed), I thought it was a great experience, and certainly not "harmful". A startup starts off as a search for a (preferably scalable) business model, not a business in itself.

Actual businesses which have profits and realistic plans for growth will always be able to get a loan from the bank. They've already gone through the difficult early stage of finding a product-market fit.

Cheers

John

[Michael Clouser]

Excellent point Steven. There needs to be more seeding, more ventures, and more failure for the ecology to produce successes. Ironically. And for every 100 talkers, there are 10 doers, in any ecology, anywhere on the planet. In SV there is a lot of talk, not as much doing, and from that failing. Just part of the game. 

And to Jo's points, I agree with him on that of the need for a "service" which helps companies scale up and grow. That service is institutional venture capital (proper, professional venture capital   managed by folks who have built companies themselves, and scaled up before. That's what is lacking. Good venture capitalist service their portfolio companies as board members and assist them in scaling. For a good new model, see First Round capital that Bill Trenchard founded http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/11/01/first-round-capital-beefs-up-its-partners-and-software/.  I disagree with Jo however on his advice to new graduates -- instead, just the opposite -- learn by doing, learn in a DIY mode, fail, learn more, make connections, build teams, fail again, and repeat, until success comes. The average successful entrepreneur has failed 7 times. The game is about experiential learning, its not a standardized test and experience in larger firms can be a bad teacher. 

-Clouser

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Steven Livingstone Pérez <web...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> We should be encouraged to file more, 

Oh the irony ...  "fail"

---

From: web...@hotmail.com
To: meta...@gmail.com; michael...@gmail.com
CC: techm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [TechMeetup] Startup Weekend Edinburgh - 16-18th Nov - NOW WITH PROMO CODE
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:07:19 +0000

We should be encouraged to file more, not less. Have a watch of this video from last weeks FailCon 2012 with Gina Bianchini who co-founded Ning with Marc Andreessen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BJGOPWVowM

The message "Aim for Small Failures". We need many more startups here with the consequences of failing low ... because we learn to do it quickly (and hence less costly).

As for why the BigCo's support them ... read the Innovators Dilemma. They're learned if they're not involved, they'll miss what's emerging.

I'd rather these events were free due to overwhelming sponsorship, but i wouldn't shoot the messenger.

/steven

http://livz.org

> Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 10:29:44 +0000
> Subject: Re: [TechMeetup] Startup Weekend Edinburgh - 16-18th Nov - NOW WITH PROMO CODE
> From: meta...@gmail.com
> To: michael...@gmail.com
> CC: techm...@googlegroups.com

--