HN Minneapolis Startup Weekend/Hackathon

[Brad Marsh]

So me and Mitchell were talking about an idea I've had recently and we
both thought it would both fun if we used the idea as an excuse the do
an HN Minneapolis startup weekend for a lack of a better term.

Here are the idea and it's origins follows:

I went to a restaurant yesterday and after paying the waitress, she
pointed at the bill and said if you go to this website and fill out
this survey you'd get a discount next time.

I thought why not build a mobile web service that restaurants can sign
up for that people could fill out the review at the table via their
phone and get a discount BEFORE they pay, that way they actually have
a motivation to do it.

The service could charge the restaurant so much a survey, or so much a
month.

Also it could provide users with a list of the local restaurants that
they can get a discount if they fill out a survey before they're done
eating.

Ultimately restaurants get the feedback they want, and people eat
cheaper. Win, Win.

And if a restaurant doesn't want to give a discount for that meal, but
for the next time their in, the system can save that "Coupon" for the
next time and if it's built on HTML5, based upon the geolocation
remind them that they have it the next time they're close to the
restaurant. This particular are could also be tied into 4square
somehow.

In my opinion this is a SIMPLE idea that could be created in a weekend
with the right people and motivation and coffee.

Plus if we do it right, we could turn it into some sort of press for
ourselves.

Me and Mitchell are in, let us know what you think.

Brad

[Joseph Walla]

I'd be game for a hackathon!

Anyone else?

[Mitchell Hislop]

As previously said, I am in. We could even go all out and get sponsors, and do all that jazz. 

I think it would be a really fun time, and we would end up with a great experience. I have done and love the Overnight Website Challenge, and I think that this would be just as good. 

Mitchell Hislop
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612.418.4992

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[Joel Howard]

I would love to do this! Keep me posted!

-Joel

[Jeremy Haberman]

I'm in.

One issue I have when eating out and the experience is not so good is
making sure the appropriate person at the restaurant knows about my
experience. I've heard Andrew Zimmern (local guy w/ the Bizarre Foods
show on the Travel Channel) say that you should always tip 20% because
your level of service is mostly due to factors outside the wait
staff's control. Maybe their manager didn't schedule appropriately,
leaving too few wait staff to serve customers or too few cooks to keep
up with the demand. Even if you don't subscribe to his logic and
leave a small tip or no tip at all, it's still important that
management know about your experience. Otherwise, change is unlikely
to occur. You cannot trust that the wait staff are going to let their
management know that their customers were unhappy with the service.
The problem is, do you really want to hunt down the manager on your
way out?

Enabling diners and restaurant management to quickly and easily
exchange feedback is, like you said, win-win.

I've got some other thoughts flying around my head about how this
could work as well as challenges we might face, but that brainstorming
is probably much better suited for face-to-face discussion.

Looking forward to it,

Jeremy

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 2:34 PM, Brad Marsh <bradley...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Mitch]

Update on the Hack Weekend:
We have a venue!!!! Don Ball at CoCo reached out to me saying that he
would love to host this. Now, all we need is a date...
I am putting together a formal date-picker to help us, but to narrow
it down a bit, do we want it sooner or later? August or October?

Also, if you have any hacker/startup type friends, please let them
know about this event. We want this to really be a meeting of the
community, as well as a chance to build something badass.

Peace,
Mitchell Hislop
mi...@mitchellhislop.com
612.208.9163

[Brad Marsh]

Especially reach out to designers.

No use building something if it has to be ugly.

Brad

[Joel Howard]

Sounds good. I have a friend in marketing and design. I can check if he'll be interested to join us.

And as for Mitch's addition, that's way cool, I really enjoyed CoCo last time I was there. Anytime should work for me (for the most part, with enough of a "heads up").

Joel

[Mitchell Hislop]

I also talked to a guy at my startup, who is excellent in the money/how to make it/how much department. He is stoked, and will prob join us for this.

Mitchell Hislop
Geek
612.418.4992

My Latest Post: My New Desktop

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[Jeremy Haberman]

I'd love to do it sooner, but due to existing commitments I have for
most weekends in August, my vote would be to do it in September.

Jeremy

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 10:36 AM, Mitch <mi...@mitchellhislop.com> wrote:

[Jake Dahn]

August or september sound good to me. Sooner the better!

__

Thanks,

Jake Dahn

ja...@ang.st

(612)-272-1534

[Brad Marsh]

Would the weekend of August 20th work for everyone?

Brad

[Joel Howard]

That should work for me.

Joel

[Jeremy Haberman]

Yes.

Jeremy

[Mitchell Hislop]

Im down for that. I will have to duck out for a bit for my fantasy football draft, but its a good weekend for me otherwise

Mitchell Hislop
Geek
612.418.4992

My Latest Post: My New Desktop

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[Eric Caron]

Any chance of somebody putting a public Google Doc or Wave together on
this? It'd be much easier to entice a couple collaborating designers
to join in if there was a more organized hub of info regarding the
hackathon. I kind of like how RHoK does it (like http://rhokdc.eventbrite.com/).

Also, regarding sponsorship, might I ask why? Now that there's a
venue, I say start simple and minimalistic. If it turns out that the
event was underwhelming because of lack of financial backing, it's
easier to build features into future events than to take them away.

Finally, taking on lessons learned from previous hackathons and the
OWC, deciding the language and framework components is crucial before
the venture starts. Yes, it will fracture into "(python|php|RoR) is
better", but better to hash that out online rather than in person and
save the python/php guy the time from stumbling into a RoR group. (I'd
even say make the jQuery, Apache and MySQL decisions too - just to be
very clear).

Being blunt, if it is PHP, I'll be there. If it isn't, I won't.

[Joel Howard]

Makes sense. Personally, the "main" web development I've done has been with ColdFusion, Javascript, and Access... (yeah, an internship). So I plan to be there either way to learn and help out as much as I can. I'm up for anything! I started Google Wave discussion, but I didn't use everyone's personal email (tried using this google group alias, don't judge me it's my first time ;) )... I could try setting up something better (other ideas?)...

:-/

Joel

[Mitchell Hislop]

I believe a google group can have a wave, if I remember.

Sponsorships are so we can eat and drink for free for the weekend. It would not be anything major.

Ill add more to the wave tomorrow. Been working on leaving mediatemple to linode all night, so I'm spent.

Mitchell Hislop
6124184992
Sent via mobile

[Jeff Pesek]

FYI - you'll may be interested: http://tech.mn/news/2010/07/30/mark-your-calendars-startup-weekend-is-coming-to-the-twin-cities/

Cheers,

Jeff Pesek

Co founder - TECHdotMN

http://tech.mn
@TECHdotMN
612.276.2208

[Mitchell Hislop]

Thanks mate.

Mitchell Hislop
6124184992
Sent via mobile

[Mitchell Hislop]

Regarding the wave, can someone add mitchel...@gmail.com to it?

thanks

Mitchell Hislop
Geek
612.418.4992

My Latest Post: CES 2011!!!!!!11!!1!1!

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[Joel Howard]

Just added you. I had your other one on there, but I don't think it worked.

Joel

[Jeff Pesek]

Welcome Brad & Mitch. We've got a few discount codes for SWTC (knocking the price down to $35), ping me if you would like one.

Cheers,

Jeff Pesek

Co founder - TECHdotMN

http://tech.mn
@TECHdotMN
612.276.2208

[Brad Marsh]

Jeff,

Sure.

Thanks man.

Brad

[Joel Howard]

Have we decided on the weekend of the 20th for sure? Or can we possibly push it back? :-D

Just wondering...

Joel

[Brad Marsh]

Update on Hackathon.

Due to some scheduling conflicts we're going to have to push this
event back into Sept.

If there are any specific dates that would work best for those
interested, let me know.

Thanks,

Brad

On Aug 5, 10:24 pm, Joel Howard <jhoward...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have we decided on the weekend of the 20th for sure? Or can we possibly push
> it back? :-D
>
> Just wondering...
> Joel
>

> On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 12:53 PM, Brad Marsh <bradleyt.ma...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > Jeff,
>
> > Sure.
>
> > Thanks man.
>
> > Brad
>

> > On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 12:10 AM, Jeff Pesek <Jeff.Pe...@tech.mn> wrote:
>
> >> Welcome Brad & Mitch. We've got a few discount codes for SWTC<http://tech.mn/news/2010/07/30/mark-your-calendars-startup-weekend-is...>(knocking the price down to $35), ping me if you would like one.

>
> >> Cheers,
>
> >> Jeff Pesek
>
> >> Co founder - TECHdotMN
>
> >>http://tech.mn
> >> @TECHdotMN
> >> 612.276.2208
>
> >> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Mitchell Hislop <
> >> mi...@mitchellhislop.com> wrote:
>
> >>> Thanks mate.
>
> >>> Mitchell Hislop
> >>> 6124184992
> >>> Sent via mobile
>

> >>> On Jul 30, 2010 9:45 AM, "Jeff Pesek" <Jeff.Pe...@tech.mn> wrote:
> >>> > FYI - you'll may be interested:
>

> >>>http://tech.mn/news/2010/07/30/mark-your-calendars-startup-weekend-is...

>
> >>> > Cheers,
>
> >>> > Jeff Pesek
>
> >>> > Co founder - TECHdotMN
>
> >>> >http://tech.mn
> >>> > @TECHdotMN
> >>> > 612.276.2208
>
> >>> > On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 12:39 AM, Mitchell Hislop
> >>> > <mi...@mitchellhislop.com>wrote:
>
> >>> >> I believe a google group can have a wave, if I remember.
>
> >>> >> Sponsorships are so we can eat and drink for free for the weekend. It
> >>> would
> >>> >> not be anything major.
>
> >>> >> Ill add more to the wave tomorrow. Been working on leaving mediatemple
> >>> to
> >>> >> linode all night, so I'm spent.
>
> >>> >> Mitchell Hislop
> >>> >> 6124184992
> >>> >> Sent via mobile
>

> >>> >> On Jul 29, 2010 11:46 PM, "Joel Howard" <jhoward...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> >> > Makes sense. Personally, the "main" web development I've done has
> >>> been
> >>> >> with
> >>> >> > ColdFusion, Javascript, and Access... (yeah, an internship). So I
> >>> plan to
> >>> >> be
> >>> >> > there either way to learn and help out as much as I can. I'm up for
> >>> >> > anything! I started Google Wave discussion, but I didn't use
> >>> everyone's
> >>> >> > personal email (tried using this google group alias, don't judge me
> >>> it's
> >>> >> my
> >>> >> > first time ;) )... I could try setting up something better (other
> >>> >> ideas?)...
>
> >>> >> > :-/
> >>> >> > Joel
>

> >>> >> > On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Eric Caron <eric.ca...@gmail.com>