It is now 4pm, 3 hours to the end of startup weekend. Like Andrew Hyde said Friday night, startup weekend is like a year in real startup terms. I’ve certainly learned as much as I would have learned in a year of a real startup. Here are some of the highlights.

Best roadmap: 1.    Clarify the customer problem first 2.    Once you’ve done this, brainstorm all the possible ways you could help your customer with the problem 3.    Figure out associated features 4.    Remove all the features that are too ambitious for the weekend and/or first core launch. Better to do a few things well rather than too many things that don’t work 5.    Clear front end design before you proceed any further—make all flows and page inventory clear. Don’t leave the designer guessing. This also helps the developer. The clearer your flows the simpler it is for your developer founder to make your visions a reality 6.    A good rule of thumb for estimating total development time post the weekend is break down features by high, medium, low and days taken in development to 3,2,1 respectively

General team practices: 1.    Have fun–we went out for ice cream mid-day 2.    Lay down the law—enforce goal orientation. This means enforcing a time limit on disagreements and the importance of factors/decisions being discussed. Different people will take this role at different times. 3.    Make sure you have a legal agreement on ownership by end of the weekend 7.    Don’t put people into buckets. Focus on explaining your ideas well and listening equally well. Openness allows individual learning and team expansion into better newer perspectives 8.    Keep domain names lowercase in planning. Or not. You can start with FoundersHack and end up with FounderShack

FounderShack

My team mates are Ludmil Trenkov and Themios Carabas. FounderShack, is your shack for finding passionate cofounders. It revolutionizes the way you look for startup founders by connecting you with founders who are passionate about solving the same business problems that you are. Check out the demo below. Unlike other startup social networks, the conversations at founderShack are based on approaches to a problem and people’s pitches for how they solve them as well as how they can be good additions to your team. This eliminates days of browsing through a countless profiles that look the same, or spending copious hours at networking meetings. Now you simply post your problem and see who you’d like to work with based on their ideas and personalities. Makes it simple doesn’t it? We will be working on this after this weekend and will let you know of the launch date. Hope to see you at founderShack!

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