By Tyler Willis
Uncov-worthy headlines aside, I’m really excited to bring Startup Weekend back for round two in the city. It’s time we grow our tight-knit family of Startup Weekend SF alumni to include new faces! Last year, I organized the event by myself (well, with help from the big wig at the national office), but this year I’ve got the help of an amazing team of co-organizers and partners. They’ve asked me to provide a recap of the last event and share with you my excitement about this one. Before I start, we got on techcrunch, but it was pretty much the least remarkable thing about the weekend, so if I say that I can’t explain how great the event was, I hope you’ll believe me and try it out for yourself.
My involvement in SWSF was as an organizer. I contacted Andrew Hyde after reading about SW: Boulder and he asked me to organize the details of a SF event. I secured the details of the event (sponsorship, ticketing, promotion, etc.) fairly easily with the wind of the Startup Weekend brand behind my back and the help of Andrew.
About 150 people showed up throughout the weekend, friendships were built and the end product, which launched with only seconds to spare on Sunday night, was www.helphookup.com. To be frank, the work has stopped since the weekend, but this is not a failure, the point of it wasn’t to build the application — the (not so) secret goal of this event is to build community, which it has done in SPADES. You get to know people better by seeing them in stressful situations; and the pressure cooker environment of Startup Weekend supplies plenty of opportunities to see how people react when the chips are down.
Going out to tech events now almost guarantees seeing 3 or more SWSFers, who are likely to be closing down the event recounting memories. We have developed a gang of tight friends (several of which are returning this year as organizers) who continue to work and play together (at least two companies had their co-founders meet at SWSF). This event has been the best at connecting people that I’ve ever been a part of (or even attended). I’m proud to say that I’m able to continue to help throw this event.
Come on down, join the family. Click to read more if you’d like to get some good wrap up links from SWSF07.
Want to check out the information from SWSF07? Look below for a fairly good list of links:
We talk about us:
http://sf.startupweekend.com/
http://twitter.com/helphookup
The internet talks about us:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/18/startup-weekend-san-francisco-in-full-swing/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/startupweekendsf07/
http://www.scrollinondubs.com/2007/11/19/startup-weekend-san-francisco/
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/312605/
http://www.lunch20.com/category/eateries/microsoft/
Here’s a video of a performance we were graced with:
http://vimeo.com/415540
