Great Program...highly recommend it.
for all the reasons given above. It's not just networking, but you learn a lot building (and hopefully pivoting) something with people from other disciplines.
I think the key to a good experience is picking a good team.
look at the people more than the idea
...after all, ideas don't matter, right? :-)
Specifically,
devs: use technology you know well.
mkts: beyond being a powerpoint ranger, explain what you did. The rest of us see this marketing crap as a mystical art...or just crap:-)
designers: if you don't know how to code, try to pair with a front-end engineer.
if you do know how to code....call ME!!!
EDIT: Ok, I see what this is about now–but ... it kind of sucks that this was posted only 4 days before the event (especially when the blog post was from Nov.).
Being outside of SV but close enough to drive, events like this interest me but it's hard to keep track of them (let alone of their quality). I know lanyrd is trying to fill this space (sorta) but this event isn't there.
I'm just babbling now, but my point is: I want to network, learn, and hack with people in the Bay Area. How the heck do I know what events to come to and when they are?
I want to network, learn, and hack with people in the Bay Area.
Hackers & Founders: http://www.hackersandfounders.com is around, but the guy who organizes it is a complete asshat. Really, can't stand the pony tailed bastard.
What you want is Startup Digest. It's the defacto events calendar for Silicon Valley.
You're also interested in hanging out at the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View or Noisebridge in SF. Also, some of the best startup events in SV are 106 Miles, hosted and organized by the most awesome Adam Rifkin.
<full disclosure>I'm the organizer of Hackers & Founders...</full disclosure>
This event is being organized with a 9 day window to coordinate with the TechBA program, so that's the reason for the short notice. The blog post is marked Nov because it's a template.
In general I'd recommend plancast, meetup.com, and startupdigest to find out about events like this.
There are many Startup Weekends going on throughout the year. The schedule is on the main startupweekend.org site ( I believe there is a Bay Area event in May).
I have five free student tickets sponsored by Cloudspace if anyone here is interested. First come first serve, you can tweet me @trikro for the code and I'll DM you.
We are putting together a mix of local compaies with foreign companies from Mexicoand Latam companies to build global companies to zell all around the world
As pleased as I am that Cloudspace (my company) is sponsoring it, I'm equally sad that I'm out of town for this one and can't make it. Rock it hard, y'all!
I've been to two and it was a positive enough experience for me to not only endorse it, but I'm helping to organize it. It's a great way to meet potential co-founders, kick the tires on an idea, and get the general feeling for whether or not startup life is for you.
To be fair, I will say that my first team imploded, fragmented, and I wound up dropping out from disappointment. But that in and of itself was a true to life startup experience that I learned a lot from in terms of people skills and well worth the ticket price.
That said...you can use TRIKRO as a discount code for 25% off.
Totally agreed. A failed startup is definitely worth the time spent. You get to learn about the industry you're attacking, you get to learn about making hard decisions with the a team (and how to pick future partners, which is highly underrated), and you get to learn about all the extra things that it takes to launch a company beyond "come up with idea for thing; make thing". Plus, it's surprising how often things created during the first version of a startup can be reused in a next version.
I have been to two events in NYC. They were great for me to learn and netwotk with people with similar interests. I liked it enough that I now volunteer to help organize these events. There is a great balance between ui/ux, developers and business/marketing types. Also is a gpod way to vet an idea quickly. Theleanstartupmachine.com is another similar event, more focused on the lean startup methods.
I would have said it's more focused on tightly customer development from my experience, despite the name. Of course, that's a part of lean startup methodology, but I tend to associated lean startup with many of the development techniques such as continuous deployment and rapid A/B testing which isn't necessarily feasible over the weekend (although I've seen some pull it off well.)
I know all the players involved, and they are phenomenal. Tristan kicks ass. The panelists: Jason Purtorti, Chris McCann, Daniel and David Weekly are all very cool, very amazing people.
I think the key to a good experience is picking a good team. look at the people more than the idea ...after all, ideas don't matter, right? :-)
Specifically, devs: use technology you know well. mkts: beyond being a powerpoint ranger, explain what you did. The rest of us see this marketing crap as a mystical art...or just crap:-) designers: if you don't know how to code, try to pair with a front-end engineer. if you do know how to code....call ME!!!
my two cents...