My Experience and Recap of LA Startup Weekend 2011

I participated in my first Startup Weekend (@StartupWeekend) this past weekend. The basic idea of the weekend is simple - create a company in one weekend. The project I worked on was HealthySurprise.com - a healthy snack subscription service. I worked on a team comprised of @joewinke and @edwu. I had a great experience and will definitely be involved in Startup Weekend next time around. For those not familiar with Startup Weekend check out my summary of how it works below.

How Startup Weekend Works

1. Signup
   The cost for LA Startup Weekend was $99/person. When you sign up you either identify yourself as a technical person (engineer), designer/product person or a non-technical person (marketing etc...). LA's event was held at Santa Monica's Coloft (@coloft) and was limited to 100 people split between the above disciplines.
2. Idea Proposals
   Everyone who has an idea is given a couple minutes Friday night to propose their idea in front of everyone. Everyone participating in the weekend is given two votes for the ideas they like best. The top 10 ideas become the team leaders and ideas that are built during the weekend.
3. Create Teams
   The individuals who proposed an idea that was selected become team leaders and are in charge of creating their team. Teams can be whatever size and really depend on the skill sets needed to build the product you're working on.
4. Build
   All day Saturday and Sunday is spent at the Coloft working with your team members to build your product.
5. Present
   The weekend is capped by presentations in front of a panel of judges. This event was streamed live by TechZulu (@TechZulu).
6. Winners
   After seeing all of the team presentations the panel of judges vote on the best companies of the weekend. The results of the judging are below in my tweet:

The @StartupWeekend results from @coloft HQ: (1) @lookioapp (2) @skilloop (3) @omazeworld (4) @Swaydar #LASWMon Aug 22 05:22:40 via webMike Bracco
bracco

Projects

• Look.io / @lookioapp / live mobile in-app support framework
• Skilloop / @skilloop / local marketplace for finding experts
• Omaze / @omazeworld / win experiences money can't buy
• Swaydar / @Swaydar / notifying businesses when influencers are present
• Healthy Surprise / @HealthySurprise / healthy snack subscription service
• Hand Job / @HandjobApp / job discover app using LinkedIn
• EscrowSnap / @EscrowSnap / simplifying the escrow process
• Habitful / mobile app using game mechanics to build habits
• Company.is / @Companyis / directory of simple company descriptions
• TrainerSays / text-based reminder service for physical trainers and their clients
• InsiteR / competitive site technology analysis
• Votobooth / daily photo game challenge
• DrugKick / @DrugKick / site to connect patients with proper physicians
• CatchTags / @CatchTags / browser based video game around Twitter hashtags