Hey, I'm Jed, a Cakephp developer basically. BTW I just shipped Tweet Caddy the most advanced tweet scheduler. Please check it out!
Last Friday, Oct 21 2011 The first Startup Weekend Manila was held in MINT College. This event gives an opportunity to entrepreneurs to bring their startup ideas to reality. You first pitch your idea then they’ll vote. The ones who get enough votes will get a change to “work” on their project for two consecutive days.
This is the first I’ve seen in the Philippines. I’m sure there are smart young developers out there who had organized their private hackathons but this one is really a big event for the Filipino developers. Over 200 people have attended the event with a registration fee of P1,000. (23~ USD)
My love for my country is back once more. We have a brain drain happening in the Philippines — our intelligent and hardworking people are leaving and are working abroad and few of us remaining don’t have our visas yet. :) Kidding aside, I’m very proud of my fellow Filipino entrepreneurs for pursuing their dreams no matter what it takes.
I feel jealous as I look through the pictures in twitter. Saying to myself I wish I was 21 again with a Mac Book Pro and learning from these brilliant mentors and fellow entrepreneurs. But I had to focus on my tweet scheduler app because I have been in an out of focus for the past 3 years. And I swore to myself that I shall build only one thing and get my ROI as soon as possible.
In addition, I don’t believe that startup weekends will help if your goal is to make profit. You can come there for networking and getting education from mentors but if your goal is eventually make something profitable then you don’t need to participate. Below are the reasons why I think the startup weekend will not work.
They Promote Instant Gratification - Perseverance and hard work can’t be taught in schools, by ebooks and by mentors. Sure you can inspire them and tell them to take action on their ideas. But it’s when after you finish version 1.0 and that all your energy will go all the way down to the bottom is what will break you.
What is tricky here is that you’ll never going to experience the bottom during the weekend development phase. This will happen after you get all features completed and all your energy exhausted — burn out is common in the startup world and no mentor can help you there.
Profitable ideas won’t win votes - Who would vote for the boring B2B app and the greedy business man? Winning ideas are usually the ones that would cure problems of society and changes the world. Would you vote for a appointment scheduler and invoicing for dentists that charges $50/month or would you rather vote a crowd sourcing app for giving orphans a decent birthday party? Unless the panel of judges are all dentists the second idea would win by a mile.
See my point? The first idea sounds boring and greedy but the second one is exciting, touches the heart and a would-be crowd favorite. Media would write about it i’m sure. I don’t want to sound mean here (I’m very sorry for the orphan example) but if the core of your idea is not to make money then sorry, it’s just a side project or a hobby.
All I know in the history of mankind is that wealth is the greatest motivator. Not material things, but wealth. Example, travel the world, best education for your children, freedom from debt, freedom on doing what you like and etc..
This is why believe in ideas like Finishweekend.com and Ludum Dare’s October challenge are good ideas. Finding and getting customers to use your app and charge them monthly is terribly difficult.
Cash Prize - Startup manila has a cash prize of 15k SGD (P511k~ or 11k in USD) What if you won? Would you hire a developer and setup an office? That money will burn in just 2 months, so in my opinion, that is not seed money, it’s a prize. Like a cash prize from a singing contest.
Actually, I’ve told my friends that startup weekend is sounding like the American Idol for the developers where the winner will have to work for continuos hours. Anyway, You’ll not create any buzz without it, the prize is for marketing the event.
Having said those reasons I still believe that one of these participants would make it on top. I am still proud that we have these young passionate entrepreneurs that would someday build the next killer app. And thanks for the organizers and sponsors for making it happen.
As for myself, I’ll need to finish my own bootstrapped app which is now on it’s 3rd month in development. I’ll blog how it goes in the future.
