Startup Weekend Okanagan 2017

Recently, I had the opportunity to take part in an amazing event called "Startup Weekend". The goal of Startup Weekend is to help attendees understand the entrepreneurial experience. Startup Weekend is an international organization that hosts startup events in over 163 countries around the world. Over the course of 54 hours, attendees must form teams to create a startup company that will be presented to judges on the last day.

This event is fun for everyone and I highly recommend it. Startup Weekend challenged me in so many ways, developed my skills, and allowed me to make many valuable new connections and friends. Anyone who Is interested in entrepreneurship or who wants to learn more about business and technology should attend this event. It doesn't matter what educational background, or work experience you may have, Startup Weekend is an experience that everyone should try.

Tickets for this event were given to me so I had no prior knowledge about it heading in to the weekend. I wasn't exactly the most enthusiastic about attending since I thought I would miss a few hours of my "precious" weekend. To top it off I didn't do any prior research about the event so I just assumed it would be some networking and a couple workshops on Friday and Sunday. Little did I know that I would be giving up my entire weekend while being taken on a mental and emotional rollercoaster ride for 54 hours that would ultimately test my skills and patience.

The event was sponsored by a lot of Okanagan tech companies and was held in some of their offices. On the first day of the event I showed up early by accident so I had to wait around and make small talk with a bunch of "techies". I felt out of place immediately as I have little knowledge about computer science or even web language for that matter. I anxiously waited and was counting down the seconds for the event to start so I could at least enjoy some food and refreshments. However this all changed when I met Gabe.

Gabe is an interesting guy who actually flew all the way from Oregon to attend this event. The reason for his travels is that he works at a fortune 500 company but was starting to a get little tired of the corporate culture. He was rethinking his career decisions and so he came to startup weekend to learn more about the entrepreneurial experience and to practice his creative thinking.

On the first night all attendees are encouraged to pitch an potential business idea to the entire group. Afterwards everyone votes on the top ten ideas then forms groups with the people who pitched those ideas. There were many great ideas pitched that night and it was awesome to see that there are so many young people in our community who are constantly thinking of ways to solve various problems in our society. I sat and listened to many people go up and speak about their potential business ideas and I was analyzing which ones I'd be the most interested in.

Then Gabe spoke. His idea was so unique and so different than all the others. The concept was so profound, innovative, and relatable however it was also a long shot. This concept was a "homerun" business model and the source of revenue would be difficult to work out, but I knew that if this idea could come to life it would have such an impact on an industry that affects us all. I'm not in a position to talk about the exact details of the start-up. The reason I'm not speaking about the business plan is because my team and I might continue to further develop this and possibly make it a reality.

So here was this interesting idea that I decided to go along with. We got into our teams and started to get to know each other. Our team was so unique and talented in many different ways and at first I was skeptical as to how we would all function together but to my surprise we really started to connect fast. Our team consisted of an HR manager, an inventor/artist, a financial advisor, and a robotics PhD student however we were just lacking a tech person. Most people at the event had at least one software developer on their team, but unfortunately for us our team had no-one with a computer science related background. This really put a spin on things as the judges wanted to see a minimally viable product which usually took the form of a usable application/prototype. This made our job much harder therefore we decided that our "product" would just have to be screenshots of how a potential prototype would basically look and function; this also forced us to work extra on our presentation.

When it took time to get down to business, we put our heads together and tried to brainstorm how we could take the general concept that Gabe had pitched and make it more focused. The concept was so broad and for the purposes of this we had to narrow it down to a specific market and industry. We tossed ideas around al of Friday and throughout Saturday morning and we finally had a breakthrough idea of the business taking the form of an smartphone application.

This whole process took us through the night and it was past midnight by the time we were home. It didn't end there, each day we arrived at 8:30 to have breakfast and get back to work. It was exhausting and many times frustrating. Many times the tensions in the room were like a thick fog hanging over our heads just waiting for us to crumble. Our emotions were all over the place; there would be moments were we all wanted to curse each other but then hug and high-five each other only moments later when we finally solved a certain issue. It was stressful and to some it seemed like it was taking a toll our sanity. Our group was such good sports about it all and we usually went out for drinks in the evening to release some stress and connect with each other. When Sunday morning arrived I was so burnt out and was not in the best mood. This changed when we had to present our pitch to "practice" judges to prepare us for the final presentation.

To my surprise, the "practice" judges were a bunch of young kids. The reason for this is because, children don't have the same mental capabilities as adults. Its harder to explain things to kids which forces you to be able to communicate the message more effectively without any advanced jargon or technical diction. When we started I had no idea what to expect from them. At first when we presented they all had curious looks on their faces which made me a little uneasy even though they were very attentive. As soon as we finished all of their hands shot up and they were so excited about our idea. Many of them said they would use our product and most of them thought our idea was the best they heard which made me very pleased with our work. There's nothing quite like seeing kids excited about something you have shared, its validation at its finest.

Heading into the final presentation that night I was confident in our team and all the work we put in. The thought of those kids so happy with our idea gave me the much needed spirit booster to successfully complete the last portion of the event. Our team did great and even though we didn't end up on the podium we still won the "crowd favorite" award which was based off of the audiences reviews.

In the end I was glad it was all over but at the same time I was sad that we wouldn't be heading back to the office to work as a team again. It was the constant teamwork and companionship that really motivated us through this weekend. Collaboration is something everyone should experience and even though it may be tough sometimes it is very gratifying to be able to work effectively with other unique individuals to come to a solution.

As a business student I realized that there were things that I learned over the weekend that just couldn't be taught in a classroom. You can't necessarily teach a student how to be an entrepreneur; entrepreneurship is learnt by action and by "doing". Being an entrepreneur takes different skills and knowledge than most careers. You have to be determined and to be able to think more creatively. Most importantly, entrepreneurship is believing in your self and understanding that you have unlimited potential. When it comes down to it, investors won't be investing for your business knowledge or your IQ but they invest because you believe that you can make anything possible.

Startup Weekend made me believe in myself and in those that I had committed to working with, no matter the situation. I encourage everyone to try it even though it may seem tough, I promise you won't regret it.