The Unofficial

Startup Weekend Survival Guide

by @matskyyro

In this guide I try to answer some of the frequent questions I've heard from participants while mentoring in Startup Weekend. This guide is in no way officially related to SW – always listen to your facilitators for the last word on practicalities during the event!If you have comments, ideas or questions: please answer this form.Your feedback is much appreciated!

What am I getting myself into?

Startup Weekend is an event in which participants group together and attempt to create a "startup" over a period of 54 hours. It’s meant for people from all walks of life. Business people, engineers, designers, and even everyday dreamers like myself.Starting from Friday, you will mingle with the other participants, find a group to work with and get started on an idea. On Saturday you’ll collect data to validate that idea, iterate on it, have arguments and iterate some more. Finally, on Sunday you pitch your startup against others.I won’t sugarcoat it for you: It’s tough, and it often requires you to get out from your comfort zone. By the end of Sunday, I've heard people say they feel like they've been hit by a truck. Yet still, the state it was worth it.I'm hard-pressed to think of any another event where you can learn as many practical skills for creating a new product or service – and let me make it clear, these are not just skills for a startup: these will benefit you at school, in your own side projects and at any future or current workplace.Heck, with hard work and some luck – it could be the place where you meet your future co-founders or even your next employer.

What should I learn over the weekend?

It’s good to have some idea on what skills you want to focus on learning over the weekend. While everyone is different, here are some of the some of the top skills you can pick up over the event:

- Validating your ideas. For many this is the big revelation of Startup Weekend – how exactly do you find a plan that is worth pursuing, and prove that what you are doing is actually valuable to customers?
- How to be efficient under pressure. It’s one thing to know how to make a business plan, to code or to draw graphics. It’s another to do it under tight deadlines. A cool head is useful anywhere, be it school or work related – and there are few better places to practice it than Startup Weekend.
- How to work together on a diverse team. Most likely every participant in Startup Weekend will end up working with people they meet there for the first time. Being able to come together on a single demanding task with strangers you just met moments ago is a particularly useful skill for anyone planning a career in management or human relations.
- Scheduling and prioritization. If there is one skill I'd recommend you pick up during the weekend, it’s how to timebox your activities efficiently. Learn this one, and suddenly all your school or job-related projects become a breeze compared to before. Teams often finish projects in two days that they'd be given a month or more time to finish at universities.

What to consider when teaming up?

There are mostly two types of people coming to Startup Weekend – those with an idea looking for a team, and those without either looking to team up.No matter which you are, you’ll most likely end up forming a group with some people you haven’t really met before. That's what makes it fun!There really are no hard rules for building a great team. That said, here are some of my personal preferences for making one:

- Keep your team lean. The larger your team, the more trouble you will face with communication, decision making and allocating tasks. What’s the right size then? It really depends – but a good rule of thumb is a team that can be fed with just two pizzas. More pizza, more trouble.
- Keep your team diverse. Best teams have people from a variety of backgrounds and with a range of skills. If you are serious about getting your idea off the ground, make sure that your team has the business and marketing savvy, technical know-how and design prowess to do it.

Often events help you distinguish between different skills with colored T-shirts, badges or something of the kind – good teams then look like a handful of rainbow Skittles.Finally, a bonus tip to give your team an edge over the others: Take a look around the room when team forming begins. See the people who look a bit shy and lost? Those are usually the smartest gals and guys in the room – make sure you go and introduce yourself and see if you can nab them for your team.

How to make decisions as a group?

Once you have formed your team and introduced yourselves, one of the first things I’d recommend doing is picking one person to “lead” the team.I'm unsure if "lead" is the best word, as it brings up an image of a leader or a stereotypical boss. This person should be more of a mediator or general manager – her job is to help facilitate discussions, making sure that the team stays on schedule, and keeping the event hosts updated on how the team is doing.Sometimes picking this person comes natural and doesn’t even require deliberation. Other times it might take a little bit of discussion. Don’t be afraid to step up for this role – anyone with a level head and a good grasp on time can do it.Next, you should discuss how decisions are made during the weekend. When working in a group, you will sooner or later end up in a situation where the team is split on a decision. This is when it’s good to have one person who has the power to act as a tiebreaker.This can be the same person as the General Manager, or for example, the person who brought in the original idea the team starts to work on. If you feel uncomfortable leaving tough decisions to a single person, you can also decide on domains: one person has the last call on all things graphical, while another calls the final shots on marketing related issues.In short, make sure you have a person whose job it is to notice when you are wasting time on an argument, and someone who can help break those stalemates.Most importantly, once all discussions are done, have everyone commit to respect the decisions made – no matter their own opinion on the subject. Bad decisions are easier to correct than making no decisions at all.Note to very socially extroverted individualsIt's quite common that you'll find yourself in one of the above roles, especially in a team with more quiet, introverted members.If that is the case for you, let me recommend that the most valuable thing you can do for your team is enabling everyone to have their voice and opinions heard equally.Take this as an opportunity to learn how you can use your social skills to give a voice to those who might struggle in an unfamiliar group. Step back on your own opinions and instead help move the conversation forward by asking questions and encouraging others to speak their mind.

How to be a good team member?

It’s everyone’s shared responsibility to do our best to promote a friendly and welcoming environment where everyone can learn and have a fun and exciting weekend.When working with others, try to keep an open mind and not to fall in love with your own ideas. Feel free to debate, but be respectful of everyone’s opinions.Try to eliminate “No” from your vocabulary. In fact, don’t kill ideas by going “Yes, but…” either – every time you find yourself saying but try to take a step back and replace it with the word and. Take a look at the following statements:“Yes, but I don’t think anyone would use it.”“Yes, and we need to figure out who would use it.”A bit of a difference in tone, don’t you think? Try to be an enabler, not a blocker. Ask questions, really listen to others' ideas and add on to them.Finally a bonus tip on how to be a good teammate: It’s perfectly fine not to have an opinion on everything. Next time you feel like adding your own view to a conversation, think will this actually help your team reach its goals, or do you just want to voice your opinion for the sake of having one?

How to use our time efficiently?

In my experience, two things make or break good teams: effective timeboxing of activities and clear roles and task for each member. I'd go as far as recommending that everyone in the team takes turns using a stopwatch to keep track of the time.Starting from the first day look at the event schedule and figure out your deadlines for different deliverables. Based on those, create an hour-by-hour plan for the current day and at least a high-level one for the next.Think about what you need to achieve, and by what time? What are the individual tasks that need to be done (and in what order) so that you can turn in deliverables on time?Write your schedule clearly on a whiteboard or share it online on a service like Trello. Even for creative or abstract activities, always decide how long that activity will be:"At 9:00 we spend an hour thinking about how we solve problem X."Don’t get fooled thinking that because you are working as a group, you have to do everything together. Not only is doing everything by committee often a bad idea, but you are also losing a massive time advantage.Think about the following: A team of five where everyone works together on all tasks has merely 54 person-hours to use during the whole event. In contrast, a similar group where all members carry out their own duties can have as much as 270 person-hours to use on their project!Even if time is limited, don't neglect the importance of having breaks. Taking five to ten minutes every hour to give your brain some time to breathe will help you work much better in the long run. Don't just lounge around either: Take a walk outside, stay hydrated and grab some snacks to keep your blood sugar up.A final word on all-nighters: In my experience, most people are better off getting a good night’s sleep even when the time is limited. Stay up all night, and you risk paying back those hours with interest in the morning.

How to come up with ideas?

Coming up with and refining ideas can be a surprisingly daunting task, especially with a group you are working with for the first time. What follows are some basic exercises that can get you from ideas to sketching solutions in less than an hour's time.Note: Depending on how far your team is with a particular idea, you might want to skip directly to the part about Crazy 8's.First, move your team to a comfortable space with a whiteboard or open walls. Grab some markers, A4s, and enough sticky notes to go around. Also have someone pull up the stopwatch app from their phone, as you will need it during the exercises.Now before we go into ideas, you should start by thinking about problems. What exactly is a problem?“Eating with chopsticks is hard” is a problem.So is “Online phone conferences suck.”Problems are everywhere, and not all are born equal. To avoid going too all over the place, it’s good to have at least some high-level theme to focus on. For example, you could be thinking about problems related to social media or annoyances associated with biking to work.Start with the problemsSet a timer for 5 to 10 minutes and ask everyone on the team to come up with as many problems as they can. Everyone should work quietly by themselves, writing down one problem per sticky note. It's important to stress that quantity is much more important than quality here.Once the time is up, start sticking your problems on the wall. You’ll likely see issues that everyone thought of, or that are close to each other. Try to cluster the similar problems near to each other, maybe even give each cluster a title or a name.At this point, you can prioritize what clusters are the most promising and what the least promising. Some questions you might want to ask are:“How many people we actually think might have this problem?”Or “How realistic it is that we can help fix this problem?"Once you are satisfied with your problem clusters, the next step is to format those into questions. Why questions you ask? It's because questions are much better at inspiring solutions than plain problems.How might we...Set a timer again for 5 to 10 minutes. Now ask everyone in the team to write questions based on the problems you have on the wall. The format should be "How might we..." followed by your question.Let's imagine for example that one of your problems is “I get sweaty when I bike to work."Now let's turn that into a question: “How might we prevent sweating during biking?”Or “How might we replace commuting with bikes altogether?”Don't be afraid of asking the obvious or coming up with the same questions as others. Quantity trumps quality still!When time is up, have everyone put their sticky notes on the wall again. Cluster the questions near to the problems they are related to. Now you can spend some time – but not more than a few minutes – discussing these clusters. Once you are done, you will move on to sketching.

The Crazy 8'sOne of the best ways to sketch solutions as a team is a Google Ventures technique called Crazy 8’s. Pass each team member a sheet of A4 paper, and have them fold it into eight sections as follows:

Now set your timer for just a single minute. During that minute, have each member draw a unique idea or solution in the first section of their paper.When the minute is up, immediately reset the timer and have everyone sketch another solution on the next part. Keep doing this until all eight sketches are done.While a time limit of just a single minute might sound a bit uncomfortable, the trick is to merely keep on drawing. If you can’t come up with a new idea every minute, just redo the last one again. You’ll be surprised how different each iteration comes out.After you are finished with your Crazy 8’s, give each team member a pat on the back. You have just completed what most find the toughest part of this process.Making a final sketchOnce you are done celebrating, let's set the timer a final time, this time for something more leisurely – 15 minutes should be plenty enough. Ask each team member to grab another sheet of A4 and sketch out what they think was their best idea during the last exercise.People often ask what is the right level of detail on a rough sketch. A good rule of thumb would be, that a person who does not know your idea should be able to understand it from the sketch alone.I advocate for this sketch to be a sort of a three-panel comic. It's simple enough that anyone, no matter their artistic skill, can do it. Yet it allows for enough detail for an idea to be easy to understand.When your timer goes off, have each team member briefly present their sketch to others. From these sketches, you can vote on one or several to validate, or even decide to combine some designs together!

What exactly is validation?

Here’s an easy way to think about validation. Imagine that you are a police detective investigating a crime scene. You might have a hunch on who is the criminal – “The butler did it!” you say, but you lack evidence.Your hunch is what is called a hypothesis while collecting evidence is what we call validation.It’s important to understand that no matter how much evidence you collect, you can never be 100% sure what exactly happened the night of the crime. When faced with the unknown, it's evidence that gives your theories credibility – this is true for both validation and police work.When validating a product idea, you work the exact same way as a police detective. First, you set up some hypotheses. For example:“This is a problem many people have.”“This is a problem they would be willing to pay for”“Our solution is what they would use to solve it.”Next, you come up with a plan to collect evidence to either confirm or bust your hypotheses.Maybe you want to interview some customers. Perhaps you could look at some existing companies, and how they are doing. Depending on the topic, previous academic research can back up your claims.Often your idea is something you can actually build right now, at least by faking parts of it, so that you can actually go out and test it. Kind of like a detective reconstructing a scene of a crime with paper dolls.As you work, keep a running log of the things you know, the things that you don’t, and the things you absolutely must know. Then plan ahead how you will understand those things in the future. This will help you steer your project forwards.How to present your findingsWhen you are pitching your project at the end of the weekend, one of the most important things the judges expect to see is validation. Be honest when you present your findings. Explain how exactly you came to your conclusions, and what shortcomings your validation method might have.Sometimes you can't validate your idea very far. That is OK! Present a plan for how you will do that in the future. In other cases, your validation might go to show that your idea is actually terrible. That too is fine. Present potential pivots you could make to your original plan based on your findings.And when your validation is excellent, make sure to parade it:"We got 10 people to sign up for our service!""We already made our first sale this weekend!"Those are the kinds of comments that – as long as you are not lying – are sure to put you on judge’s top list.

How to make the most of mentoring?

One of the best parts in Startup Weekend is the mentors your team will have access to. Often these are local or visiting professionals who have decided to take time off from their busy schedules to help you make the most of your weekend project.Depending on the event, you might get to choose which mentors to talk to, or one or more might be assigned to your team. If you have a say in the matter, look at the mentor profiles online and try to find someone who has experience in the business domain your project fits in, or someone who is otherwise skilled in an area that you feel your team is struggling at.Because the time you have with your mentor is limited, make sure to make the most of it. Prepare a list of questions and topics to discuss beforehand. If possible, decide what precisely you need help in and how you think your mentor could best help your team reach its goals.How to take feedbackOnce you've met with your mentor, it's normal to feel a bit overwhelmed. Sometimes the feedback you receive might seem harsh or even run fully contrary to what you as a team believe. This is the point where you get to practice one of the most vital skills you can learn: how to take feedback.You see, as a team, you are entirely free to decide how to apply the feedback you have been given.It is certainly possible that you decide all the guidance you received was on point, and that you should use it in your project. At other times you might agree on some things, and disagree on others.It’s even possible that you feel like all the advice you received was of little value – although in this situation you should be very careful to evaluate what exactly makes you believe that way.Whatever you decide, remember to treat your mentors’ time and expertise with respect. Even if you were to disagree with their methods, there is never an excuse to be rude about it.And remember: At the end of the day, it is you as a team who carry the full responsibility for your decisions, not your mentor. Make sure the choices you make are your own.

Tools & Techniques

General

TrelloTrello is my favorite tool for collaborating on tasks online. Think of it as interactive sticky notes in the cloud, where you can easily assign tasks to team members. Free for basic features.GrammarlyMy favorite spell-checker slash word processor at the moment. Free for basic features, but if you do any more writing for school or work the premium version is well worth the price.Google FormsPart of Google's excellent suite of free tools, Forms allows you to create slick questionnaires online. Beats almost all premium priced form builders out there, without a single ad.

Design

InVisionDepending on who you ask, InvisionApp is the gold standard for prototyping apps. Very easy to learn, with an extensive collection of premade assets and templates available. Free for basic features.Design resources by InvisionThis is a collection of very high-quality design resources and templates straight from InVision.SketchSketch has been the new standard on front-end design for a few years now. Simple UI focused on getting basic tasks done efficiently. Free 30-day trial with the same features as the paid version.SketchAppSourcesThis is an excellent database of Sketch templates and resources you can use in your projects.FigmaFigma is an entirely cloud-based design suite that offers most of the same features as InVision and Sketch and more. Free for individual users.If you decide to try it out, you might want to check out their introductory video Basics of prototyping with Figma.FlaticonA comprehensive database of icons and illustrations, most of which you can use for free as long as you credit the author.BalsamiqBalsamiq is an excellent tool for drawing wireframes. Free trial for the cloud version.FiverrBuy anything: copywriting, voiceovers, design, unique jingles – all gigs starting from just $5. Can't count the times this service has saved my bacon. Many creators offer 24-hour delivery for the projects with only a slight premium cost.

Stock Photos

PexelsSuper fresh stock photos that are entirely free for both personal and commercial purposes.PixabayPixabay photos feel a bit less curated than Pexels, but what it might lack in quality it definitely makes up in quantity. With over 1.5 million free images, you are guaranteed to find something to use here.StockSnapOne more free stock photo site to browse for a perfect image for your slide deck. Somewhere between Pexels and Pixabay in terms of curation.MockupsJarThis a great free tool for creating mockups for devices and packagings. Need an image where your label is printed on a bottle or a box, or one where your app is seen in a natural environment? This one is for you.Magic MockupsMagic Mockups is similar to MockupsJar, but with a focus purely on mobile devices. The stock photos feature a bit older devices. Free.

No Code Development

StorylineThis is a simple drag and drop tool for creating skills for Amazon Alexa. Want to create a voice-enabled service without a single line of code? This one is for you. Free!ChatfuelThe most accessible tool for creating Facebook Chatbots, zero code needed. Free for basic features, Pro plan starting from $15/month.FlowXOMy personal favorite tool for developing chatbots, with a massive library of ready-made connections to third-party APIs and services. Requires a bit more technical savvy, but still entirely drag and drop with excellent tutorials.BubbleThe one-stop tool for creating web apps without any code. One of the tools that I find myself returning to again and again. Check out their showcase if you don't believe me.ZapierDead simple tool for connecting different online services together. Want new e-mails to be instantly pushed to a Google Sheet? Maybe you need your chatbot to be able to create new tickets in Trello? Zapier can do all that and much, much more.Fun fact: they got started in Startup Weekend.

Landing Pages

CarrdCarrd is my current favorite tool for quickly creating websites. Fun fact: this website was built in an afternoon with it. Free for basic features, but the $9/year Pro upgrade is absolutely worth it.Buffer’s Landing Page ExampleOne of the best examples of Landing Page testing. Explains how Buffer approached their MVP, and how that helped them go from an idea to 500 customers in two months.IntercomThe easiest and most robust way to add a chat on your website or app. The pro version is quite expensive, but a free 14-day trial is available.Tawk.toThis is a completely free alternative to Intercom. It's a bit ugly but certainly gets the job done.

eCommerce

ShopifyWant to run an online store? Shopify is your one-stop solution for that. Hosting, store builder and even drop shipping of goods from China (via Oberlo) can all be handled through Shopify. Free 14-day trial.StripeOne of the most developer-friendly services for accepting payments period. Features plug-ins and ready-made integrations with many popular services like Shopify for the strictly no-code crowd.PayPalThe trusty workhorse for accepting payments online. Very similar services to Stripe, including plug and play type integrations with most online sales platforms.

Benchmarking and Research

BetaListGreat website for discovering new and emerging startups. Use this for benchmarking competition and getting inspired.Product HuntThe front page of the online makerverse. Daily new startups promoted by other creators. Great place to discover new startups and tools, and also a place to feature your own creations.Angel List SearchSearch through over 4 million startups and discover details of previous funding rounds. Great tool for benchmarking.Google TrendsEver wanted to find out what people are Googling for and where? This is a fantastic free tool by Google for measuring consumer demand and doing market research.

Tool Repositories

NewCo ToolkitA curated collection of tools for startups from NewCo, who also run a 30-day Startup Bootcamp.Bootstrapping tools by Mohammad KayhaniSuper extensive collection of tools for early-stage startups by Mohammad Kayhani. Like all tool repositories, it can be a bit overwhelming.Google Ventures Design Sprint KitThe Design Sprint Kit is an online collection of tools, templates, and exercises for co-creation and validation. It's originally meant to supplement the GV Design Sprint, but most techniques work just as well stand alone.Creating Minds repository of Idea Generation techniquesDon't be fooled by the bare bones presentation. This is a substantial list of techniques for those moments when you are stuck in your creative process.Lean Service CreationFuturice's excellent toolkit for creating new services.

Articles and Startup Wisdom

Startup ToolkitRob Fitzpatrick's is the author of the excellent The Mom Test, and also an avid blogger on early-stage startup conundrums. This collection of articles is absolutely priceless for someone new to startups.If you don't have time to skim through it all, at least check The Risk Validation Pyramid and How To Do Early-Stage Customer Development & Sales.Joel Gascoine's BlogJoel Gascoine's (CEO of Buffer) blog is a treasure trove for people new to startups.For Startup Weekend I recommend you read at least What can we do right now?, Achieving scale by doing things that don’t scale and How to name your Startup.15 ways to test your MVPDespite TNW's ad-filled layout, this article by Christopher Blank (growth lead at UXPin) does a great job of listing 15 basic techniques for early validation of your product.Prototyping is always worth itGood article by Futurice's Maria Piirainen on the value of prototyping, and the steps that go into defining a prototype. Part of a series of blog entries written by Futurice originally for Kauppalehti.