Start a Business With 100+ People In 3 Days…
By Luke Murray
Last month I went to up to UC for a couple days to start a company. Yes…start a company in a few days…a weekend to be exact. Apparently, I’m not the only person crazy enough to do this - there were 100+ other people there that planned on doing the same thing. And, just to clear up some confusion:
- No - We didn’t know each other
- No - We didn’t know how we were going to make money
- No - We didn’t have a business plan
- No - WE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT BUSINESS WE WERE GOING TO START
The only thing we all knew is that we were sure we’d have something by the end of the day on Sunday. Fortunately, Elizabeth Edwards (@eedwards), Bill Cunningham, Steve Boord, and Dr. Jeff Stamp had done this before last year. It was the second annual InOneWeekend event.
So how do you go about getting 100 people to make something from nothing in two and a half days? Well, I don’t really know for sure, but I did learn this:
- Organized chaos is unavoidable and necessary.
I mean both words. Organized AND chaos. Jeff and Elizabeth had a “plan” throughout the weekend. It started with teaching, and then ideation, and then consistent updates on the project’s progress. All weekend long we were trying to hit benchmarks and timelines. However, Jeff was careful not to make the decisions himself or to force us to do anything specific…which meant we spent A LOT of time not having a clue what we were going to do. I probably heard “I don’t know what we’re doing” about 1,428 times. The good part is that this confusion and lack of complete clarity didn’t keep people from participating. The participation, of course added to the confusion and the chaos (if you add 100 people’s two cents up, you’ve got more than pocket change…and a lot of pennies to count) but it ended up creating a REALLY well thought through idea. No angle hadn’t been considered. So once we were able to go…we really took off, which made me realize…
- Deciding on what you are going to do is at least half the battle
We started thinking about ideas at around 6 or 7pm on Friday and still hadn’t started “working” in the traditional sense over 24 hours later. We didn’t even have a name until Saturday night. BUT once we did clarify what our idea was going to be (Dipidee - a last minute local deal finder for services - i.e. sporting events) we made an amazing amount of progress. The idea had been scrutinized and clarified so much that when all 100 people were cut loose to start working on it they knew exactly what they were working on. How far we got by Sunday was what really surprised me the most though…
- It’s amazing what can happen when people set “unrealistic” goals
Yep, 100 people that didn’t know each other or what they were going to do ultimately were able to put together thorough market research, financials, screen shots, basic back end functionality, a logo, and even a short commercial. It was impressive to say the least, and I really am glad that people like the folks at Neyer Holdings are out there encouraging us to do something we wouldn’t have thought possible if we were doing it all by ourselves…especially not in one weekend.
So sign up for Dipidee to find out more about how this “experiment turned company” grows.
Dipidee - Jump on it!
http://www.dipidee.com/
The Idea Festival - What It’s ACTUALLY About
By Luke Murray
For three days every year, some of the most brilliant innovators in the world converge in Louisville, KY to attend The Idea Festival - a TED-esque conference that comes in the form of a series of lectures and performances by leaders in all areas of left and/or right-brained professions. I decided to join them this year to answer one seemingly simple question: “Why?”
Unfortunately, I found out very quickly that “Why?” was actually one of the most complex questions I could have asked. Each person I spoke to had a different answer. Some were from the University of Kentucky Gaines Fellowship Program or the UK Chellgren Undergraduate Fellows Program. Some of these students were simply there to broaden their perspective, while others had specific interests in a certain lecture as they pertained to research they were doing. The University of Louisville School of Medicine had several students attend as well. Some were attending as musicians interested in hearing Dr. Kogan - a world-renowned psychiatrist and pianist. Others were attending as clinicians hoping for a balanced life, wanting to hear how Dr. Kogan has successfully pulled off juggling two careers. The list, of course, goes on. There were several hundred people in attendance…I only got to ask thirty or so…
…But then there’s the event organizers themselves. Kris Kimel of the Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation, the conference’s organizer, often answers this “Why?” question with answers like: “to share ideas”, “to make ideas open and available to people”, “to make ideas open source”. Hmm…no attendees talked like this?
At first glance it sounded like the reason people came to the conference and the reason the conference was put on were different. This is not unusual. Oftentimes people come together to make a transaction for completely different reasons. We go to McDonald’s to buy a hamburger because we’re hungry. The people that work at McDonald’s are there to make you a hamburger because they want to make money - nothing wrong with that…because everyone ultimately gets what they want. However, in this case I found that the desires of the organizers and the attendees ultimately did come together if you asked “Why?” and listened long enough.
Why do the organizers put it on? So that people can share unique realizations (i.e. Dr. Kogan sharing his discovery that Tchaikovsky was most likely clinically depressed through studying his letters, journals, and music)…or not so unique realizations but from a unique perspective (i.e. A.J. Jacobs learning about the importance of focus by Unitasking for four months). Why do they want to do this? So that others can hear about them. Why do they want others to hear about them? Well that’s where the desires of the organizers meet the motives of its attendees.
The Idea Festival is not about ideas.
Why do people show up? It’s not simply to be exposed to a new thought, something they’ve never considered before. Yes, it’s interesting to know that possums have 13 nipples (thanks Mr. Jacobs) but having this piece of knowledge shared with me isn’t why Kris Kimel and his wonderful staff spend all year preparing for this event. The point of the Idea Festival is to create inspired ideas, that do teach us something but ultimately will change our behavior in a way that benefits the world.
Dr. Kogan played the piano beautifully and I was thoroughly interested in his stories about Tchaikovsky’s personal, professional, and mental life, but what I ultimately took from his playing and his presentation is the realization and the intention that I too can choose to inspire, educate, and entertain the world in ways that “fit” my interests and talents - no matter how unique. Mr. Jacobs gave me the idea AND the inspiration to spend a month living with my grandparents, something I’ve always wanted to do but thought was too ‘crazy’ of an idea to try. After hearing about his experiences with living biblically for a year, reading the whole Encyclopedia Britannica, and becoming a woman - taking some time “off” with no other purpose but to learn didn’t sound nearly as impossible or unreasonable.
An Idea doesn’t make the world a better place and everyone that attends or puts on the Idea Festival knows that. But an idea coming from a person that embodies its principles can ultimately catalyze someone to take action on it in a way that motivates them to change their world. That’s what the Idea Festival is ACTUALLY about. Unfortunately for me, the “Inspired Ideas Festival” doesn’t have nearly as nice of a ring to it 
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Lessons From the First “Invention Saturday”
by Luke Murray
Last Saturday Awesome Labs had their first official event in conjunction with the Central Kentucky Inventors Council and Newton’s Attic called “Invention Saturday”. The idea was to build a Rube Goldberg machine in a single day, and it had its genesis from the concept of Startup Weekend, where a group of people get together and start a business in the course of a weekend. A little over a dozen people showed up on Saturday morning, ranging in age from 18 to 80 and after a breakfast of Dunkin Donuts, we got to work coming up with what the machine would do and the overly complex series of steps necessary to get it to accomplish this task. Eight hours later we were able to open a door and after six or seven crazy steps, turn on a light bulb. I learned a lot about physics and mechanical engineering that day but I also learned three important things about making ideas into a reality - whether it’s a business, a Rube Goldberg machine, or a ground vehicle aerodynamic-enhancing truck modification (another current Awesome Labs project).
When it’s low cost & low risk, pull the trigger before you’re “ready”. Brandon, one of the UK engineering students that participated in I.S. found some steel cage material and a ball and had the idea of putting in a 3-dimensional ‘kerplunk’ type apparatus similar to The Price Is Right game show. With those 2 objects he decided that was what he would build, and so he just started building. If he would have waited and planned out exactly all the materials he needed, he never would have finished it by the end of the day, because the way it had to interface with all the other things around it had not been determined yet (what would be directly before it? what would follow?). He had to continually adapt to what he was doing in order to make it fit everything around him. The same is true of any idea. Start working on it now and be ready to change the peripheral details about how you get it done…because those are always in flux.
Getting simple things done consistently is hard. Christopher and Andrew, two other UK students had a very simple idea: have a cylinder swing and knock a hammer backwards, and then have that hammer knock a ball over as it swung forwards again. Seems really easy, but getting this right took A LOT of tinkering, and if it didn’t work it killed the whole machine right away…as it was one of the first steps. The lesson here is don’t procrastinate on the ’simple’ parts of your idea because you think they’ll be easy and take no time. Odds are it will end up being much more difficult than you think.
Old people + Young people = Awesome people.
There is a lot of talk about how important diversity is and for the most part I disagree with it because when it’s implemented, it is usually diversity for diversity’s sake. However, when everyone is excited about working towards a common goal together, having a range of ages and experiences really comes out in how well things get done and the opportunity for teaching that goes on. Bill Cloyd, owner of Newton’s Attic (a company that offers interesting educational experiences…like this one) was able to offer help and ideas to some of the engineering students there and the students were really glad to be surrounded by professional engineers, inventors, physicists, etc. The give and take was very apparent…not only in the moral but in the results.
So, in eight hours we pulled it off and made something really easy into something really complicated…but we also managed to learn the importance of an itchy trigger finger, the complexity of simplicity, and the importance of team diversity when trying to do something Awesome!
A Letter to the People of Columbus, OH
by Luke Murray
Dear Members of the Hi Tech, Creative, and Entrepreneurial Communities of Columbus,
I visited your fine city a couple weeks ago in order to attend an Innovation Series Event put on by Ben & Sandy Blanquera about Local iPhone and Mobile Innovation & Development . I’m planning on bringing a mobile phone technology conference to Columbus in January, so this seemed the perfect opportunity to meet the folks in the community that would know the most about this scene. Being that I own a collaborative workspace for engineers, artists, and entrepreneurs I also wanted to see what I could learn about those in your city that live at this intersection of technology, creativity, and startups. Often we become so accustomed to our own environments that we don’t realize and appreciate their unique and admirable qualities. I’ve written this letter to remind you of these quirks and qualities of your great community.
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The ‘hotspots’ of entrepreneurship in your community are simultaneously isolated and integrated. When I first arrived at the Dublin Entrepreneur Center (the DEC) I was surprised at how little there was surrounding it. It wasn’t on or near a commercialized strip or even restaurants. At first this struck me as a particularly undesirable thing (since my organization - which is my only frame of reference - is on Main Street in downtown Lexington), but as I walked through the space and met some of the thriving companies inside, it began to make much more sense. |
Parking was plentiful and not crowded, the lack of ‘distractions’ surrounding the building set it apart as a place where you come to do value-creating work, and the space inside allowed companies to move grow much more easily than if they were having to jump from one office to another around downtown.
| Avitae, a startup that makes caffeinated water, took advantage of this exact situation and slowly expanded its operation one office at a time on the 4th floor until they had outgrown the remaining space on that floor and had to move…down to the 3rd floor. How convenient! |
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At the same time, despite this apparent ‘isolation’ when I walked inside the DEC there were people in your community working together openly and connecting with each other. I had no trouble meeting people, as many of them were coming up to introduce themselves to me (Kevin Dwinnell of Brand Thunder introduced himself to me right off the elevator)! Also, I quickly found out that not only were they physically connected in how everyone seemed to know everyone, they were also incredibly networked digitally. Super connectors like both Ben (@bblanquera) & Sandy (@sblanquera) Blanquera, as well as Rocky Vanbrimmer (@rockson), Jody Dzuranin (@jodyncolumbus), and Jon Myers (@jonmyers) are all connected via social media and seem to really be able to pull together a social gathering of any kind. Also, the physical layout of the community is connected to each other as well. I visited the TechColumbus incubator and the coworking spaces in the area and they all seemed to be right in the heart of the action.
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The city is really supportive of what’s going on financially and logistically. Willie Neumann’s 14ninetytwo program (a ycombinator-esque bootcamp/investment fund for entrepreneurs in the mobile and/or web space) is being supported on all levels by local government and community members. At the event he talked about 14NinetyTwo’s Weekend of Discovery that was scheduled to begin the next day and it sounded like he had put together a great program. |
Your community is thriving, both in size and energy. The DEC is HUGE! The number of companies in there, the average size of companies, etc. are all impressive. Also, the number of places that house these communities is much larger than I realized. As I mentioned, I stopped by TechColumbus and all three coworking spaces in town on my visit. I spent a considerable amount of time at Sandbox with David Hunegnaw (@hunegnaw) and Tina Goodman (@tinagoodman) and was really impressed by their enthusiasm and genuine care for the creative and entrepreneurial community of Columbus as a whole (not just of their specific coworking space).
I also stopped by Indiehouse and Qwirk to see how they were setup. Everyone was very welcoming and it seems like the coworking ‘environment’ on a whole is rapidly trending upwards, as each shop has similar stories and timelines of growth.
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The energy of your city also shows itself in the turnouts it has for its events. Jon Myers’s launch party for his his company’s first iPhone app Cornhole Allstars was well attended, and both Columbus Startup Weekend events had some of the highest turnouts I’ve ever heard. Hats off to all the people that have contributed to and been a part of this growing, welcoming, and energetic community.
A special thanks to Ben and Sandy Blanquera, & Rick Copland for their help in making sure I was able to get as thorough picture of the Columbus technological, creative, and startup communities in 24 short hours! |
- Luke Murray, Awesome Inc.
Rule #17 Bring the fun.
P.S. A blog summary of the Local iPhone and Mobile Innovation & Development event, as well as a video interview of Jon Myers, Adam Winter (Joe Metric - great idea, btw), and myself can be found here courtesy of Sandy. http://columbustech.blogspot.com/2009/08/local-iphone-innovation-cornhole.html
Forge Lexington
by Nathan Fort
Last Wednesday, Awesome Inc attended the second Forge Lexington event at Silvacola Farm, hosted by Lyle Hannah and his wife. For those who are not familiar with Forge Lexington, it is a networking event designed to bring together investors and entrepreneurs in the Lexington area.
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The Silvacola Farm provided a nice relaxed setting to enjoy cocktails, excellent food, and priceless networking time with some of the most accomplished and esteemed individuals in the Bluegrass. The Forge community is represented by a wide diversity of individuals ranging from first time business owners to seasoned professionals. |
Networking and great food aside, Forge invites a guest speaker to each event to give a brief talk about their achievements in business. For this event, Drew Curtis the founder of Fark.com was invited to speak. Curtis is the author of the Amazon bestseller, It’s Not News, It’s FARK: How Mass Media Tries to Pass off Crap as News.
Fark.com is a news aggregator and an edited social networking news site. According to the site, it receives 2,000 or so news submissions daily from its readership. The site was the first indie blogs to earn one million dollars a year in profit. Curtis has been featured in Business 2.0 and similar publications highlighting his success and accomplishments.
Despite the huge success of Fark.com, Curtis to this day lives and runs his business from Lexington, Ky. Curtis explained the cost benefit of living and working in Lexington versus relocating to the Valley or similar communities. Drew explained the importance of the community and its relaxed culture that surrounds business startups. He talked about the absence of this notion to “hurry up and fail” so that you can move on to your next venture. The culture in the Bluegrass allows you to take your time and grow your business at a much more relaxed pace.
Curtis went on to explain that Lexington really isn’t as disconnected as people claim. If he were to receive a call at 7:30 one evening he could realistically be on the West Coast by the next morning for a meeting. The low cost of living in Lexington allows him to expand at a much greater rate for significantly less money.
Overall, one can conclude that the Bluegrass is a great place to start and maintain a business. The low cost of living and demand for innovative jobs allow entrepreneurs to expand their businesses and prosper much quicker than in most other regions of the country.
Forge Lexington truly is a unique gathering of entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, thought leaders and supporters of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. I urge any entrepreneurs or investors reading this blog to attend the next Forge event to discover its true value and worth.
