NSW08

I must say that Nashville Startup Weekend exceeded my expectations. The skillset of the attendees was amazing. I am still trying to fathom how roughly 60 people could accomplish that much work in one weekend. This weekend proved that Nashville is coming up quickly in the world of technology. 

Out of the 36 ideas that were presented, I felt that at least 75% could have legs with the right team working on it. Some of the ideas that were best of the crowd were Nicholas Holland’s GPS Assassins i-phone application, Neighborhood Mooch by Danesh Deva, and barBoodle (by the way, I will always be a homer) by David Ledgerwood. The amazing thing was the quality of the talent in the room. People were working outside of their comfort zones all weekend. Developers were doing graphics, designers were writing copy, and no one was complaining. Imagine seeing that in your organization.

barBoodle

Only at Nashville Startup Weekend can a joke end up as a full-fledged business plan. I ended up working on an idea that was pitched as a joke. The initial idea was to develop a system that allowed bar goers to text to a central screen in order to make fun of their friends. It ended as a data aggregation company that leverages bars in order to amass data. Yes, it did require a few paradigm shifts, but we did realize that a team of bar veterans can come up with a well thought out idea (If given enough creative juice!)

The Experience as a Whole

Seeing intelligent, hard-working people showing dedication to what could be described as “novelty ideas” could motivate anyone to push their selves. The participants in this year’s event accomplished more work for fun in a weekend than most people accomplish in a week for a paycheck. I have a completely different perspective about what it takes to start a company than I had before this experience. I made quite a few new friends and am now officially a twitter user.

I would like to thank Nicholas Holland and Jason Moore for all of the hard work that they did in making Nashville Startup Weekend a reality.

Next year, hopefully, I will be able to sell an idea to work on at #nsw09!