Geek #

I love Mexico. It has been my home for the last 8 years.
But Mexico is not perfect. No country is.
There are some big problems in Mexico. Big pains. Like corruption. Like security. Like monopolies. Like the eternal “I’ll pay you tomorrow”. Millions and millions of people are affected.
Yet startups are focusing on stuff like social networks for pets, finding a place to eat or knowing if some stranger is happy or sad.

So here is my challenge:

BIG PAINS + BIG MARKET

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?

EDIT: I received several comments (thanks, Tavo!) and I want to make this clear: there is nothing wrong with working on ANY kind of idea. If you’re passionate about it and you have found a pain and a market you should definitely do it! I do feel that entrepreneurs don’t see the forest because of the trees sometimes. While looking for “cool” ideas, we miss the huge opportunity that is right in front of us, every day. My challenge is to take advantage of that opportunity and help make Mexico a better place in the process.

“Team X needs a developer! Any developers left?”
If you’ve been to a Startup Weekend event that probably sounds familiar. If you were part of team X, it also probably means you failed at networking. There were 30 developers in the crowd – how many did you talk to? How many heard your pitch?

At the first Startup Weekend I attended I only talked to about 4 people before the pitches started. Coincidence or not – my idea got only 4 votes. At the next one I tried to meet as much people as possible. The idea that I pitched was one of the top voted ones. See the pattern there?

I’m a developer at heart. I prefer interacting with software instead of people. I am “socially challenged”. I did learn a few tips and tricks that helped me overcome it though. Of course, they apply to any kind of networking, not just Startup Weekend events.

1. Don’t sit down

If you sit down (at a table for example) you’ll only talk to your neighbours. You’ll also be less accessible to other people. You don’t want that.

Sitting down makes you look inaccessible

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Last weekend I had the honor of facilitating Startup Weekend Morelia. It was my second time as facilitator and a learning experience for me.

The whole crew

The event was the biggest and had one of the best organization of the 7 Startup Weekends I attended so far. There seems to be a trend – as the lean startup community grows in Mexico, every Startup Weekend event is better than the last, in organization, the quality of the pitched ideas and their execution.

The thing that impressed me most was the drive the participants had – there was an electrical failure on Friday night when everyone was just getting started, but they just kept working as if nothing happened. KUDOS!

Working in the dark

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The fastest and the cheapest way to validate if the potential customers really have the pain or need you think they do is to have 15 minute talks with some of them (just make sure they actually fit the profile).

Don’t sell

You want honest feedback and information. You won’t get it if the person in front of you is trying to determine whether he or she needs your product.

In fact, don’t even tell them your idea (yet)

You don’t want bias in their replies. And they will be biased if they know your idea, consciously or unconsciously applying it to their case.

Ask open-ended questions

Don’t do a survey. You have access to a real person – find out his or hers experiences and feelings, that will give you way more information than some preset answers.

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Or tell me what it is in 12 and sell it to me in 6. Whatever works best for you.

When describing the product, be clear on what it does and who should use it. Don’t leave me guessing what your product does and if it applies to me.

For the selling part, be creative. How would you capture the interest of a person that fits your client profile using just a few words? Stay away from generic taglines like “the best X in the market”. Make me react, make me click.

Why?

Because you have less than a second to impress a potential client arriving at your landing page.

Because that’s somehing you can fit in a Google or Facebook ad. You’ll want that.

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Taking full advantage of mentors, especially during intensive events like Startup Weekend, depends a lot on the capability of the team to receive mentoring. So, here are a few tips & tricks to ensure you’ll take full advantage of your mentoring sessions.

Gabriela Enrigue mentoring in SW Aguascalientes

1. Listen

Not all the things the mentors say to you are to your liking. But getting into a debate will not help you. Listen and take notes.

2. Look for actionable advice

Is he/she telling you to do more customer development? Or to release a prototype ASAP? To investigate your competition? You should leave with a task list.

3. Be honest

Answer the questions honestly and to the point. You have nothing to gain if you try to look smart by dodging the question.

4. Don’t sell

The mentor is not your client. So why would you try to sell your product to him or her? Don’t look for validation of your idea with your mentor. You have your (potential) customers for that.

Corollary: the mentor might not be convinced by your product, but then again, he is not your client!

Continue reading →

The last weekend I had the opportunity to take part in the Startup Weekend Aguascalientes event. It was my first time as a facilitator and I must say it was a great learning experience for me.

The amazing crew

The local organizing team did a great job preparing and spreading the word about the event. It was the first time I got to see banners and billboards about Startup Weekend spread all over the city.

The University of Aguascalientes provided a very appropriate venue for the event. The only drawback was that the university policy didn’t allow us to spend the nights on the campus. Sad to see that the security situation in Mexico affects us in so many ways. Even so, several teams spent the nights working at one of their member’s home. And at 7:30 AM there were already about 15 people working hard at the campus.

There were almost 100 participants, most of them students or recently graduated. It was very interesting in this context to see 2 elderly participants, a successful business man and a taxi driver (!) looking for to improve the service he and his colleagues are providing. So nice to see that the entrepreneur spirit has no boundaries. Continue reading →

One thing I noticed while organizing Startup Weekend Monterrey is that a some of people are in it for the prize, they see it first of all as a competition. In my opinion, although competition events add real value to the entrepreneur space, there are several problems with that view for Startup Weekend events.

Prizes. The prizes in Startup Weekend events are not that appealing – you don’t get any material trophy, just fame & glory and something to help you continue with your startup.

Teams. In Startup Weekend events the teams get formed on the fly, with people that just met a few minutes ago. If you are in it for the win, this doesn’t work. You’ll want to have a well formed team that already knows how to work together.

Ideas. As mentioned in this blog post (“A bolder idea?” part), you’ll want to know more about the viability of the idea you’ll be working on so you’ll choose a project with more chances of success. A 100 persons debate on the market share or competition (things that the teams will do anyway) for all the 40-70 presented ideas would take all night and probably become unmanageable.

Collaboration. Different teams collaborating or helping each other is a common sight in Startup Weekend events. If the focus is on the competition, this would not happen – if you’re interested in winning there is no point in wasting time helping a rival team.

The fact that there is a winner and that there are prizes can be misleading to the participants in a Startup Weekend. The real value you get is the experience (from the “elevator pitch” all the way to the feedback received from the jury) and the networking. Everybody wins that!

I still think teams that do an exceptional job in one or all of the areas should be congratulated by the jury and get their “fame & glory”. Have perks for the teams to help them build their startup further.

Just don’t make it about the competition – that is another type of event, with a different dynamic and interaction between the participants.

This past weekend the first (I hope of many) Startup Weekend Monterrey took place, an event I’ve been  organizing for the last 2 months as part of with a great “ninja” team.

As a former participant in the Startup Weekend events in Mexico City and Guadalajara, it was very interesting to me to see the event with the detachment and global view of an organizer. So, I’ll be posting some of the random thoughts I had.

(Part 1 here)

Canvas time

From what I’ve seen most teams spent almost all Saturday working on their Business Canvas. I guess the fact that we had printed canvases waiting for them on their work desks has something to do with it, I hope it wasn’t a bad idea. The downside was that only few got to do some “get out of the building” style customer development. And I think about half of the teams didn’t really get to validate their hypothesis at all.

Still lost on Sunday morning

There were teams that still struggled to find a model that could work on Sunday morning, with only a few hours to go until the final presentation. It always happens, I guess. It amazes me that they always seem to find a way and get the presentation done on time.

Design

I found it weird that a couple of teams decided to concentrate on great design and worry later about the business model. In the end they did come up with “the numbers” but I doubt they got to validate their value proposition with real potential clients. And in this type of events the judges will probably question your business, not the design or implementation, sorry.

Non profit? You still need the business model and customer development

There were 2 projects that declared themselves as “non-profit” or at least “not in it for the money”. What are they doing in an event that is focused on creating businesses? It turns out they need to validate their hypothesis about client needs just as a for-profit business. And, more importantly, they need to be scalable with few available resources, an even more difficult task in their case.

Community

One thing we knew when we started was that there was no organized startupper community in Monterrey that we could contact and spread the word. In fact one of the reasons we organized the event was to get this kind of people together. I hope I’m not wrong, but I think that this is the greatest success of the Startup Weekend Monterrey: entrepreneurs now know they are not alone, they are in contact, they want to do meet-ups and other events and to take it to the next level.

Monterrey pride

Unfortunately, Monterrey is going through some rough times. The drug-related violence of the last couple of years has made it a dangerous place to live. Just 2 weeks prior to our event, an attack on a casino resulted in 52 deaths and left the city and the whole Mexico in shock. That’s why I think there was a parallel agenda in our event. This was part of the citizens’ response. You could feel that all the participants at Startup Weekend Monterrey were proud to show that good things are being done here, that there are still a lot of people here that build instead of destroying. Once again in my time in Mexico, these people surprised me with their resilience. I felt humbled and proud to be part of it.

This past weekend the first (I hope of many) Startup Weekend Monterrey took place, an event I’ve been  organizing for the last 2 months as part of with a great “ninja” team.

As a former participant in the Startup Weekend events in Mexico City and Guadalajara, it was very interesting to me to see the event with the detachment and global view of an organizer. So, I’ll be posting some of the random thoughts I had.

Most pitched ideas don’t seem so great at first

I’ve noticed that in the other events I took part too, but I blamed the fact that I was too concentrated on how to make my sale pitch and didn’t give them enough of my attention. Anyway, this makes the final presentations even more amazing, seeing what a good team can do with one of those ideas I thought was unclear or generic or impossible. I’ve learned my lesson to keep an open mind, and I realized I even came to expect the “miracle transformations” during the weekend.

Most people are so concentrated on pitching their idea that they are oblivious to everything else

We had a simple routine, where after pitching the person would go to the back of the stage and in order to write their idea on the panels used later for voting. It was funny to see one guy forgetting to do that, people making signs to redirect him, and then the next and the next, most of them failing to register what happened before their turn while waiting in line.

Put passion in your presentation

I’m  still working on this for myself. Also, please don’t use enterprise sounding long words, not with this crowd. Keep it real.

Teams form fast

After the voting, I was surprised to see how fast teams formed, in spite of the fact that, due to the architecture of the place, the team leaders were kind of spread and not visible. Before I knew it, the work areas were full and the teams already started to work.

“Deserters” happen

I really didn’t notice this in the events I took part as a participant, but apparently it happens all the time. A few people left because they wanted to work only on their idea. It made me sad to see among them a couple of my friends. Some had advances on their project and didn’t want to waste time working on another idea. That brings me to the next point:

New idea vs. project already on the way

Startup Weekend is about Lean Startupping, about doing customer development, business model generation – basically being able to change and adapt your idea. If you have a partial developed product, you’ve lost a good deal of your flexibility, the things you can change without throwing your past work away are limited. It’s way more difficult to get people to join your project because they would feel like they’re missing out on that experience and also not be able to assume ownership of the idea.

(part 2)