Startup Weekend in Miami

I just attended a Startup Weekend. It was an amazing experience. It was intense.

Here are my takeaways:

• The idea

On Friday, 67 persons pitched an idea. It was apparently an all-time record among Startup Weekends. I was really surprised by the percentage of crappy ideas. Around 10 or so seemed appealing/viable to me.
After that, the attendees had to vote for ideas to do a selection. The idea that received the most votes didn't win at the end. Interestingly enough, the 2 persons that came up with this idea had a large team but ended up being 2 on Sunday night....
I chose to join a guy who had an idea that I pitched 3 years ago. A platform that allows you to find co-founders with complementary skills. In addition, he wanted the platform to connect entrepreneurs with investors. I thought it wasn't a good idea since many platforms already exist for that purpose. We ended up dropping that part.

• The team matters

The 3 groups that won were very large teams. Maybe it reflects the fact that a lot of people joined because they saw the business potential. I've always thought that the more brains you have the better, even though you encounter diminishing returns. You may hit a ceiling at some point, like when you do focus groups. Also, the more diversified the team, the better. You don't want a team with only business people. And obviously, the smarter the people in your team, the better.

• Vive les mentors

I originally love to listen entrepreneurs and investors being interviewed. Most of the time, discussing with smart people with experience and precious knowledge is truly valuable. Throughout the weekend, several mentors came in our room to help us, sometimes several times. It was really helpful and inspiring. Sometimes they all clearly agree on something. The interesting part comes when they provide contradicting opinions on a topic. You have to recall that these are just opinions.

• Methodology

We used a condensed version of the lean approach. This was recommended by the organizers of Startup Weekend. I think it's better to come to the event with an idea that has been already well-thought regarding all aspects (secret sauce, market, business model,...) so that you can focus on developing it. Our problem was that we kept talking strategy all weekend. We pivoted at least 7 times! We changed the problem we wanted to solve, our solution, the customers we were targeting... The most difficult thing for us was to figure out how to monetize our platform. It's great to have a good idea but what is interesting for the investors is how you are going to make money, be it short-term or long-term. We went off in all different directions on that one!
This leads us to the minimum viable product (MVP). For startup weekend, our mentors advised us to talk only about our MVP during the final presentation. If I give you $1,000 tomorrow what would you do? What would you build? Who would you target? How would you acquire customers?.... We fell into the trap of wanting to present a real business plan.
Keep it simple stupid. We wanted to solve all the problems that a young entrepreneur could have: finding a co-founder, dealing with legal and accounting stuff, raising seed money... It's often better to focus on one problem... or 2 if you can with a single solution. The original will to provide something to connect entrepreneurs and investors was even an attempt to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.
That's why you need to validate everything you present and every assumption that you have. The investors are really picky about that. Check how many people seem affected by the problem you have identified. Is it a real problem? You want to charge these customers x dollars? Verify that they are willing to pay this amount etc... It can be difficult because at startup weekend you don't have much time. We were lucky to have plenty of aspiring student entrepreneurs at hand to validate our idea.
You also need to do a competitor analysis. Analyze thoroughly the solutions that exist and see if you are filling a gap or provide something at least 10 times better.

• Time management is key

Even though the mentors were really helpful, sometimes you have to stop talking and work. Validate the assumptions, build the prototype, work on the presentation...
We had 54 hours. As a result of our endless strategy discussions, we ended up creating our final presentation in 15 minutes. This is the worst case scenario. We thought we had everything ready. We pitched on Sunday morning our platform to all the mentors. They pointed out all the traps mentioned above. We had to do almost everything again.

• Knowledge

I was happy to find that the years I spent in class paid off this weekend. It was a practical way to use what I learned, not to mention the books I have read, especially "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries in this case. 
I even had to explain to my fellow teammates what "competition" means. We wanted to provide different services with one product. They thought that we had no competition because we were the only one to provide that. It's completely false. Customers can use different, separate services to accomplish the same goals. I also explained the difference between direct and indirect competitors to them. My teammates were afraid to say that we had competitors. On the contrary, I think you should be honest regarding the competitors and still show faith in your product. Long story short, we voted, we said in our pitch that we had almost no competition, mentors didn't buy it and I had one of these "told you" moment.

PS: We didn't grab a place on the podium but apparently we were on the judges' short list. Check out the Facebook page we created for our startup. However, at the time of writing the page is not relevant anymore because we pivoted since then...
PPS: Thanks to the organizers and FIU!