Start-Up Guest Blog

I’m Steven Thrasher, serial entrepreneur & IP attorney specializing in software startups.  I, along with about one hundred others, attended November’s Dallas Startup Weekend, and the group I participated with still meets today.  Here’s what has happened to us, and some of what we learned.

Maybe you haven’t attended a Startup Weekend and wonder what happens to the start-ups that are formed over the course of a short weekend.  Maybe you went and wonder “whatever happened to those startups?” Having been there, pitched an idea, and presented at the closing, I wonder these things as well.

Here’s my understanding—at least three groups that pitched are still meeting.  My/our startup was MeetUpSports, and I hope you’ll enjoy our perspective.

The Project

MeetUpSports, which you can see at www.meetupsports.com, allows users to quickly locate people who want to play any given sport, and are close enough to play.  Today, it is merely an instance of a broader and more powerful toolkit of local area social networking modules that allow developers to cut hundreds or thousands of hours out of their development time.  So, in a sense, MeetUpSports was, at startup weekend, a laser-beam narrow application, while the startup that evolved from startup weekend is now a considerably broader and monumentally more ambitious crusade, now called Proxomo.

The People

We started that weekend with eight people, and only lost one on Friday.  One decided not to move forward after the weekend, and one later decided to not participate.  Of the three of us who have been most active, our two developers have worked like pyramid builders.  We chose to pay for the services of a designer (to avoid dilution, and since our experience has been that designers work best when they are working for cash).  And have recently recruited others to the team.  We continue to work almost daily, and are quite cohesive.  Interestingly, everyone now involved had startup experience prior to Startup Weekend.

The Formalities

Proxomo is now incorporated, has a board of directors, and is following corporate formalities.  A trade secrets program is in place.  A patent application and two copyright applications have been filed, and a trademark search has been performed on Proxomo and other potential brands.  We also have set up internal email accounts.

The Way Forward

Not only was Startup Weekend the prime moving event in our company, we plan to use the next Startup Weekend to tell our story and recruit more developers, designers, marketing minds, and at least one “accountant-type” to our team.  We anticipate introducing our MeetUpSports beta at the Startup Weekend, and will roll out our Proxomo Beta at AppCon (www.appconlv.com) which will be held in Las Vegas in August, where we have been asked to pitch and present.

What We Learned

To summarize, have high hopes, but keep expectations low as to not take on too much and rush to finish Sunday afternoon–enjoy the energy.  But remember, energy dissipates, though, for some and “real life” intervenes for others.  So, avoid expecting to be able to create realistic corporate formalities or equity distributions around the time of Startup Weekend.  Also, expect to have little more than vaporware (or crude prototype for non-software startups) by Sunday evening.

What We Would Like to See

More marketing types.  More accounting types.  More angels.  Non-tech startups–  Gadgets.  More fun stuff.  And, the skills and energy you bring the to event.

I would very much like to hear about where the other Startup Weekend startups are.