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Building a Community, Byte by Byte
Local Web developers, designers, marketers and entrepreneurs convened at Viget Labs in Falls Church to create and launch a start-up in one weekend.
(By Richard A. Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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Weekend warriors from seven of the eight ventures continue working on their fledgling companies. However, the odds are stacked against them.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]"A very small percentage succeed," said Lloyd Shefsky, clinical professor of entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "People start up Web site businesses in the thousands daily."
So what happens when a bunch of strangers rally to form a start-up?
At 6 p.m. on Friday, people began arriving at Web consulting firm Viget Labs, the weekend's Falls Church headquarters.
Several wasted no time blogging about their ideas. Ground rule: There will be no use of the word "awesome" -- ever.
Soon the office devolved into pandemonium as the participants brainstormed ideas and put them to a vote. Competing factions held secret meetings to strategize how to generate the most votes and voice their opinions.
At 8:51 p.m. the winning idea of a neighborhood social network narrowly beat out a restaurant-matching system and a job board. Supporters imagined a site where neighbors could post updates and meet one another. A condo manager might use such a system to send out a notice that the hot water is being shut off, or a resident could finally learn his neighbor's name.
One blog entry recounts the response: "Andrew just posed the question 'How many people are still jazzed about the idea?' About 26 people raised their hands."
Clarifying the concept created more debates, so some participants hung around until Viget Labs kicked them out. Others decided to follow rule No. 11 of the weekend: Leave at anytime.
"We understand people have families, they have lives," Kern said. "Hey, you gotta live."
Plus, there was a launch party underway for the Leopard operating system at the Tysons Corner Apple store.
By Saturday morning, the event had lost a few participants. Still, at 9 a.m., people were knocking on the door, ready to work.
