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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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Team leaders and the name HolaNeighbor.com emerged in the afternoon (after an initial choice turned out to already be reserved.)
[an error occurred while processing this directive]Game 3 of the World Series and malfunctioning wireless Internet access caused some disruption. Yet, at 9 p.m. they had a prototype.
Sunday afternoon, Viget Labs smelled like a fast-food joint. Open bags of chips were scattered around the room, and beer bottles sat in a bucket of melted ice.
The excitement was still high, and people were still tossing around new ideas.
"Hey, remember that Seinfeld episode where Kramer posts Polaroids of all the apartment tenants on the lobby wall? And everyone gets mad at Jerry when he doesn't want his up there?" said Martin Ringlein, co-founder of Nclud, a D.C. Web design firm.
"We should do a photo wall," said Brian Williams, co-founder of Viget Labs.
The marketing team put promotional videos on YouTube. Developers writing code sat fixed in the glow of their laptops.
But as the clock ticked toward midnight, some extra features had to be sacrificed.
By the time HolaNeighbor officially launched at 11:57 p.m., about 30 people remained. Participants popped open champagne, as Hyde logged in as the first user.
Error message. A collective groan went around the room. But they laughed it off and toasted the alpha version of the site anyway.
"Heeey! Alpha!" they called, raising their glasses.
Monday, some skipped out on work to take midday naps. Others avoided their computers. Williams cleaned guacamole off his office walls.
"I think this more of a start-up kind of town than people give it credit for," he said.
