Startup Weekend is a community-oriented event that Tech-stars sponsors. Tech-stars is a startup accelerator program, with locations across the world. In addition to its core accelerator program, Tech-stars runs several community-oriented programs and events, including Startup Weekend. Startup Weekend is a global event series that brings together aspiring entrepreneurs, developers, business professionals, and anyone interested in starting a business. It is a 54-hour immersion experience consisting of pitching business ideas, forming teams, developing product prototypes, and launching businesses. It is an entry point for aspiring business founders in that it allows them to dive right into the startup world to see if it is a good fit for them. Since Tech stars acquired Startup Weekend in 2015, it has hosted over 7,000 Startup Weekends, run by 19,000-plus community leaders, in 150-plus countries, with over 428,000 participants. Tech stars calls those leading Startup Weekends organizers. An organizer is a person who is part of an entrepreneurship support organization in a community, such as the director of a startup incubator or accelerator. Organizers are responsible for raising the funds needed to support the expenses of the weekend (food, facilities, and supplies) and to pay for a Tech stars’ facilitator to attend and help lead the weekend. Organizers also recruit participants. Attending a Startup Weekend is not free or overly expensive either in that attendance usually costs about \($50\) to \($100.\) Sometimes a local sponsor, who is willing to pay expenses for all attendees, steps forward. A Startup Weekend is a full weekend event. It typically starts at 6:00 p.m. on a Friday and ends at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Here are the activities for each of the three days: Friday. Friday is usually an exciting night because everyone is anxious to start. Participants have dinner together, and then the pitches begin. Anyone is welcome to make a 60-second pitch of a business idea. Teams come together around the most popular ideas. Depending on the total number of participants, teams usually consist of five to eight people. Saturday. Saturday is a workday, with occasional breaks to eat. Mentors and coaches circulate to support and advise participants. Individual team members reach out to people in their networks to solicit feedback and advice. Teams interview customers. The pace is quick and intense, and the business idea may iterate multiple times. Eventually, there is an agreement about the path to take going forward and a rough prototype, or a minimum viable product, takes shape. The rough prototype might be a website for an e-commerce site, a smartphone app, the first prototype for a product idea, or something else. The objective here is to build the beginnings of a business rather than to merely conceive an idea for a business. Sunday. Work continues throughout the early part of the day. Toward the end of the day, each team pitches its idea to a panel of judges. There is usually some type of prize for the top three ideas. After the weekend ends, the hope is that one or more startups will emerge on which teams will continue to work. Some participants get lucky—they join a team on Friday evening and become part of an idea that has legs; after the weekend is over, they find themselves part of an ongoing startup team. If this does not happen for a participant, the Startup Weekend experience itself can be transformative. It is a great way for a person to see if starting a company is a good fit for them and if pursuing an entrepreneurial venture is what they want to do. Participants also meet many people from different walks of life—mentors, the leaders of entrepreneurial support organizations, and potential business cofounders......

Discussion Questions:

1. In referring to Startup Weekend, someone made the comment, “It is not a startup factory; it is an entrepreneur factory.” What do you think is the meaning of this person’s comment?
2. To what extent do you agree with the basic premise that Startup Weekend is a fertile place to meet a business cofounder?
3. What can people learn by attending a Startup Weekend, even if they do not remain together with their team after the weekend ends?
4. Would you enjoy and benefit by attending a Startup Weekend? Why or why not?