Now you need to define what is success to your eyes.

In the case of the BlitzWeekend, we wanted to bring 2 groups together: the IT crowd and the tie and suit crowd. I think it worked and both groups found out that there is life beyond their own walls.

I spoke to a few participants many months later and some of them were still working on their idea.

So what if the success rate is only 10%? I find it damn good considering that startup life *IS* hard by definition and that most fail. Besides, isn’t “failure is ok” part of what Silicon Valley embrases after all?

With the entry barriers being at an all time low, this is what we need: a place to ignite fires.

In this case, I agree that the metric for success was unfair. Their website clearly states that it’s primarily a community building event, one where you can start projects and start companies. To me this means that it’s an event to keep up people’s enthusiasm and if the actual project fails, so be it, start another. It’s also important for the seriousness of the event to add the start companies bit because obviously (10%) of the time, you can build a business out of it. This helps the image a lot and keeps people focused.

Overall, I would put this in the linkbait bucket. It’s off-target and if they really wanted to write a good article they would’ve done some legwork themselves and added something to the “analysis”.

You mention that you are involved in organizing Startup Weekend Belgium and other initiatives across Europe so you obviously can rally behind the intent of Startup Weekend. I assume that the message you posted was simply mis-read.

Perhaps you should have titled your article “How Far Do Projects Launched At Startup Weekends Travel? (It Doesn’t Matter)” If that was your point. Also adding the word “analysis” at the beginning of your title kind of suggests it is your analysis, and “not very far” suggests that your opinion is the “projects” do not lead anywhere.

Again you obviously wouldn’t be putting in the effort to get your community organized around such initiatives if you thought they did not lead anywhere “far” =). We are excited to see if Belgium and other cities you are involved in can help us bring the 10% success number up!

which is a bit wrong imho, and not the ideal way to present it.

Blitzweekend was presented differently