There is an interesting post at StartupNorth about the TribeHR team going to a hotel far from Toronto, to focus on getting things done for a whole week. The team rent hotel rooms at Niagara Falls and delivered improvements and new features for TribeHR. The dedication is inspiring, as well as the concept of shutting down distractions.
In Montreal, we’ve seen more and more networking events up to the point that there’s a “5 à 7″, keynote or dinner event almost every day. It’s good to have a beer with potential co-founders or other creative minds, but ultimately, the validity of Montreal as a startup city is only measured by the number of sucessful projects and startups. There’s certainly room for more teams start to work hard on new projects.
I’ve thrown around the idea of organizing monthly or bi-monthly startupweekends/blitzweekends/hackathons at Notman House: get developers, entrepreneurs and designers together and dedicate yourself to launch an application or application features in a limited amount of time, a day, a weekend or a week. Those events bring discipline, creativity and intensity, since it requires your full focus for the event. With the right mix, it’s possible to do the same thing as the TribeHR team, or Gregory Whiteside (thbll), or the startupifier team who’ve done a good job this weekend with notmanwall.
If anyone’s interested in the idea and see the magic you get from these events, I’ve created an event here (register if you are attending). I am targeting a loosely organized event, with as less overhead as possible (read: the event organizer would like to get things done too), and gathering any developers who need to work during the weekend. And if we make this happen, it’s possible to think about week-long sprints at the notman house.
Comments
Robin Millette March 01, 2011
Too bad I couldn’t hang out today at Notman House. I’m willing and able to participate in a Hackfest to work some more on Muniduweb and hopefully get something done with regards to its API.
But next week-end is the Geek Fest and I’ve already committed to going. Could it be on the week-end after that instead? I don’t wanna mess up your plans. I’ll catch the next train, no worries :)
Heri March 01, 2011
We’re still going to do it this weekend, but there will be plenty of room for the next room (if it’s uber-popular, we’ll do it bi-monthly, if not, it’s going to be monthly)
Greg March 02, 2011
I think there’s that kind of hunger here in Montreal, we just need to get at it. Loved the discussion through the Notman discussion group about just doing things, kind of touches on this. Tabarnhack!
A concern: hacking for a full week-end isn’t something that I (or a lot of other people I would assume) can afford to do that often (unless you want to find yourself doing it whether you like it or not). What do you guys think of also setting sessions with really short time-frames (4-6) hours to produce something? Is the 4-hour startup actually realistic?
heri March 02, 2011
maybe do 4 hours every weekend, and then one day or weekend every month?
Chris Arsenault March 02, 2011
Amanda Robinson March 03, 2011
It would become more ‘sticky’ this way: the weekly drill would make it easier to reel in the more spontaneous and curious ones, and would also encourage the more dedicated ones to get into it regularly (almost like a sport). The longer blitzes would give people something to work up to.