It's Not Work When You Love It: Startup Weekend: Get the right people on the bus

Friday, January 13, 2012

Startup Weekend: Get the right people on the bus

According to Jim Collins, the first step to building a great business (actually, turning a good business into a great one, but I think the concept still applies) is to "get the right people on the bus". At Startup Weekend, this starts with an idea pitch to convince other people to work with you on an idea you have. I've iterated over lots of ideas over the past two weeks, getting feedback from everyone I could about what is interesting and what is not, and something finally stuck at the last minute. It's about helping experts build their reputations and helping event organizers find speakers for their events. Here's my pitch:

You’re an expert. You’re good at what you do and you love it. But I don’t have to tell you that because you already know. The problem is that other people don’t! There are people looking for you right now and they don’t know how to find you.

Real-world events, big and small, need experts every day and each event is an chance for experts to build solid reputations. There is a huge opportunity to change the way experts connect with the people who need them for real-world events, while building their reputations.

The team name is Keynote Reputation and we need expert developers to make it real, expert designers to make it magical, and expert business people to make it profitable. Come talk to me to change the way reputations are built.

Hopefully it doesn't seem too gimmicky, but I've also created some stickers that will be useful to other attendees and hopefully get people interested in Keynote Reputation early on. Here's a snapshot:

Follow my Startup Weekend Seattle experience through the following progression of posts: