This weekend ran a bunch better than the first SeattleStartupWeekend despite continuous power and wireless outages. How was that possible?

BrianDorsey had a battery-powered pocket wifi router with Sprint wireless. When everyone else bailed, we kept on hacking....

This second startup weekend allowed people to form their own ad-hoc teams; essentially, people pitched their ideas and tried to cajole others into collaborating. Since they didn't try to shove people into one idea ( TheFollyOfCrowds ), more people returned on Saturday and Sunday than during ssw1. Minor improvements to the process would include:

  1. Keeping sponsors brief -- we're here to hack
  2. No PA system -- think of better ways to persuade us
  3. Give each idea proposer a flag and have people rally around the idea they like
  4. Set up a central SaturdayHouse like coffee klatsch for people who need a break

Things for next time: public subversion server, a payment account (paypal, amazon FPS, etc.), a slicehost, and a deployed google appengine with web.py.

BrianDorsey, AlvinLiang, and I worked on How to get ESPN360.com, which seeks to help the 60% of broadband users in the US that can't access ESPN 360 because their ISP hasn't set up an agreement with ESPN (wired article). We have to set up an Amazon Flexible Payment System account to collect promises to pay from people, then commence operation ESPNAgitProp. ;)

Thanks for input and help from RyanKabir, SarahNovotny, and most everyone who hit our table.