Build your startup within 54 hours! Sounds strange right? This was the feeling that I had when I heard about Startup Weekend Kochi. In my last blog (hard to say its before an year :P ) I recalled my experience of attending first ever Co-operative hackathon (Coopathon, If you don’t read it you can go through it ). After that, I could attend some great events and I could learn some cool things along the way. Let’s talk it one by one through my upcoming blogs.
So what are we discussing? Yeah building your startup within 54 hours. That curiosity led me into SW Kochi. Needless to say, since it is a women’s edition I need to bring a girl along with me to get 50% offer. So the dice fell on my friend Anjaly and we went for the event. And we just rocked throughout the day. Basically, Startup Weekends are weekend-long, hands-on experiences where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if startup ideas are viable Over Saturday and Sunday teams focus on customer development, validating their ideas, practising LEAN Startup Methodologies and building a minimal viable product.(who cares the definition right? 😅 ) Even though I didn’t have that much cool idea I went for it. The event started with an ice-breaking secession where we could interact with people from different backgrounds.
The first step was pitching an idea in front of the crowd, You need to shout your idea and describe it using sticky notes and colourful chartpapers so that other members can vote your idea. I loved this approach , drawing your ideas and describing them lead me to good old school memories where we paint our school walls with pictures( easy to relate for Kerala state Malayalam medium guys 😅 ). So I painted my idea such a way that people can understand it with out going through the lenghty notes. Members are allowed to vote the idea which they think the best, so that the top 5 ideas can be sorted out and which can be selected for further presentation. Most of the people were from some particular college and they voted them selves like that of an iteration among them. So we were alomst confirmed that our idea wont get selected. So when they announced the names I am kinda like KIttuni in Kilikkum “ hmm... ith kore kettatha” But at the end Iwas like “Adichu moonee adichu.😅” My Idea got selected and I was ready to present it in front of others so that I can convince people and invite them to join my team.
And that was the toughest part, we need to convince our idea to everyone and thankfully it did well. At the end of my presentation I got 5 people who were willing to work with me except my friend Anjaly ( and later when we discussed the memories , we realised that it was good to be in different team so that we could meet more friends.) During this pitch I explained the scope, relevance and cost of my idea. I was a bit nervous since it is my first experience. And by the end of the day we formed a team and discussed our idea. In my team 2 of the members are working in industries so that I could interact with them and learn many things. Through out the day we had some fun activities and there were plenty of mentors from different industries willing to support us. Some of the mentors were young and some were around 60s, It was so pleasuresome hearing the stoires of people doing things that they love. Among the mentors I met a young women who is owning a pickle manufacturing company in her 60s. Presense of these mentors helped us alot in order to moulding our base idea into a business model. There was a guideline given by techstars which includes the description of preparation of slides and they way of presentation. That was a great explosure for us meeting HR and CEO of various companies.Apart from this there was a program called ‘Miss muthalalichi’ which highlights entrepreneur ship skills of girls out there.
Me and my team ‘Acharya’ (please don’t ask why I gave the name, it’s just random) were busy with converting that idea into some good business model.Thanks to Akhila Chechi, Vigil Chettan, and Rustham for being supportive through out these days. We actually wondered how we became close at the end of the day.Yeah that connection matters. The best part of SW is people you think strangers become your family at the end of the day.More than a competition its all about collaboration and moulding your idea into a great business model. You meet mentors from various fields so that all your doubts can be clarified there, Even if you don’t have a start-up.
Since I had exam on monday I couldn’t wait for the result. So I told them to perform well and infrom me the result whatever it may be. while saying “bye” I was missing something there… Thanks to Pehiafoundation, techstars, KSUM for organizing this wonderul events. All those volunteers made this event even better, literarly we didnt have any issue regarding food, stay or any other things. So while leaving KSUM we were in a mind that whatever the prize may be , We loved the event alot. I headed to college and was opening my books for exam I got call from my teammate informing that we grabbed the first prize. It was like really shock for us .. yeah adichu moone adichu.The very next day I saw a tweet in Kerala Startup Mission’s official page congratulating us. And It was a magic moment for us .A prize that built by the collaboration and smiles of people from different backgrounds.SW Kochi was one of the best experiences where I could present my idea, could convert it to a good business model and grab the first prize.But I bet you, those memories and things learned there are much bigger than winning a prize.
Thanks a lot for reading😍. Please suggest edits and give your valuable feedback in the comment section. With love…
