[Seaside] Re: Startup weekend success

[Stephan Eggermont]

Yanni asked:
>- was that the whole team - the four of you?

Yes. This startup weekend was about a hundred participants.
On friday evening, there were some 45 pitches, of which 12 were
chosen to be developed further. Some of them had a product ready
and needed a marketing plan, others were just an idea. Ours was
just an idea.

The groups had different sizes, ours was one of the smallest.

>- was Diego a Smalltalker too; did you meet at the event or did you know 
>each other beforehand?

The past year I've worked with Diego a few days a week on a
GLASS site. We thought most of what we have build to be reusable in
other startups, and wanted to verify that hypothesis. 

>- was there anything in particular that led you to build the "Parent 
>Support" app instead of joining another group (i.e. was the app well 
>suited to Seaside/Pharo)?

It was a combination of factors that made this the right project.
There were two or three other proposals that would have been 
a better technology fit (no iPhone app needed) but were not
as inspiring. This pitch was well liked by the audience, it had a 
very recognizable problem that was neither trivial nor extremely
difficult to approach, and one that Diego and I both experience.
The people in the team were all experienced and we had the 
right 'click'. 

>- did you prepare a "kit" for the event (i.e. all the frameworks you 
>thought you'd need, already loaded in an image)

We prepared a kit. We even did some work the week before to get 
a faster start with our domain model (naked objects style). 

>- what were other groups using (especially the runner's up)

Lots of Keynote, Flash and Powerpoint, iPhone and iPad apps,
RoR, development outsourced to china, Wistia, different clouds.

The overall winner had a water producing windmill (by condensating,
not the traditional ones) and needed a good marketing plan.

The 'first to reach a million' was an iPad cash register (and some integration
services) 

Stephan