Start-up Weekend

Over the weekend I had the unique experience of going to Start Up Weekend Pittsburgh: Education. The entire weekend was one big sales pitch: First we had to pitch our ideas to the entire group of attendees. After that, we had to convince everyone there that they should join our teams, everyone from designers to business people to developers. From there it was time to establish our idea and start to run with it. During the first night we hammered out exactly what we were trying to accomplish and set the ground work for what we would be doing the rest of the weekend. Saturday was a grueling day, we worked nonstop from 9:30 am to 11 pm in an attempt to finish the entire business plan. Sunday we smoothed out our presentation and finally it came time to pitch it to a panel of judges. Karolina did a fantastic job presenting and the selling the idea to the audience and judges, and they were clearly impressed.

There were so many examples of non sales selling throughout the weekend that they are hard to count. The pitch and the presentation are obvious examples, but additional items such as deciding on a name and choosing which routes to take our product were also prime examples. It was a hectic weekend, but all the hard work paid off when we took third place, finishing ahead of many educators and even PhD’s. It was a valuable experience that I will never forget.