Startup Weekend London

With the influx of new faces on a Sunday afternoon (?! timing !?) we had a second round of introductions.

Dev: Server’s not working. Otherwise, it’s looking good.

BizDev: Polished business plan, increased ad revenue projections, currently working on media pack for advertisers.

Marketing: Press Releases, now don’t have to do the media packs (thanks BizDev), writing/reviewing copy, staying sane.

UX:  Looking at bugs (with a small b).

Content: Waiting to populate. Continually writing.

Plans for a group dinner at 9pm, after the (hopeful) launch at 8pm.

Felix Dennis, owner of Dennis Publishing and host of Startup Weekend London, is also a poet. And, to keep myself awake (jet lag be damned), I reworked one of his poems: Hacker-Boy.

Startup-Boy

Startup-boy, startup-boy, where have you been?
I sat in a boardroom hyped up on caffeine.
Startup-boy, startup-boy, what did you do?
I founded a website with no one I knew.

Startup-boy, startup-boy, where is it now?
It’s knocking the lights out in London, and how!
Startup-boy, startup-boy, how could this be?
With lots of bright people and sweat equity.

Startup-boy, startup boy, why do you smile?
This weekend has proved to be very worthwhile.
Startup-boy, startup-boy, why are you sad?
It’s bittersweet thoughts ‘bout the great time I had.

`mg 

Marketing pulled together some beautiful language for the website. Here’s a sample:

At alittlebitbetter.co.uk we don’t pretend to be perfect – we sometimes leave lights on when we don’t need to, buy fruit out of season, and  turn the thermostat up  for a ‘duvet day’. But we do try to be a little bit better wherever we can.

We are an entirely virtual company, this means that we don’t have the environmental overheads that other companies do.  We have no offices, no big fleet of company cars and no private jet. We use public transport to get to meetings in shared offices. We drink fairtade coffee to get us through the long hours it takes to produce and maintain alittlebitbetter.co.uk.

Julian arrived this afternoon. Lending his brain, he critiqued the business model and initial assumptions.

It would be irresponsible of me to give away the farm; however, Julian’s expertise in online ad impressions certainly reined in expectations (for the better) and provided a refined outlook for the product.

Someone just drew a hockey stick. Another ad director offered many helpful suggestions. In thinking about it, SWL will launch a product inside a building that houses a publication company that’s moving to a web-based advertising model for the majority of its magazines.

How serendipitous!

Marketing: Plan doesn’t go into effect for several months. Then, once the site is up and running to a comfortable point, funds will be needed. Monday plans include calling radio stations, e-mailing bloggers, and getting the word out virally.

BizDev: Done. Now reviewing.

Content: Need feedback on articles. 20 Products ready to go.

Dev: Steady development. Last point of getting input forms ready– should be ready for content population shortly.

UX:  Following Dev’s lead.

Anyone who is finishing up is heading to the sixth floor conference room to help write content for launch.

Dev: Styling the profile systems, the site’s continually taking shape. Come back in an hour.
Marketing: We’re awesome.
BizDev: We got a lot done. Booyakasha. Check it [on basecamp].

UX: Sitemap done.

Content: Quality control discussion and skewed information. Currently having theoretical discussion on quality guarantees and meta reviews.

Time for lunch.

Major props to the devs.

Camping on the second floor, vigorously coding away, the devs dutifully disregard all distractions. You see, the second floor at Dennis Publishing is home to Maxim Magazine.

For those unaware of British sentimentalities, censorship rules differ slightly. As such, posters and magazines of topless models saturate the working space. Though Dennis Publishing owns several automobile magazines, they’re not featuring the topless models to which I refer.

12:30 meeting is imminent– let’s see what those diligent devs have done.

Finally arriving at the sixth-floor boardroom at Dennis Publishing, Business Development is hard at work crunching cost projections and revenue models. Next steps include focusing on long-term strategy and product expansion… or not.

Weighing the advantages and disadvantages of becoming an all-inclusive site versus remaining niche, business development toils over the implications. Innovate or die. Survive or thrive.

Nonetheless, BizDev has a revenue model… and it’s not just through advertisers.

Dev/UX: “We’ve got a database structure…it seems someone’s under the table”. [a disembodied hand reaches through a hole in the table, blindly searching for a power tap.] Tags trumped categories and sub-category structures. Databases up and running. Constant releases every few hours for the team’s benefit.

Marketing: E-mails for friends and family ready. Please customize. Delivered tag line.

“Little choices make your world a little bit better”

BizDev: “We have to tweak the numbers a bit… and massage them … Probably worth $10MM in 2010.”

Content: Landing page for the review.

Next meeting at 12:30 London Time.

thanks to the wonders of technology, at&t international data roaming, and the iphone, iI am able to deliver this message. the englishEnglish can drink me under the tableBLs  normal updates to resume shortly. thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter.