I am privileged to be contributing to the startup ecosystem in NYC by mentoring teams at the last two "weekend" startup events. Hosted at the amazing "urban campus" known as
General Assembly (dot.ly please) the weekends are spirited and competitive. The first opportunity to mentor was at The Lean Start Up Machine – held during Eric Ries week in NYC it was really impressive. Trevor Owens has really BAMM'd it with LSM. I attended the first LSM (my first effort to get involved in the startup space here in NYC) and was on the winning team – along with Trevor and other cool people. ScootScooters. Never loved the name – but loved the business. Love it as a lifestyle business – scooter rentals. If I have the money one day to open it – that is what I will do. But, I digress. 
Even then I was all over the concept of LSM – and I did not yet know about StartupWeekend at all. 
All that to say – I have participated in both and am very happy to be contributing to the ecosystem via the outlets. As a matter of fact – I am pretty altruistically active now that I am not "working" for Movable Ink anymore. I am working harder than ever though! See my recent Involvement and Contribution. But really, enough about me. This post is about my favorite products / companies / businesses born over the last weekends. LSM NYC reblogged from Lessons Learned with comments by Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits ( co-authors of Entrepreneurs guide to Customer Development and key mentors for LSM globally):
The Winner
Patrick: The winners showed discipline in demolishing their initially very strongly held assumptions about teachers and lesson plans — tremendous learning and creative way to define a "currency" for MVP.
Brant: Two things elevated Snappschool: 1) MVP was a functioning product — as long as you searched for the correct subject! 2) They put it all on the line: if teachers don't click submit, the product is dead. That's optimal learning.
Brant: "Love Your Layover" won the "Best MVP" award. They actually built and tested several MVPs, the last of which was a web-based prototype of their mobile app that used real airport data.
Patrick: "Great job with MVP and Demo. Smart team that did very well. See their MVP here: http://app.unbrokered.com/view
Brant: It's not often we get to see a demo in the final presentation. Make that never. Until Unbrokered. That was pretty awesome.
Patrick: "Thought the initial idea was big — didn't quite understand the pivot to subscription e-commerce handbags."
Brant: Stylestalkr won the "Apply to TechStars Award" because several judges this idea actually might be the one with legs. Pun intended.
Brant: Interesting example of a particular #CustDev dilemma: pain with which customers quickly identify, yet for which, customers are generally unwilling to put up with, let alone pay for a solution. Why? Because no one watches the old videos anyway, and soon the footage will be their children's problem. ; )
So I will delineate SW tomorrow – or when I have 20 hours to format crap in WordPress. F*cking WordPress sucks as a blogging tool – or maybe it is me but I am OVER IT for today! G2G!