Startup Weekend – and Startup Weekend Santa Fe, coming soon! – is essentially a weekend-long hackathon for transforming ideas into viable startups. However for people unfamiliar with hackathon-style events, this may be fairly opaque and confusing. 

Luckily several of the sites that have already hosted Startup Weekend events have shared their thoughts and information about how they work. For a quick introduction, visit with #SWToronto here:

It’s not a seminar or a workshop. Participants with skills in business, programming, design and more arrive ready to share and pitch ideas, the ideas are culled by popular vote, and attendees either lead or find teams to work with in transforming those ideas into potential products, services or businesses. Architectures and prototypes are developed, then tested and changed based on customer response. Teams continue to pivot and adapt to feedback and new opportunities, as they create a presentation to demonstrate their project, how it’s used, and how it should earn income. Judges with experience in investment, startups and related fields question and make suggestions, determining the ‘winners’ of the weekend’s event.

Some startup projects find funding and/or continue to develop into real companies. Others are abandoned as failures to be discarded, but learned from. Participants will have met new friends and potential colleagues.

Our entrepreneurial ecosystem will have taken a small but healthy step forward.

We hope you’ll consider joining us for Startup Weekend Santa Fe (March 1-3 2013 at the Santa Fe Business Incubator) and for the Startup Weekends to come. 

Find more information at: http://santafe.startupweekend.org

Register at: http://santafesw.eventbrite.com

And view the longer form video here:

Startup Weekend – Full from Eighteen Eighty on Vimeo.