Startup Weekend Atlanta

The entire post that follows is by David Cohen of Colorado Startups. I thought it would be of interest to all in Atlanta.

Startup Weekend is not about the end result, although that can be quite interesting. It’s about the journey, the friends you meet along the way, and the direct and meaningful experience that you now share with them. Here are my top ten reasons that you should go to Startup Weekend.

10. You actually earn meaningful equity in an interesting company for just two days work. This is #10 because this is most likely worth nothing. But hey, you never know.

9. Be known. Startup culture in any city is a tight knit group. Make sure everybody knows you’re a part of it - otherwise you may miss out on being part of the next interesting thing in your town.

8. If you go, and spread the word, then more people will get it. So many just don’t and it’s a little sad.

7. You will seriously get high off the energy. The live feed, the blog coverage. People will care that you’re there. Even the haters will come out in droves.

6. You will learn to have new respect for what other people with other skills bring to the table - this will help you tremendously in your career.

5.You will improve the local tech community in ways that you cannot comprehend ahead of time. Future co-founders will meet, experts will emerge, people will catch the startup bug. This is good for you, and it’s good for your town.

4. You’ll probably fail fast. When you do your next startup, you’ll have an invaluable failure under your belt. If you don’t fail fast, you might have have something meaningful on your hands.

3. You will understand who the true rock stars in your community are and this knowledge is simply invaluable. Rocks stars do stuff - you can’t stop them. Here you get to witness them at their best. You get to identify them.

2. You will make new friends. Not acquaintances. I’m super introverted, and I made new lifelong friends at Startup Weekend. Yes, lifelong. I knew them before, but now I get them, all from that amazing weekend.

1. I can guarantee that you will never forget your experience. Since all of life is simply a series of (hopefully) meaningful experiences, you should be looking to have more. This is an easy way.