I’m wrapping up a long weekend here at Viget, but before I sign-off for my pre-real-work-day nap, I wanted to get some more thoughts down on how it all went.  Hosting Startup Weekend was exhausting, in a good way.  As hyped, we started the weekend with 70+ people picking a business idea, and finished tonight last night by launching a site at midnight.  I can honestly say that it went better than I’d expected in almost every aspect.  Some examples:

• It launched.  I have to admit, I thought all along that we’d end up not launching, but to the credit of the dev team, at midnight tonight there was a somewhat functioning site live at holaneighbor.com.  It didn’t work well exactly, and it’s not really a compelling feature set yet, and the nicely designed screens aren’t in there yet, but technically we launched, and that alone is impressive.
• People stuck.  There were times Friday night, before there was any clarity in the concept, that I was sure we’d have no one back on Saturday.  The night ended on an upswing, though, and the vast majority of people decided to give it a shot on Saturday morning, which fed into the evening and beyond.
• I met a lot of good people.  I made new friends.  I got to know some folks I’d met before.  There’s nothing like collaborating in person with people on a project for stuff like that.
• Viget HQ held up.  Having recently moved in, I wasn’t sure how the space would hold up to all the people.  There are a few bumps here and there, but the space plan (big conference rooms, various huddle / collaboration spaces, the lounge, etc.) worked great for the distinct teams and break-out sessions. 
• It wasn’t about the company.  People were passionate and excited and wanted to get it done, but my perception was that it was more about having a chance to work with good people.
• Negative conflict was rare.  With so many talented, opinionated people crammed together forced to make group decisions quickly, I was prepared for some major blowups.  There were heated debates here and there, but things seemed to work themselves out with generally positive outcomes.
• The group had manners.  Pretty much everyone pitched in to help with the grunt work of keeping the office in shape (thanks, guys!). They appreciated Viget putting up the space, and they helped get it back to working order before leaving.  Even Andrew Hyde, founder of Startup Weekend, was here cleaning white boards at 1 am (4 hours before his departing flight).

Not surprisingly, just like with the first weekend in Boulder, it all came down to the dev team.  There’s lots of valid hype about how you can quickly build web apps these days, but the fact remains that it just takes time to build a really good product, and a lot of that time goes to writing good code.  Having launched anything at all is an accomplishment, especially given the potential complexity for the concept we chose.

What now?  Good question.  The group decided to decompress for a few days before figuring out a core team to take HolaNeighbor on to the next level.  There’s still a lot to do to make it a viable business, and I hope it has a life beyond today.  Can the passion for the concept that was alive this weekend carry on?  Only time will tell, but regardless, the experience of the weekend was certainly positive for me.

Update: checkout the article about Startup Weekend in the Washington Post.