Brian Wynne Williams
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Rails Rumble Voting Time
Author: Brian Wynne Williams14 Sep
Last month I mentioned Rails Rumble, the app dev contest that went down last weekend. The apps are done — 92 of them, in fact — and now anyone can go play with them and vote for their favorite. Two Viget-associated teams participated:
Clinton assembled a tiny all-star team with Julia Kulla-Mader and Jackson Fox dubbed “Snack Nut Item” and built Clubhouse:
Clubhouse is a network for clubs or teams or any organizations, providing them with loose and fun event scheduling. Anyone can create and join clubs, create events, and plan the future! It is more filling than a good breakfast. It is like Meetup.com, but free, and what the people want. Also, iCalendar! Yeah!
Ben, who couldn’t play the whole weekend due to “social obligations” (otherwise he’d have been in VL South along side Clinton), formed a solo team called “Texasbenonian People’s Front” and built Irksome:
Irksome is a web-based client for IRC, providing all the normal features of IRC through a much friendlier UI – and with searchable transcripts!
Nice work, guys. As DC’s Startup Weekend draws closer, I can already tell that the insights from the Rumble will be valuable.
Update: check out Clinton’s post about Rails Rumble on the Viget blog. He makes some great points …
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I'm co-founder/CEO of the web consulting firm Viget Labs. I spend most of my time near Washington, D.C. with my wife and kids. Here, I write about whatever comes to mind. More about me ...
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4 Responses for "Rails Rumble Voting Time"
You know what I found the most interesting about the Rumble? 92 teams - each of no more than 4 people, and many only a single person - *launched* their applications. A number of them (Clinton and I among them) intend to continue working on them in the future, and some (like SimpleBucket and Checkbook) are full-fledged startups.
It makes the lack of a launch in Boulder even more confounding, I think.
I think the challenge in Boulder was as much about technology (java) as it was the team size. As I understand it, the app just didn’t work when the weekend came to an end. Clearly when it comes to rapid app development, small teams and quick decisions are key to keeping deadlines.
When you consider that the Boulder Startup Weekend group (1) didn’t have a concept when they started, (2) had 75 people, and (3) developed their app TWICE, I think it’s clearer why they had problems launching.
I think that anyone looking to do a startup weekend of their own should keep in mind that trying to herd 75 people in one direction in 48-hours is going to tough. Taking a page from the Rumble and breaking in to smaller teams would probably help each team get a lot farther in the process.
Yes, 75 people is pretty insane. When I was in Boulder it seemed like they managed the number pretty well and all just rolled with it. The contributing developers in the group probably numbered 8-10. I maintain that had they gone with rails they would have launched on-time and the large team size wouldn’t have been scrutinized as much. Whether you can get 75 people actually contributing is another question.
I do think, though, that with the right plan you can be effective with more than 4, especially if there are distinct pieces of your product that can be built in parallel (e.g., a facebook app with shared data but a separate interface from your main site).
The list for DC’s startup weekend is long right now — we’ll see how it gets trimmed down. The idea of running with mulitple smaller groups is certainly being considered.
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