Lean Startup Machine / CHICAGO

Hackathon Liveblogging

This event is in progress, and updates will be posted to this tab as they occur.

About This Event

Lean Startup Machine is a weekend-long startup competition that conforms to Lean Startup principles, a method of using customer feedback to rapidly iterate your product to reach product/market fit. On Friday evening, the event commences with networking and pitches. Participants then select ideas and form teams to work on their project over the weekend. On Sunday, teams pitch their business and Minimum Viable Product to a panel of well-known entrepreneurs for cash and mentoring. The winning pot of cash is the event's profit, projected to be ~$1,000.

Registration is $50 and there are only 60 tickets. All proceeds go to cover expenses and the winnings, this event's not for profit. LSM's budget is online & completely transparent.

Check out the results of our July event in NYC!

Judging

The winning team will have the business model & MVP with the most customer validation by the end of the weekend.

Guidelines for final presentations (6 minutes + 3 mins allocated for Q&A):
1. Clear statement of business assumptions (ie. problem, business model, etc.)
2. Some assumptions validated/refuted based on feedback
3. Clear MVP (or MVP spec) that sheds light on assumptions via real data

"Ideal winner would be someone who came up with a plan, succinctly boiled it down to a few assumptions, talked to some customers, already found a pivot, built a simple MVP, tried to get people to use it, and was ready to pivot again based on that data." - Brant Cooper, judge

Story

It wasn't long ago that we were blankly staring at each other from across the table in a sweltering auditorium, mere hours before judging commenced for the 2010 NYC Startup Weekend. Exhausted? Yes. On edge? Maybe a little. In it to win it? Most definitely. Welcome to a startup competition.

We hit the ground running, but before we knew it the weekend marathon was over. And though we took pride in everything we had accomplished, we couldn't help but feel that things were only just heating up. We wanted more. Hell, we wanted to do it all over again!

Over a couple beers at the nearby pub we decided to hold smaller, more frequent events of a similar format but with a Lean Startup twist. Welcome to the Lean Startup Machine. Our only wish is that you walk away from this event with the same feeling that we get from building something.

Out of nothing.

Schedule Details

Friday, November 5, 2010

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Sunday, November 7, 2010