What I learnt in two days at Start-up Weekend.

I recently attended the event “Start-up Weekend Lahore” held in Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Start-up Weekend is a great event because of the number of talented and enthusiastic people it attracts from across different fields of life.

There were a total of 61 pitches made this year out of which 16 ideas were selected to pursue working on them for the rest of the weekend. My Idea Rateker was also one of them.

We worked tirelessly for almost two days on our ideas and then made the final pitches in front of judges on the last day.

My pitch was a complete disaster. I completely messed up my pitch and I was so nervous while pitching that I was about to cry. After the pitch I was so embarrassed that I left the auditorium and didn't had the courage to even go back and listen to other pitches and attent the rest of the event.

While everybody else was busy receiving the awards or cheering and congratulating others for receiving them, I was sitting in the cafe thinking about where did it all go wrong and how could I have made it better. So I came up with the following few conclusions.

Believe in yourself

You should know that you are great. You have all the capability to anything great. You have immense power hidden within you. You only need to realize this and push yourself harder. Because the more challenges you accept, the more you realize that how powerful you are.

Have no ambiguity about your idea

You should be very clear about your idea. From the problem you are solving to the marketing strategy to the business model, you should be clear about each and every thing. Collect as much statistics about your idea as you can. study the market, know your competitors and most important of all “Know your Users”.

Be exited about it

You must love your idea and be very exited about it. And this excitement should be depicted while you talk about your idea.

You should have no doubt that your idea isn't a great one.

Thinking and talking about your idea should give you energy and make you happy. If you don’t have such feeling I think you are going to end up like me. :D

Everyone in your team should also be

We all know a good team is a very crucial thing in making a start-up succeed. But what makes up a good team? I think the most important thing that your team should have is that everybody should share the same amount of love and excitement about the idea.

Every one in your team should own the product or idea and work on it with love.

Building a great product takes a lot of effort and hard work and if your team doesn't share the same amount of passion as you do then I don’t think it is possible.

Follow your heart

Getting advise from mentors and experienced people is really important to refine your idea and device strategies but the faint voice that comes deep from your heart is what really matters at the end. It is your idea and you can think about it in a way nobody else can. So do get help from people but never get distracted from the path your heart leads you to.

Rehearse your pitch

This is something I didn't do and then had to regret. The way you present your idea is more important then what your idea is!! You have to tell the people how much impact your idea can create. In a very short time you have to convince a diverse set of audience that this is what they are looking for. Your pitch is a complete act and to act perfectly you have to rehearse your act a lot. So Rehearse.. Refine.. Rehearse.. Refine.. Rehearse……

These were a few things that came to my mind. Your comments and suggestions are welcome. One last thing at the end, Don’t give up and make a lot of mistakes and learn from them.