Google to Host Startup Weekend in Seattle
Gregory T. Huang /xconomy
12/23/08
 Want
54 hours to start a tech company? You got it. In a few weeks, Google
will be hosting a talented group of entrepreneurs from the startup
community, giving them time and space over a weekend, and adding
stimulating discussions, activities, and, yes, food. With that potent
mix at work, local organizers want to see how many viable ideas,
products, and even new startup companies may emerge.
That’s the concept behind Startup Weekend, a traveling event that’s coming to Seattle February 6-8. It will be the second Startup Weekend in Seattle;
the last one happened last January at Adobe’s offices. This time, the
weekend will be hosted at the Google offices in Fremont. It seems to me
like a great way for the Internet search giant to get to know local
developers and startup community leaders.
“We reached out to Google for hosting of the event,” says Rob Eickmann of Seattle-based Six Hour Startup,
who is one of the local organizers. “They were more than willing to
talk to us about it and provide us with space at their facility in
Fremont.”
In the past few months, Eickmann and other entrepreneurs had
meetings with local startup organizations around the question of what
Seattle startups need. “Startup Weekend was highly praised for the way
it created a core group of Internet entrepreneurs here in Seattle,”
Eickmann says. “We hope to have that same effect this year as well.”
Startup Weekend is itself a startup, founded by Andrew Hyde of
Boulder, CO-based TechStars. Since the summer of 2007, Startup Weekend
has taken place in cities like New York, Boston, Boulder, London,
Hamburg, Toronto, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The events tend to
create a lot of buzz, and are known for helping build collaborations
among entrepreneurs that last well after the weekend itself. “I met
some of the best people in the community,” says Nathan Kaiser of the
entrepreneurial resource site nPost, based in Seattle.
One of the promising ideas from last January’s Seattle Startup
Weekend was Skillbit, a company that helped small businesses and
organizations create searchable databases of their teams’ skills. It’s
an intriguing idea, but Skillbit ran into issues with securities law
and shut down earlier this year. Nevertheless, the community-building
effect of Startup Weekend has apparently lasted.
Tickets to the Feburary event are $40, and participants with a
variety of skills can sign up, like software developers (including
architects and system administrators), designers, public relations
people, user experience experts, legal, business development people,
project managers, and even a cook. (I imagine the last category will be
as competitive as any of the others, especially in Seattle.)
Gregory T. Huang is the Editor of Xconomy Seattle. You can e-mail him at
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or call 206-624-2249.
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