Blitzweekend

Ryan Carson, also known as the instigator of famous webzine ThinkVitamin and innovative events like Future of Web Apps, has written a post on how a small team built a web application in just four days, with a budget estimated at $10.000.

They had at the end Matt, a simple web app that allows yout to post to multiple twitter accounts. It’s a straightforward, yet quite colorful website.

Ryan has tips and advices for those who want to try out the experience, such as sticking to web frameworks that works (Rails, Django etc.), using productive tools, trusting the team, doing agile development with frequent meetings, focus, and having a solid development process.

What’s interesting with his “Matt” experience is also the team gathered. There is 50/50 ratio on people who make things (designers and developers) and people who communicate (PR, bloggers, videographers, marketers)

This is interesting, and so far, they’ve had a lot of exposure (made a splash on TechCrunch), although in my personal opinion, more effort should be invested on development and design.

Anyway, great to see Ryan Carson picking up the idea in Europe. How about doing the event in the same weekend, across multiple continents?

This is really a last-minute announcement, but we’re holding a meetup at Laika, 4040 bvd-St-Laurent, today July 2nd, from 6pm to discuss about a (possible) Blitzweekend 2.

Meeting open to everybody!  Bring coworkers & friends over a beer!

(and sorry again for being late - we will do another one if other people are interested into being volunteers or co-organizers)

Let’s welcome Intruders.tv as our media partner.Intruders.tv will be covering all the major events here at Blitzweekend. They will also help by making capsules during the event..Intruders.tv is a global network of video blogs covering the web 2.0 and technology ecosystem. Their main objective is to take you to the major conferences an events around the world, interview entrepreneurs and investor, visit exciting startups and give you a first look at the hottest technology.Intruders.tv will be doing interviews with the teams and staff. They will also write a post event article on Blitzweekend.

Blitzweekend est prévu dans 3 jours au campus de Longueuil de l’Université de Sherbrooke. Le lieu a été choisi pour plusieurs raisons:

• d’abord, on avait besoin de locaux accessibles pendant 3 jours de suite. Pour comparaison, ce genre d’évenement est quasiment impossible à organiser dans des lieux comme la SAT
• Il faut aussi des locaux susceptibles d’accueillir une audience de 75 personnes et plus, possiblement jusqu’à 150 personnes,
• Il fallait aussi des partenaires qui comprennent notre vision, et qui aiment mettre en place des évenements aussi innovateurs que Blitzweekend.
• aussi, il était nécessaire d’avoir sur place l’Internet Sans-Fil et avoir à proximité des services de restauration.

En contactant différent organisations potentiels, l’Université de Sherbrooke était le seul à remplir les 4 conditions, en nous mettant à disposition leurs locaux à Longueuil. Ils se sont montrés diligents, dynamiques et coopératifs.

Le campus de Longueuil offre 90+ programmes, et se focuse notamment sur des cours intensifs, et des cours à temps partiel pour des professionnels.

Les locaux se trouvent au 1111 rue st-charles, à 2 minutes de marche du métro de Longueuil (ligne jaune). Il faut prendre la sortie Place Charles Le Moyne, et se diriger vers les batiments en verre sur la droite. On occupera le rez-de-chaussé des bâtiments des 5 heures, le vendredi 29 février.

Outre les autres partenaires de Blitzweekend, nous sommes aussi fiers d’avoir Embrase comme partenaire et sponsor pour l’évenement. Philippe Telio, partenaire à Embrase, résume ainsi la société:

Embrase est une société de services-conseils en positionnement, développement corporatif et mise en marché pour entreprises émergentes et à croissance rapide du domaine des hautes technologie faisant face à des défis d’accès au marché, cycle d’adoption client plus longs que prévu et exigences d’investisseurs.

En clair, Embrase aide les futurs startups dans leur période d’incubation, notamment au niveau marketing et du plan d’affaires. Embrase est notamment connu à Montréal pour avoir organisé le premier StartupCampMontréal, qui a regroupé pas moins de 170 entrepreneurs, investisseurs, médias et guru. Pour Blitzweekend, Embrase offrira à l’équipe selectionné par le panel un jour entier de consultation pour raffiner leur plan d’affaires, et leur permettre d’atteindre plus facilement le prochain niveau.

Yesterday, we organized a 5 to 7 informal cocktail, gathering organizers and anyone interested into in Blitzweekend. 38 people came up, mostly web entrepreneurs, but also developers and designers. There were also a handful of business consultants, investors, and experts in entrepreneurship. We also had the friendly team of intruders who interviewed a few people at the event, with their high-tech cameras.

Here we have the ever-cherry Fred Ngo, co-founder of Standoutjobs.

Standoutjobs is a new startup in town offering innovative HR solutions to companies wanting to get top talent. If you haven’t visited their website yet, give it a try, they’ve done an awesome work.

It’s surprising the amount of attention we get for blitzweekend. Above is Richard Menneveux, a web entrepreneur in France, who runs french job startup moovement.fr. He loves Montreal and also love Blitzweekend. We also had messages from entrepreneurs overseas who are looking into joining the event — which is awesome.

Now, our next job is to match-make people. If you are looking for developers, designers, entrepreneurs, please leave a message, or email us at hello@blitzweekend.com and we will find other potential members. Don’t also forget to go at the list of projects and attendees.

We received last week a lot of attention about blitzweekend, mostly from Montreal but also in Canadian and in international blogs, which adds up to the regular mentions in MontrealTechWatch and QuebecValley

Mentions in Montreal:
DIY blog, wants to participate
Gagnerericwebware is very interested, and has setup a widget to search for blitzweekend mentions on twitter.
woot.org is a developer and likes the event.
Stephane Daury announces he will be participating in the event.
jponrails is a ruby on rails developer and announces blitzweekend 3 times. Looks like he has a whole network of websites.

Mentions in Quebec:
Present Profit, a blog by a consulting firm helping entrepreneurs finding funds for their ventures. They outline what the event would bring in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship in Quebec.

Mentions in Canada:
StartupOttawa invites its reader to get a team together and come to Montreal
StartupNorth describes the event as an “ad-hoc launchpad” for startups
Ottawa web weekend wants to do the same event in Ottawa for April, and wants to setup a team for Montreal.

Mentions worldwide:
web1979 is in London and says there is now a lot of activity in Montreal
Web Addict (South Africa)
ReadWriteWeb (originally New Zealand, but readership is mostly US)
zerosumdirt, a Ruby On Rails developer who discusess the merits of constraints-driven development
Techcrunch France invite canadian entrepreneurs to participate in the event.

The most interesting blog posts were the one coming from startupnorth, which pretty nailed what we ultimately want to offer for entrepreneurs. Also, ReadWriteWeb, as usual, have done a great job in getting some perspective and what this could actually mean for developers. Time constraints is most of the time an underlooked issue, although everyone is aware how having milestones, deadlines, tight schedules can actually have huge impacts in terms of results. I have discovered it myself when doing blitzmaker, and it is a true eye-opener on what you can actually do. It was was a stressful, although ultimately, good surprise and experience for me.

Last week, I also met 30+ developers at the first MontrealPython meetup (slides below), and invited attendees directly to come up for blitzweekend and for the upcoming 5 à 7, in the case they are looking for extra team members.

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We are inviting you to have a drink with us Tuesday, Feb 12th, at Blizzart Bar.

Blizzart is at 3956a bvd St-Laurent, (at Duluth interesection). This will be be a perfect opportunity if you are looking for a team, for an idea, or for extra team members.

Standoutjobs will be our sponsor; they have just launched their startup and will have a kiosk onsite.

Come and meet developers, designers, and Montreal entrepreneurs!

Registration is at facebook 

Outre BDO et iNovia Capital, nous avons aussi comme partenaires pour blitzweekend Globalex, cabinet de courtage.

Ils assurent des entreprises en technologie de l’information et aussi les investisseurs en capital risque; Globalex est notamment un partenaire obligé pour finaliser un accord entre un entrepreneur en technologie et un investisseur.

Nous leur remercions de leur confiance. Globalex s’associe à un évenement qui supporte et favorise l’entrepreneuriat et l’innovation, et qui on l’espère, formera la nouvelle vague d’entreprises en haute technologie.

Outre notre sponsor principal iNovia Capital, nous sommes aussi fiers d’annoncer BDO comme sponsor de Blitzweekend.

BDO Dunwoody est une firme de comptable agréés et conseillers. Ils ont en particulier une équipe spécialisée en technologie et prêt à travailler avec des entrepreneurs. De plus ils seront présents lors de l’évenements et donneront des présentations aux participants.

Nous sommes sûrs que leur expertise donneront une valeur ajoutée inestimable à l’évenement et aux équipes présentes.