Startup Weekend Southampton

My last post was about hackathon’s, why they are valuable and how it’s an opportunity for anyone to participate.

This weekend I’m heading along to Startup Weekend Southampton to get involved!

Startup Weekend Southampton

I have a specific idea at the intersection of Health + Technology + Psychology which I will pitch.

A good hackathon has a balance of people from different disciplines and skills such as the Hacker, the Hustler &  the Designer. I’m excited to make new friends and hope to attract a good team with a mixture of talents to build this app.

Hacking

Hacking the business model

Here’s a video from this morning bright and early while heading to the gym with a bit more detail:

You can follow along the fun and see the various team’s progress by following the Twitter hashtag #SWsouthampton and a twitter list of attendees.

I’ll update here as the weekend progresses.

startup_weekend

What is a hackathon?

A hackathon is a weekend long burst of creative energy. It can be a mix of software development, design, product validation, making prototypes, building apps and solving problems. Any activity that brings something useful or cool into the world. This can take the form of a product, service, charity, or even an artwork, there are lot’s of different flavours of hackathons.

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately co-working from Google Campus, Central Working and Innovation Warehouse engaging with entrepreneurs and startups via FuelStory and Converge+UK.

Hackathons are an exciting new trend in the entrepreneurial scene in London. The clusters around Tech City, Silicon Roundabout are running more and more weekend hackathons. There are now several hackathons each month and new ones are being created all the time. I realised recently that for people who work at the intersection of tech and entrepreneurship hackathons are well-known and common-place, for many people it’s a foreign concept.

A hackathon, also known as a startup weekend, sprint or makeathon (emphasis on a physical creation) is a weekend where people come together to build something.

Everyone must participate and contribute, no spectators.

Some are run as competitions with prizes, some are focused on charity, doing good or using government data, there are a whole host of different angles or themes for each one.

What happens at a hackathon?

Typically on the Friday night or early Saturday morning people arrive, the more diverse the skills set in the room the better. The weekend proceeds at pace:

  1. Anyone has the opportunity to stand up and pitch their idea of what they want to create.
  2. People vote on the best ideas
  3. Teams are formed, you move to the idea that you both like AND believe you are best placed to contribute to making a success
  4. Teams go ahead and build out that idea, this involves:
    1. Idea validation, get out on the street, on the phone, on the web, talk to real people, ask questions. Is this useful? does this solve a real problem or create joy? Is there a market for this?
    2. Design the customer journey, map out prototypes of the design and workflows on paper
    3. Build, this can be web or app development, graphics design or even physically building something at a makeathon event
    4. Next is to show people what you have built and attempt to get to “product-market fit”, i.e. do people want this thing and does it fit the market.
    5. Spread the message – social media, marketing, advertising, creating meetups
  5. At the end of the weekend there is a panel of judges and teams present back and a winner is chosen
  6. There are often prizes in the form of cash, software or mentorship programs that could take this beginnings of a product and accelerate it into a real business. A Startup Accelerator or Startup Incubator program is often a typical next step, these programs run for 6-12 weeks, you are supported by mature teams and mentors to accelerate your creation into a fully fledged business.
  7. It doesn’t matter whether your team won the hackathon, if your team loves what you created this is often enough for many people to go forth, band together and develop the product into a business.

What’s the point?

The point is you get to use your skills for something different. Create something that is useful, solves a problem, create something people want and has impact. It’s fast paced, a lot of fun and a brilliant way to play full out in a team giving their all.

Who should attend?

Everyone.

There is a perception that hackathons are only for developers and designers and people who can build stuff. While that is a big part of it, there is a way for everyone to contribute. So, how can you contribute at a hackathon?

  • Hacker
    • Beyond building things, there is the architecture, designing systems, processes and models
  • Hustler
    • Understanding customers, finding them, building community, creating buzz, inspiring action, taking care of business
  • Designer
    • Get into the mind of the user, behavioural design, graphics design, industrial design and creating the experience

Sounds awesome! How do I get involved?

Here are the upcoming options for participating in a Hackathon in London:

London Startup Weekend
9-11 November
http://london.startupweekend.org/

Angel Hack
10/11th November
http://londonangelhack.eventbrite.com

FounderBus
15 November – applications in by
http://www.founderbus.com

Midata Hackathon
17/18th November
http://www.theodi.org/events/midata-hackathon-2012
Data-driven hackathon, government, personal data (http://www.meetup.com/LondonQS/messages/boards/thread/28204052/)

TheGivingLAB Hackdays – Dev4Good
24/25th November
http://thegivinglabgooglecampus.eventbrite.com/
Let’s create meaningful things. Get involved,
Klaus

How I work:

At FuelStory – we work with startups and established businesses to get your story tight, that means workshops, consultation and implementation in branding, naming, storytelling, communications, web and graphics design/development. Once your foundation is set, we help build community around your product or service and spread your story via social media, meetups, marketing and advertising.

Converge+UK is a non-profit creativity collective bringing together people who work in design, business and technology. The purpose is to prompt creative abrasion, connect people, educate and inspire and encourage people to build something cool, that is useful and has impact, this can be either an entirely new creation in the form of a product/startup or showing up differently back in one’s job.

Bulletproof Coffee for breakfast

What’s the best breakfast to increase energy, increase productivity and lose fat?

As an entrepreneur I’m always looking for tips and tricks to hack my health, energy, accelerate performance and productivity.

I’ve been a big fan of the quantified self movement, bio and self-hacking trends. I first discovered this while reading Tim Ferriss’s - The 4-hour work week and then The 4 Hour Body.

A few months ago I discovered Dave Asprey who runs the blog: Bullet Proof Exec. As I delved deeper into what he was up to I saw this Bullet Proof Coffee concoction and I had to try it!

What is it?

It’s an alternative breakfast consisting of:

  • high grade mold-free coffee
  • high quality butter from a grass-fed animal. Food that comes from a grass fed vs grain fed animal is vastly superior nutritionally
  • coconut oil or MCT oil (medium-chain-triglycerides, the dominant ingredient in coconut oil

Why drink this?

  • You get a 5-6 hour clean, even, burst of energy from high quality good fats
  • It is useful as part of fat adaptation protocol, signalling your body to look for fat as a fuel source and transition away from a dependency on grains, high carbohydrate and sugar fuel sources which swing energy levels and cravings up and down all day
  • Helps with weight-loss and improves brain function according to the BulletProof Exec
  • Works in well with the Paleo diet and Intermittent fasting, more on why skipping breakfast may be better for you at Lean Gains
  • My experience was that I liked to feel light and not weighed down in the morning digesting a heavy meal, it led to increased productivity something I am always striving for as an entrepreneur

What do you need to make it?

Monmouth coffee

 How do you make it?

Follow the instructions in this video:

Have fun and let me know how you get on in the comments!

Update

A number of people have been asking me how to make this in the UK. I recommend Monmouth coffee as my favourite, they don’t sell online, you can buy the official Bulletproof coffee in the UK here. I’ve also heard GrumpyMule is decent, further discussion of options in detail is happening on the official forum here.

Converge UK at Innovation Warehouse

Converge UK is a series of events to foster communication, collaboration and creation at the intersection of Design, Business & Technology.

We are running our 2nd event at Innovation Warehouse Wednesday October 3rd  Please get your tickets here.

The concept was co-founded by a diverse group of London professionals working in lot’s of different disciplines with a common interest in entrepreneurship including myself,  Peter Thomson, Tim McCready, David Mclaire, Sallie Bale, and Dan George.

We had all been going to loads of events related to our industry but had observed that all too often London meetups, the people you met and thinking can be siloed in an echo chamber of agreement with people working in the same discipline holding similar views. Converge UK is about bringing together different disciplines to discuss and prompt creative abrasion, where people may disagree and have totally curve-ball different ideas. At the overlap between disciplines is where the magic and meaningful occurs.

The format is to have a speaker from each discipline, Q&A, audience group exercises sessions followed by open networking over drinks and food provided.

Speakers emphasise lessons from the trenches in real startups, the good the bad and the ugly. The project is non-profit and open-source, we are looking for feedback and ideas on the format and are always looking for volunteers if you want to be involved as well as speakers to speak to a challenge, triumph, learning from each camp Design, Business, Technology. Please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.

We held our first event at the end of August at Google Campus London, had a great turn out with 40-50 people attending and excellent feedback.  Some press from the first event.

Our next event is at the Innovation Warehouse Wednesday October 3rd 7pm. Please get your tickets here. You can also join the Meetup Group.

Lastly me giving a short overview of the concept and personally inviting you to come along:

4 minute workout to boost metabolism and lose fat using Tabata, Interval Training

How can you get in a fast and effective workout in 4 minutes? and do it anytime, anywhere, no excuses?

Use Tabata or HIIT: High Intensity Interval Training, I’ll explain exactly what it is and how you can use it below.

Let’s be honest, you are wasting your time going out for long runs, cycles or spending upwards of 45 minutes at a fixed intensity for a long duration. Another factor to consider is what type of body do you want to create, you need to train like the athlete’s shape you want to be, look at endurance runners vs sprinters, look at cyclists. Spending consistent time in long duration medium intensity exercise will create you a lean, skinny type physique which is fine if that’s the look you are going for. Want to loose fat, keep or gain muscle and do it with minimal time investment? Enter, Tabata.

What is Tabata?

Tabata comes out of Japan, you can read the history and specifics here. It boils down to:

  • Total of 4 minutes time spent
  • 8 rounds of: 20 seconds high intensity exercise, followed by 10 seconds rest.
  • The exercises themselves are infinite and can be bodyweight only or with other equipment

Benefits:

  • Raises your metabolic rate for the following 24 hours
  • Increases your maximum aerobic capacity, VO2 max
  • Convenient - you can do this in a hotel, while on holiday, at conventions or at conferences to maintain your health or as part of your daily routine

How to do it:

First get warm, it’s high intensity and depending on the exercises you choose it maybe high impact. I like to start my day with a 30 minute walk outside (I do a walk of gratitude, will detail in another post), walk fast to get warm and get a sweat up. When you sleep your spine hydrates, your body elongates and the discs in your spine separate. Avoid heavy weights and high impact work immediately on waking, get warm first and let the spine settle.

Decide on a few exercises:

Bodyweight:

  • Air squats
  • Pushups
  • Burpees
  • High Knees
  • Hill climbers
  • Sprints
  • Dips
  • Pull ups/Chin ups
  • Situps
  • Jumping lunges

With Equipment:

  • Kettlebell swings
  • Skipping, try for double unders ( two spin cycles per jump)
  • Squats
  • Thrusters

Use music to motivate:

One of the quickest ways to alter your mental state or mood is with music. I have playlists for waking up in the morning feeling positive, for cardio, Tabata training, for weight training, for working at the computer, different types of music work for different activities.

For Tabata I prefer upbeat progressive trance/techno type music, in the video below I’m listening to a free podcast by Blake Jarrell on my ipad you can grab his music for free here: Blake Jarrell podcast

Use a timer app:

These make the whole process super easy and actually fun to do, I demo a few in the video below. Here are the links:

iPhone/iPad app WOD Workout of the Day, Crossfit:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wod/id333770085

Free Tabata, Interval Timer Android app:
http://market.android.com/details?id=org.tabata.tabatatimer_lite

Go all out!

How often in life do you truly give your all holding nothing back, leaving nothing in the tank? I challenge you to unleash your everything for 4 minutes, it is a truly empowering feeling to rip into something and just go primal letting out that aggression in a safe, healthy way.

Below is a video of me explaining Tabata and demonstrating the exercises and the apps you can use:

Have fun with this and please leave a comment with how you got on and any questions you have.

Caveman Klaus