Agile Tortoise

I had an incredible experience at the first Dallas Startup Weekend this week. Startup Weekends are taking place around the country, and I encourage you to look into it if one is coming near you.

The concept, in a nutshell, is to get together a group of developers, entrepreneurs, marketing people, etc. for an intense weekend of business building. Friday night anyone and everyone pitches ideas. The attendees vote on ideas and divide into teams, then spend the weekend honing and implementing it…and hopefully coming out of the weekend with a new startup business.

I teamed up with John, Matt, Mike, Jake and Joey on John’s idea for a social recipe website that could learn about your personal tastes.

The result was PickyPlates. From concept to up and running site in about 20 hours working time. Still lots to be done, but the team was awesome and plans to keep moving forward with the project. We also came home with first prize in the weekend competition — which was a really exciting end to a great weekend.

Congrats and best of luck to the other great business started over the weekend, including: OpenWishLists.org, 1FTPClient, MeetupSports, ActivePub, DriveLegal 24/8, and 1-800-LawGuns.

Derek Powazek lays bare the misguided strategies of “SEO” (Search Engine Optimization):

Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned

Thinking about a new website for your business? You may well need one. For many types of businesses, your Internet presence is both the entry point to a relationship with new customers and the primary conduit between you and your existing customer base.

But before you decide you need a new website, you should figure out why. Seth Godin has an excellent primer on Things to Ask Before You Redo Your Website.