Brother, You'Re On My Mind: Event Planning Checklist: Fill & Download for Free

IMOP: The prize in not in winning, the prize is in the experience.At this point, I’ve experienced Startup Weekend from many angles; as a participant, a keynote, a panelist, a mentor. It is my hope that this comment serves as a compiled list of my observations and again in my own opinion a “best practices” script of-sorts.First, a high level: In my opinion Startup Weekend is NOT about starting a real company, but rather, proving to yourself that it is in-fact possible to start your own company. Sure, some companies do form out of the weekends and go on to raise real capital, but I feel that this is more of an edge case than a standard.So if you’re not here to build a real company, what are you here to do?1) People, people, people.For three days, you’ll be surrounded by a handful of talented technologists, business minded folks, mentors, and investors. Take advantage of this fact. It isn’t very often that you get a group of capable people together in one room all with the shared goal of building something great.With that said, don’t be on a mission to shake hands– be on a mission to make friends and build lasting relationships. I met our first investor at Startup Weekend– in fact, I was offered $50,000 just two days after the weekend ended to pursue the project I had pitched. (Though I later chose not to take the money).2) Don’t sweat the small stuff.OK Eli, what count’s as “small stuff?!?”-Budgets:If this is your first time putting together a startup budget, you’re first plan will without a doubt be full of shit. Don’t waste time on this– no one cares. If the question comes up,question the person asking it (they’re probably a Goober). If you feel like you need an answer just say that post funding you expect to be burning $12K per employee, per month, less founders (you won’t be paying yourself that much). (Our technical advisor, Joe Stump wrote a great post here on the subject).-Marketing plans that take more than 2 hoursYour market will dictate much of this plan, and frankly, you only have so much time to learn from your market over a 3 day weekend. Don’t over analyze.-Social media BS.Seriously, no one is impressed by your teams Facebook friends liking your ‘Companys’ Facebook page. Also, if you somehow land more than 1K followers, the vast majority of the audience will assume you bought them. THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME AND DOESN’T COUNT AS MARKET VALIDATION. Want to impress the crowd? Go land a real customer or two.-Polls of other SW attendeesAgain, this doesn’t count as market validation. In fact- none of your friends or family count as market validation. They’re all liars and will tell you what they need to to not feel like assholes. What’s that? Yea, I know– “But Eli, my friends and family ARE my target customers, they fit the customer profile perfectly!” Awesome! They still don’t count– BUT they likely can intro you to a less biased colleague / customer / or boss of theirs for some real feedback. Don’t be afraid to ask.- “Intellectual Property”If you are concerned about IP and make a stink about it (someone always does) you’re going to look like a total ass-clown. Your great idea is NOTHING without execution. If someone hears about your “unique IP” and then goes off and does it without you and succeeds, THEY DESERVE IT. The hard part is in the execution, not the imagining of things. So speak freely, be generous, and remember that it’s the people that matter most, not the ideas.3) Sleep less, focus more.You’re only here for 3 days. Don’t think that 8 hour days are going to cut it. If you’re really into the idea of a startup, give yourself a taste of reality: 8a-2a should do the trick. Everyone else gets 3 days, you get 4…4) What you SHOULD focus on? P.P.P.C.-Problems, not solutions.If you’ve created a cool solution to a nonexistent problem, you’re fucked. Call BS early, and move on to the next idea. There is no shame in being wrong, only in not course correcting once you know you’re wrong.-Product!MAKE SOMETHING. However trivial, if you can make something move inside of a browser, do it. If you can build out a very stripped down MVP (minimal viable product),all the better! Also, MAKE IT PRETTY. Don’t underestimate the power of pretty. Whether it’s your landing page, or the beginnings of the app itself, make sure the part you show off looks good.-PitchWhoever is pitching should spend at-least 8 hours practicing. Seriously. Also, don’t wait until the last day. Saturday night you should give it a go with your team. Even if you don’t have all of the pieces (you won’t), giving it an early go will help your team identify the missing pieces and will buy you with the time needed to fill them in. Another way to think about this– you have the opportunity to tell any story you’d like– make sure you are able to show off all of that hard work.-Customer validation.You have a network. Flex it. Go through your contact list and see where people are working. Call them. Rinse and repeat. If everyone on the team is tasked with finding ONE customer, you’ll likely have more customers than anyone else on stage.5) Pitch/post-pitch expectations-NervesEveryone is nervous, just rock it. If you scan the room with your eyes focused just slightly above the tops of everyone’s heads, you won’t have to worry about getting distracted by any one face, and you’ll appear to be engaging the audience.-MemorizationYou don’t have much time so practice, practice, practice. Practicing is more important than sleeping (for the most part). If you’re assigned to be the pitch-guy just know that the whole teams efforts rest on your shoulders in those final minutes. Don’t suck.-Work the roomOnce your pitch is over, don’t go sit with your team and talk amongst yourselves. Assuming you did a good-ish job, you should be working the room and meeting everyone who you didn’t get a chance to chat with while you we’re working. Also, don’t assume the only important people in the room are the judges– that would be making a huge assumption and I’m willing to bet money you’re wrong.6) My thoughts on what (not) to pitch.I’ve been to my fair share of Startup Weekends and have heard a ton of pitches. Here’s a newbs guide to what not to pitch. The reasoning? Anytime you have a “sexy consumer idea,” imagine there is a team of 5 Stanford/Harvard/YouNameItBigFuckingSchool graduates that are working on the same exact idea, but they have $5M in the bank and virtually unlimited resources at their disposal. This is likely the case for any of the ideas below.Why? Because consumer is “sexy,” and because these are obvious at this point, and as such have been pitched and attempted over and over. Instead, I challenge you to think of something that pertains to your specific domain of expertise. You’re no more of a social expert than my 14 year old brother, whereas that one nagging thing that you wish you had at work may very well be worth $19/month by millions of other people in your shoes. Choose / avoid wisely.The no-no list:- An app that helps you navigate events- An app that helps you find events relevant to you!- An app that helps two people share contact info!- A consumer app that has anything to do with piggybacking FB or Twitter for more than 50% of its value add.- An app that aggregates photos- An app that prints photos- An app that has to do with beating craigslist.- An app to meet people- An app to source local food/meat- An app for group chat- An app for food discovery- An app for skill-share or group volunteering7) Expectations around raising money.I wasn’t going to address this, but seeing as the question comes up almost every time I sit down with a team… Here are some ground rules to set for your imagination.No sophisticated investor will:- Invest in you before you’ve quit your job. Don’t waste your breath.- Be excited enough to write a check for any of the aforementioned ideas straight out of a 3 day event.- Believe that “everyone is going to quit their jobs to work on this thing” until they actually do.8) MondaySo monday rolls around and you want to move forward with your concept. Here’s a quick checklist. (Assuming you want to turn it in to a venture backed company at some point).- Talk to your team. You’re going to want no more than 4 co-founders to move forward, and people generally self select based on their current situations. See who is ready to commit and quit their jobs. The more technical/product oriented the team is, the better. There should always be more engineers than business people. (Investor optics). If your entire 10 person team is ready to quit their job and move forward with things, pick four and explain your rational to the rest. If they make some BS claims about IP– nothing is stopping them from trying to give it a go themselves… wish them luck.- Lock down the team that wants to move forward. Get a firm commit date.- Quit your job. You can’t really go for it if you’re multitasking.- Find an attorney in town that will incorporate you for free (oh man, I’m going to catch some flack for this). There are tons of big firms that think of these kinds of opportunities as lead gen. DON’T PAY to incorporate. You should be able to get 2K in free services from a top notch firm without too much trouble. Pretend they are investors, sell them on your vision. Paint the picture of you becoming a big company. They will see the future $$$$$. Also, whatever you do, DON’T give them any equity.- With said attorney, form a Delaware C-Corp. Look it up on Quora. If you’re going to take this puppy to venture scale, nothing else will suffice long term, and you’ll end up spending a ton of dough swapping from that LLC.- Get to work. Ship a product. MOAAAAR CUSTOMERS. Rinse and repeat. And the rest as they say, is history.7) Final thoughts.Remember, you’re there to have fun and learn. Open your ears, speak up, and kick some ass.

If something does not feel right, then you are probably being abused…Here is a list of red flags of manipulative people by the one and only Jackson Mackenzie. (Pay attention to the thirtieth sign)“There are a lot of phenomenal studies on the traits and characteristics of psychopaths. For professional research, check out Cleckley’s criteria or Hare’s psychopathy checklist. A quick Google search ought to do the trick. The red flags in this book are intended to supplement those resources.So what’s different about this list? Well, for one, it’s specifically about relationships. But it’s also about you. Each point requires introspection and self-awareness. Because if you want to spot toxic people, you cannot focus entirely on their behavior—that’s only half the battle. You must also come to recognize the looming red flags in your own heart. Then, you will be ready for anything.1. You feel on-edge around this person, but you still want them to like you. You find yourself writing off most of their questionable behavior as accidental or insensitive, because you’re in constant competition with others for their attention and praise. They don't seem to care when you leave their side—they can just as easily move on to the next source of energy.2. They withhold attention and undermine your self-esteem. After first hooking you with praise and flattery, they suddenly become reclusive and uninterested. They make you feel desperate & needy, ensuring that you are always the one to initiate contact or physical intimacy.3. Plasters your Facebook page with compliments, flattery, songs, and poems. They text you dozens, if not hundreds of times per day. You come to rely on this over-communication as a source of confidence.4. Quickly declares you their soul mate. And for some reason, you don’t find it creepy. They tell you how much they have in common with you. On the first few dates, you do most of the talking and they just can’t believe how perfect you are for them.5. Compares you to everyone else in their life. Ex-lovers, friends, family members, and your eventual replacement. When idealizing, they make you feel special by telling you how much better you are than these people. When devaluing, they use these comparisons to hurt you.6. Lies & excuses. There is always an excuse for everything, even things that don’t require excusing. They make up lies faster than you can question them. They will always blame others—it is never their fault. They spend more time rationalizing their behavior than improving it.7. No startle response. Total absence of anxiety, fear, and worry where there otherwise should be. They are also very easily bored by the familiar. You write this off as calm and cool, often feeling inferior and over-sensitive because you have normal human emotions.8. Insults you with a condescending, joking sort of attitude. Smirks when you try to express yourself. Teasing becomes the primary mode of communication in your relationship. They subtly belittle your intelligence and achievements. If you point this out, they call you hypersensitive and crazy.9. Uses social networking to provoke jealousy and rivalries while maintaining their cover of innocence. They once focused all of their attention on you, but now they post ambiguous videos and statuses to make you doubt your place in their heart. They bait previously denounced exes with old songs and inside jokes. They attend to new activity and ignores yours.10. You find yourself playing detective. It’s never happened in any other relationship, but suddenly you’re scrolling back years on their Facebook page and albums. Same with their ex. You’re seeking answers to a feeling you can’t quite explain.11. Surrounds themselves with former lovers and potential mates. Brags that their exes still want to sleep with him/her, but assures you there is nothing to worry about. These people make you feel jealous and give off the perception that your partner is in high-demand.12. Hyperbolizes emotions while displaying none of them. They make passionate statements like “I’ve never felt so happy in my life” in a completely robotic voice. It sounds like an alien trying to explain how they imagine human emotions might feel.13. You are the only one who sees their true colors. Others will think they're the nicest person in the world, even though they are used for money, resources, and attention. They won’t care because he/she strategically distracts them with shallow praise (often done over social networking). Psychopaths are able to maintain superficial friendships far longer than their relationships.14. Accuses you of emotions that they are intentionally provoking. They will call you jealous after blatantly flirting with their ex over social networking for the world to see. They will call you needy after intentionally ignoring you for three days straight.15. Cannot put themselves in your shoes, or anyone else’s for that matter. You find yourself desperately trying to explain how they might feel if you were treating them this way, and they just stare at you blankly.16. You are engaged in constant conversations about their ex. You know them by name, and you know everything about their relationship—at least, your partner's version of events. The ex becomes one of the most frequent topics of discussion in your relationship.17. You find yourself explaining the basic elements of human respect to a full-grown man/woman. Normal people understand the fundamental concepts of honesty and kindness. No adult should need to be told how they are making other people feel.18. Focuses on your mistakes and ignores their own. If they're two hours late, don’t forget that you were once five minutes late to your first date. If you point out their mistakes, they will always be quick to turn the conversation back on you.19. Suddenly and completely bored by you. Gives you the silent treatment and becomes very annoyed that you seem to be interested in continuing the passionate relationship that they created. You are now a chore to them.20. The ultimate hypocrite. They have extremely high expectations for fidelity, respect, and adoration. After the idealization phase, they will give none of this back to you. They will cheat, lie, insult, and degrade. But you are expected to remain perfect.21. Sometimes it seems as though they've forgotten who they're supposed to be around you. They adopt different personas for different people—transforming their entire personality to match various audiences. It’s always very eerie when they slip and accidentally use the wrong mask for you. You will start to feel that their personality just doesn’t seem to add up.22. An unusual amount of “crazy” people in their past. Any ex-partner or friend who did not come crawling back to them will likely be labeled jealous, bipolar, an alcoholic, or some other nasty smear. They will speak about you the same way to their next target.23. Flatters your deepest insecurities. If you’re self-conscious about your looks, they'll call you the sexiest person in the world. If you’ve got a need to entertain, they'll say you’re the funniest person they've ever known. They will also mirror your greatest fantasies, playing whatever role is necessary to win your heart.24. Frequently comments about what you’re wearing and how you look. They try to arrange you. You become obsessed with your appearance, noticing flaws that likely don’t even exist. During and after the relationship, you will spend significantly more time in front of the mirror. (Thank you to our member, ckwanderlust, for these valuable insights).25. You fear that any fight could be your last. Normal couples argue to resolve issues, but psychopaths make it clear that negative conversations will jeopardize the relationship, especially ones regarding their behavior. You apologize and forgive quickly, otherwise you know they'll lose interest in you.26. Obsessed with humiliating successful, kind & cheerful people. Delighted by the idea of breaking up friendships and marriages. If you work hard to maintain interpersonal peace in your life, they will make it their mission to uproot all of it.27. Gaslighting. Blatantly denies their own manipulative behavior and ignores evidence when confronted with it. They will become angry if you attempt to disprove their delusions with facts.28. They expect you to read their mind. If they stop communicating with you for several days, it’s your fault for not knowing about the plans they never told you about. There will always be a self-victimizing excuse to go along with this.29. Selfishness and a crippling thirst for attention. They drain the energy from you and consume your entire life. Their demand for adoration is insatiable. You thought you were the only one who could make them happy, but now you feel that anyone with a beating pulse could fit the role. However, the truth is: no one can fill the void of a psychopath’s soul.30. Your feelings. After a run-in with a psychopath, you will feel insane, exhausted, drained, shocked, suicidal, and empty. You will tear apart your entire life—spending money, ending friendships, and searching for some sort of reason behind it all.”

There are no universal techniques because every emotional or physical trauma is so different.Trauma brings grief because you’ve lost someone you love, or in the case of physical trauma there have been changes in your life that you did not foresee.Every life needs a purpose and most of us don’t think about what that purpose when times are good.When our 20 year old son was killed in a firefighter training accident in our small close knit town I wondered if I would come back to loving life. Five years before my youngest brother had killed himself, the world had 911 to mourn, and I had also lost a best friend and key employee in my small business to untimely death by heart attack in his early 30’s. Four major life changing events in five years, WHY?Rule#1: It’s not personal, it’s life.The Universe is entirely random and without logic or feeling. Life’s challenges are randomly distributed along with life’s gifts. There was no one controlling these challenges and targeting me personally, it was all randomly coming my way. So as much as it was personally very challenging I needed to not take it personally. It was a random test of how deeply my soul could be damaged and still learn to live again.Rule #2: If you don’t have a purpose, find one now.Good advice for every life, essential advice for those suffering trauma. The trauma will change your life negatively at first. You will still breathe and eat. You will be alive for a long time to come. Do you wish to exist? Or do you want to live?Rule #3: Write a diary or state of my mind statement a bit every day. This will be work, but will provide you track of your direction and progress. As long as you’re moving forward, you may be OK. I diary will help you catch yourself from major back-slides.Rule #4: Accept change as inevitable, then steer that change.Once you get past the initial emotional reactions, including anger and denial, you must allow logic back into your world. Logically you can’t replace the lost loved one, or the lost limb. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can move in a more positive direction. Professional help may be required to ease this transition or to accelerate it.Rule #5: Make a planMore writing. Make a list of what you loved, what you liked and what you didn’t like about your life. This will become a checklist for your new plan which will be used to test your direction that you will choose.Make a list of responsibilities, resources, capabilities, liabilities and assets including interests, talents and PASSIONS. If you can find something you are passionate about or can choose something you’ve always wanted to be passionate about finding new purpose in life will be much easier and have higher odds of success,Rule #6 Steer the ship, but the destination may changeAs you begin to move away from trauma and loss, rip the rear view mirrors off and start steering. Your goals and purpose may change many times. That will be a tremendous learning experience.Re-engage with friends and activities. If they don’t feel comfortable or fit into the new you, then learn to accept that any trauma or significant loss will cost you some friends and replace them with a few much stronger friends. They will be the ones who walked along side of you in the darkest days.Rule #7: Embrace the changes you’ll make. Learn to love yourself, then learn to love life again and then learn to love others again.In the first couple of years after our son’s death, I couldn’t look myself in the mirror. I could see the pain in my eyes and didn’t want to be that person that life had made me.It took time, it took healing, it took change. I still see the pain, but the pain is surrounded by new strength, the strength and confidence that my soul is deeply scarred but well healed and I am stronger than most people for having survived the challenge and for what it taught me. I have killed the giant of grief, or at least contained it. Even my own death will be simpler for having lived this part of my life.Final rule:Allow yourself to become tougher and stronger but not harder. Hard souls break easily and shatter. Tougher stronger souls that remain flexible are a thing of beauty, an affirmation that the human life we have is a remarkable gift. We are here to love ourselves, love our life, and love each other.The darkest days of your life will bring the greatest opportunity to learn. The lowest days of your life will elevate the good days ahead because you know the full range of life’s random challenges. Without the experience of despair, joy is less joyous.Be well, seek peace and build love.