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Startup Weekend Amsterdam

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I recently attended Startup Weekend Amsterdam because:

1.) It’s just a whole lot of damned good fun!
2.) SWAMS has got to be one of best Startup Weekends anywhere
3.) I recently founded Startup Weekend Cologne so I had to attend a Startup Weekend as a requirement – Stay tuned for more!

James Digby (@digbyj) kicking it all off:

James Digby kicking off Startup Weekend Amsterdam #swams

Then the awesome legendary Steve Blank (@sgblank) made a cameo appearance and I just had to ask him if he invests in European startups – On which he retorted I should first take some of his classes. Hah, so we meet again, Steve! I think I’ll have to take you up on that one! :)

UPDATE: I did take Steve up on that one. :)

The AWESOMENESS! Steve Blank surprise keynote at Startup Weekend Amsterdam! Hi again @sgblank :) #swams

So exiting that we’re all standing on our chairs!

And now we're so excited we're standing on our chairs! #swams

The amazing SWAMS location, Pakhuis De Zwyger:

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Easygiving.co winning the grand prize for thinking big; A non-profit charity where 100% of your donations go to the cause:

Check out http://easygiving.co non-profit for 100% of your charity going to the cause! #swams

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And of course I couldn’t help pitching myself and accidentally ended up winning the Startup Weekend Spirit award for our team http://lunchroulette.co for completely p0wning the judges and capturing the audience but also by telling the story of the learning made, how we invalidated the business model of some other guy’s idea I had originally joined, how the team then collapsed and the idea owner going home, leaving us basically a couple of hours on the last day to come up with this.

@blacktar: Never lunch alone again! Meet new people over chow: http://t.co/mOjUtEU0 Sign up and we'll match you with a lunch date near you! #swAMS

W00t! Good times!

I’m incredibly excited about bringing Startup Weekend to Cologne!

Here are the slides I used:

UPDATE 2013:

Almost exactly one year after i presented Lunch Roulette at Startup Weekend Amsterdam, I was visiting the new Facebook HQ in Menlo Park and found out that they had implemented some of the ideas for their staff internally.

Hah! Even the logo looked uncannily familiar! I’ll take that as validation, thank you.

See for yourself:

Internal Facebook memo on the wall at the HQ in Menlo Park,  June 2013.

Internal Facebook memo on the wall at the HQ in Menlo Park, June 2013.

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