This weekend, I will be busy with Start-up Weekend. We met at the Zillow offices on the 31st floor of the Russel Investment Office Building downtown Seattle. We had pizza and beer and played a game of “Half Baked.” It’s a business game where you divide into teams, choose a team leader, get assigned two random words and come up with a start-up idea in 15 minutes then pitch it to the room in 60 seconds. Props are allowed but no slides. My favorite was Wiggle-Skulls, a headset that plays music (the soundwaves massages the inside of your head) while the headband massages your temples.

We sat through an hour and a half of actual pitches that people have been thinking about. Lots of apps. A few specialized social dating sites. We voted on which ideas would be made into projects then joined teams. I’m in a team with an entrepreneur/material scientist, a motion graphics designer and a marketer/business guy. We met up, exchanged contacts, established ideas further and we’re now developing some rough sketches of the business model, value proposition, etc. We spent a little time looking through a book brought by our business guy, Trevor.  Business Model Generation. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.