WHAT TO BRING WITH YOU?
- Positive attitude, open mind and lots of energy :)
- Everything you need for a rapid product development.
- Please take your
- laptop
- all chargers,
- 3-5m power extension cord (as power might be on distance),
- mobile phone
- Optional:
- pen and paper
- photo camera to take and share cool photos
- mattress, sleeping bag and towel (in case you registered for sleepover at the venue)
- credit cards for domain registration
- business cards for networking
SUBMITTING AND VOTING FOR IDEAS
- We have created a special Facebook group for sharing ideas, getting advice and networking. Please check the Facebook Group.
- If you have not yet submitted your idea, then do it NOW to Facebook group "Garage48 Bishkek 2015".
- Please also review submitted ideas, ask questions, share feedback!
PITCHING IDEAS
- Ideas are presented on Friday night based on "elevator-pitch" method within 90 seconds. Event host and audience can ask 1-3 short questions. Later all pitched ideas will be listed on the wall.
- Consider following key points:
- Briefly describe your background (10 sec)
- Your idea and "the problem" what are you solving, target user count and description (30 sec)
- The solution: technical + business model (30 sec)
- Which skills do you need and what is realistic to build in 48 hours (20 sec)
- Look at the guideline and example "how to prepare a good pitch" (slideshare)
- NB! Practice your pitch to your friends or family before you present! 90 seconds goes really fast!
- You can prepare 1 (one) PDF slide to support your pitch. If you wish to show a slide, then please send it for us for Friday noon (11th September 12:00) by e-mail info@garage48.org and we have it ready in our computer on-site. Please put your project name as subject line.
FORMING TEAMS
- After pitching is over, each presenter will put their idea on the wall. Every participant will choose their favourite idea. Usually 13-17 best ideas will get enough interested team members to get the "green light" for implementation.
- Average team has about 4-7 people and the team should be "balanced" - covering all required roles like a project manager, developer(s), designer and marketer in order to get the product/service ready in 48 hours! Minimum size for a team is 4 people and max is 8 people.
- If some ideas get too few people or not balanced teams (probably unable to build the service), the idea will be dumped. Those people should choose another idea / team.
WORKING IN TEAMS
- After forming the teams, organizers will give a room/space for every team for the weekend. Start by dividing roles, set the product vision, customer journey and start working right away.
- It is very important that you have a project manager for the team - one of his tasks is to keep the focus of the team, one eye on the clock and the other on the team progress. 48 hours is really a short time.
- We can help you with domain registration and hosting if you need. Ask from organizers.
- Food and drinks. We provide breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday and Sunday. So you can focus on work and building your product. See agenda for details.
- Mentors. We have arranged mentors to work with the teams throughout the weekend. Some of them are more technical, some more business savvy, so be open and ask for their advice and contacts in case you need. See mentors page for more information
- Please wear your name badge during the whole event, this will help to encourage networking and gets you inside through security guards. Otherwise be open, get to know new people, share your ideas and give ideas/feedback to other teams. Of course, have fun!
HOSTING
Build your startup with full support from the beginning. Get your startup running on the cloud with free Azure credit, get the free pass from the Microsoft people (mentors: Elise Sass and Martin Verrev) at hackathon and read www.azure.com or ask for it already before the event.
To start app building get needed advice in here: http://dev.windows.com
and mentors Elise who knows all about business and marketing and Martin who knows everything about coding and hacking will help you on the spot.
SUNDAY DEMO NIGHT
- Sunday afternoon 14:30 pm is the deadline. Either you have your service ready or not, time will tell.
- Every team will practice their demo together with mentors and jury members for 10 minutes to make the final adjustments and make a better presentation.
- We do not allow any Powerpoint presentations for web services - we want product live demo!
- The final demo event starts at 5:30pm
- We will pick teams randomly. Every team gets 3 minutes for product demonstration (+3 minutes for questions).
- We admit, that the development process is the ultimate importance. But we still have a jury, to evaluate the results and choose the top projects.
- When jury goes "off" to choose the winners, we have few speakers from our sponsors telling you how they could work and help with your teams after the Garage48 event.
Sleeping possibilities in the venue
take your sleeping bag & mattress and you'll have a possibility to stay overnight in the venue. We have prepared a separate room for all the dreamers:)NB! There will be shower possibilities
- If you have further questions, please see the Agenda and FAQ below. If you don't find an answer there, then please write us at info@garage48.org
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is Garage48 Bishkek? Garage48 is a weekend hackathon, where people pitch ideas, form teams and build prototypes or sometimes full service over the weekend. This will be the very first Garage48 organized in Kyrgyzstan and we are really glad to join your startup community.
- Who can participate? Registration is open to anyone. We are looking for people with different roles - front-end developers, back-end developers, mobile developers, designers, marketers, entrepreneurs, project managers and other people interested in building a cool project within 48 hours. If you register to Garage48, then we expect you to be ready to work on the project also after the Garage48 weekend is over.
- I don't have my own team? Can I come? Sure, Garage48 is about networking, meeting new people, hacking, building new services and finding new friends. After pitching ideas on Friday evening, all participants will choose their favourite idea and form a teams on-site. You should carefully review all pitched ideas, talk to the team members, negotiate, brainstorm and finally find a best matching project for yourself. Then join this team and start working on the project.
- How to submit and pitch an idea? We ask all participants to submit their ideas to our Facebook group already before the event. This allows other participants to review their idea, ask questions and possibly to develop the idea further. On Garage48 event, there will be about 30-35 slots for ideas.
- How long is the pitch? On Friday night there are 90 second pitches for each idea, followed by 2-3 questions from audience/mentors. You can have one slide (PDF) to support your pitch.
- How are the ideas selected on the event? Afterwards when ideas are pitched, each participant will choose the idea that s/he wants to work on. Ideas that are able to gather a sufficient team around them will prevail. People who have chosen the ideas that are not able to gather proper team will have join other teams.
- If I present an idea at Garage48, can someone steal it? Of course :) Garage48 has many participants, including journalists, bloggers and tweeters - your idea will not remain a secret. So, if you think you have a top-secret, patentable, Nobel-prize worthy idea, then don't present it at Garage48 ;). On the other hand, if you have an idea that has been sitting at your head for some time, waiting for right time or right people to be put into practice, then Garage48 is a great place and environment for make it happen!
- Is 48 hours enough? Yes and no. 48 hours is more than enough time to take an idea, build a working prototype, alpha or beta service and make it publicly available for users, potential customers. (Unless you are building a nuclear reactor, new drug, a spaceship of something similar, of course). However, to make your prototype, alpha or beta into a viable business, much more work after the event is needed. We encourage (and give preference in selection) to those participants, who show an interest and willingness to continue working on (successful and promising) ideas after the event!
- Is it a startup competition to get funding? Not really. The main idea of the event is to build startup community, find new friends and meet people, build something cool in 48 hours. But it's not so much about winning the prize or getting financing. You might get financing as well, as we have mentors and investors on-site and on-line following the event, but that's not the main goal. Garage48 is mostly an experience of building a new (working) project in 48 hours, meet and work with new people whom you probably would not meet otherwise.
- How big is an ideal team? In our experience, best teams have between 4 and 7 members. Each team should be self-sufficient by having all the main roles (business and product vision, design, programming, marketing, business development, environmental specialist) covered.
- Can I buy a domain and set up hosting account before the event? Yes, you can do various preparations for your project unless you start designing or coding. We encourage you to think of the project name, business model, short term and long-term plan etc. But it's not allowed to do any coding work on the project before the Garage48 weekend.
- What happens to the developed products and services after the event? The project built during Garage48 event is owned by the team who built it. So it's up to the teams to decide how do they take it forward. Some ideas are very likely to be developed into successful businesses, others struggle to find a feasible business model and fade away. Organizers are encouraging teams to continue developing the ideas and provide mentorship, but ultimately, the success or failure rests solely with the members of the team.
- Is Garage48 a continuous 48-hour marathon or can I sleep during the weekend too? Sleep is for the weak. (Just kidding). While some teams pulled all-nighters at the last events, most successful teams did take time to get a full 7-8 hour sleep, come back in the morning refreshed and were fully productive during the day. We provide floor space for foreigners in the venue in case you want to save on hotel costs.
- Do you have any videos about the event? Yes, please follow our Youtube channel.
- What if I have paid for my ticket, but can not come to the event? We have a policy, that we do not refund tickets. But you are welcome to find a friend to take your seat (with the same role you registered). Please notify us by e-mail about such request as we have to prepare name badges for every participant.
- More questions? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates or write us at info@garage48.org