About a year and half ago, my cousin/friend Joel (@unculturedswine) invited me to go with him to this thing called "Startup Weekend" and try to start a business with him in 54 hours. From that was born Creatives for Education, which hasn't really caught on like I thought it would.
What did catch on though, was a great desire to be an entrepreneur. What I want to do is improve others' lives through something that allows me to contribute. I know that I make a difference in children's lives every day, and I love that opportunity. But, I do believe that there are some a lot of ideas that I have that could be so much more.
I went to another Startup Weekend in November, and it was a lot of fun. It was during that SW that I interviewed the first principal for my podcast. That was a really neat experience there, as well, but I didn't feel that I could contribute very much to the project.
Then, this weekend, I attended my third startup weekend. In the previous two startup weekends, I was very excited to be a part of what was happening, and I thought that I had the best idea. This time, I went in to the weekend thinking that I would pitch an idea, and if it didn't get picked, I could join a team, and if I wasn't contributing, I could just edit some podcasts that are in the chute, but not published yet. In other words, I had low expectations of success, and thought that I had plenty of other things to do, so I wasn't too worried about how the weekend would turn out.
But, a couple weeks ago, Staci made a doll out of a picture that Cali drew.
It was so awesome, that I had an idea: we could make an app that allows a person to draw a doll, purchase it, and then we could arrange for seamstresses to create the doll that was submitted.
Here's my pitch:
Turns out it was a pretty good idea for the weekend. I got enough votes to continue my project. Not only did I get enough votes, but I also had some really awesome people join my team.
StephAnn is an amazing graphic designer who could take what was in my head, and perfectly create exactly what I wanted, with very little coaching. Extremely professional and dedicated to the idea. She was excited to work, and made some amazing things.
Scott Dana has a variety of skills from print design to videography to photo editing to web design. He was a valuable asset to our team and made this really great video.
Isn't that beautiful?
Mike Baird and Scott are best friends, and sometimes when you work with best friends, you feel really left out. Not with these two! They were very inclusive of everyone, and we all felt like we were their best friends, too. Mike is a gifted user experience designer, and he made the process of using the iPad app so awesome. He had some great ideas and made our app look so professionally done.
Kevin Wilson was not sure he could contribute to our idea, and then he left, but he came back. And we were so fortunate that he did! He made a huge contribution to designing the web site and getting the backend payment system worked out. I don't know what we would have done without him.
Mitchell Wright is a marketing expert and he has many clients that are "mommy bloggers" which is pretty much perfect for our niche market. He was able to get our survey out to over 200 people who gave us some great early feedback. He taught me a lot about marketing, how to analyze the beginnings of a business and had great confidence in the idea.
And finally, Abe Hunt is an extremely proficient iOS developer who realized the dreams and ideas of everyone who contributed to the project. He exceptionally worked with the design constraints, never said he couldn't do something, and always was excited when something worked. You could always tell how much he enjoyed what he was doing.
This team was amazing. I am so fortunate to have been able to work with them. We all got along well, there were no arguments, and no ego. Nobody's idea was any better than any others.
We worked so hard this week and finally were able to finish (almost) an iPad app. The app works entirely. The purchasing does not work yet. But we came together and created something amazing. This was a true team effort, with every person playing to his or her strengths and creating something amazing.
Here is my final presentation about the app:
The web site is drawmydoll.com. Go sign up to be notified when we release!
We won third place against an amazing crop of startups. But, to us, I don't think that it mattered much if we won, because we did already. We established some great, trusting relationships and created an amazing app that will help someone.
There was something missing, though. We knew that we could do something better and Mike finally was able to articulate what that was. He suggested that we find a way to donate a doll to Primary Children's Medical Center whenever someone purchases one through the app. Think about that. Each time someone buys a doll, they can have a second doll (that looks the same) created for a child whose parents probably aren't thinking about buying a doll.
Here in Utah, Primary Children's Medical Center helps so many kids. Since my daughter was born, we have had to spend some time there. Each time we do, we are blessed by the kind and caring nurses, doctors, technicians and others who work there. It is very stressful to take your child in for a surgery, and the people at PCMC really strive to make your visit as comfortable as possible. This will be a great way to thank them.
I feel humbled that my idea was chosen. I feel humbled that these great people wanted to work on this idea. I am really grateful for how much I learned this weekend, and for the relationships I formed.
To make things even better, someone came and fixed our fence that blew over in the wind storm we had this week.
