In one of our previous posts we’ve covered a few Startup Weekend Graduates. One of the companies that we mention there that emerge into a fully-operating startup was Skribit. I’ve approached Paul Stamatiou, who Co-founded Skribit, and asked him about his experience from Startup weekend, and to share some insights as a participant.
Amir: Hi Paul, so please tell us about yourself
Paul: - First off, thanks for approaching me for the interview Amir! I am a 23-year-old Greek web developer living in Atlanta, GA. I recently finished up my college education with a Bachelor of Science with Honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology. When I was in college, I started my tech blog, PaulStamatiou.com (http://paulstamatiou.com) and it has done well in the last four years. My blog has given me some unique opportunities: I had my own Nike commercial, am part of a promotion with Ford for the 2011 Fiesta, among others (http://paulstamatiou.com/about).
Amir: How did you hear about startup weekend and what made you participate?
Paul: I heard about Startup Weekend from Andrew Hyde’s blog and various places online at the time, such as TechCrunch. I blogged (http://paulstamatiou.com/why-im-enthused-about-startup-weekend) about my
initial thoughts back then, and mentioned that the big reason I was so interested in participating in Startup Weekend was the notion of coming in with nothing and leaving the weekend being a co-founder of a startup and having built relationships with many similarly-minded, smart people.
Amir: How was Skribit conceived at Startup Weekend?
Paul: The basic idea for Skribit (http://skribit.com) came from a problem I had seen after blogging for a few years – it’s hard to come up with original ideas/topics for what to write about. Of course I did not have a name for it at the time. When Startup Weekend came along, I pitched that idea the opening night and then kept pitching it each time we narrowed down the list of ideas. After a few hours of going through other ideas and debating and voting, the idea for Skribit was eventually chosen. It came down to the fact that Skribit would be easier than the other ideas to implement during the weekend and would be solving a problem and relatively easy to market (a blogger’s tool – if bloggers like it, they’ll write about it).
Amir: What was your original pitch, and how did it evolve from the pitch to the implementation?
The original pitch was something like “it’s a user-generated content suggestion/blog topic application that would eventually become a portal for tomorrow’s news,” like a TechMeme. Implementation during the weekend came after the core functionality of the pitch – having a Web site/blog widget that can receive suggestions and a Web site that can help bloggers manage them.
Amir: How many people joined you for this project? Can you describe the structure of the team (developers, designer, marketing…)
Paul: Since Skribit was developed in one of the early Startup Weekends (the 12th one), the format was a bit different. Everyone at Startup Weekend worked on Skribit. So there were roughly 60 people that stayed through the weekend and helped out in some fashion. We did not have much on the Web design side, but we had several graphic designers that came up with our logo that we still use today (albeit updated a bit). There was a small team of marketing-savvy folks helping with our first press release and writing copy for the site. The two big teams however, were business development and developers (with UI team being a subset).
Amir: So how was it to work with people you just met for a weekend?
Paul: It was surprisingly smooth. People were there to build something and were genuinely getting involved. They came together and started working on their own, rather than waiting to take orders from someone. I got to know the attendees rather well by the end of the weekend and would definitely recommend the Startup Weekend experience to others.
Amir: What was the most difficult thing for you working on the project at SW?
The biggest issue was getting everyone to decide on things. We had many break-out sessions with people trying to decide how to do this or that in the UI, whether or not to allow anonymous suggestions for Skribit, and so on. I’d say a good percentage of the weekend was spent trying to decide things rather than just getting stuff done. Of course, that will happen when new folks – each with their own opinions and who are not afraid to speak up – get together to build something.
Amir: What did you learn working there?
Paul: Working with a team is completely different than working alone. I had previously dealt little with version control and Startup Weekend was a crash course in working with SVN and committing code touched by
many other people at the same time.
Amir: So how did you manage to take a 54-hour project and make it into a real startup company as it is today? tell us what it took to take Skribit to the next level from being a SW idea to the stage it is now.
Paul: After the initial weekend, several of the developers met up about once a month for a while. It soon became clear who had the time and who was interested in continuing to develop and work on Skribit. That team consisted of myself and Calvin Yu as developers, and Lance Weatherby as our business lead, marketing guru and advisor. I was still in college at the time and Calvin was working full-time to support his family, but we still met up at a local coffee shop on most weekends to discuss features and roadmaps and to develop Skribit. I graduated in December, 2008 and began working full-time on Skribit. Around that same time, Georgia Tech’s Edison Fund invested in us. The fund helps startups that are related to the university in some way.
Over the summer we added an intern to our team, a smart programmer named Alex Coomans, who is currently in high school.
Amir: Can you tell us a bit about Skribit and what it actually does?
Paul: Our current pitch is that Skribit helps bloggers cure writer’s block by receiving post suggestions. We do that with our sidebar widget and suggestions tab that bloggers can embed on their site. Their readers can suggestion topics using the widgets, and the blogger can manage those suggestions on the Skribit website. The big thing is that Skribit closes the feedback loop between readers and the author. Readers can follow suggestions they like and get notified of its status and comments, and also find out when the suggestion is actually published. We have Pro accounts that cost about $25 USD a year that enable things like suggestion moderation, unlimited suggestions, better customization and multiple blogs.
Amir: So what are your tips for Israel’s SW participants?
Paul: Come prepared to work. Do not waste time over small details… just start building something fast. Make sure you have enough developers, as building the product will likely be your only bottleneck during the
weekend. Don’t spend too much time on design, but rather focus on the core functionality…and do it well. But most of all, meet people! You never know, they could become the co-founder of your next startup!
Thank you Paul, best of luck with Skribit!
Tags: interview
Startup Weekend Crew
Amir Harel
israel
Thanks for the interview Amir!