I am currently pursuing a Master’s Camp in Product Management at Masters’ Union. One of the main reasons to choose this Camp was the stories that I heard about Start-up weekend. I was exhilarated to participate when Start-up weekend was announced. It was announced on 28th Oct with the inauguration 1week for preparation and 06th Nov Judgment Day.

Let me just give you a brief idea about what Start-up weekend is all about:

1. Announcement of Theme
2. Team formation by the Student Experience team at Masters Union
3. Each team is to come up with a product & business plan which is in line with the announced theme
4. Anything from low-fidelity wireframes to a working prototype anything is acceptable as the proposed product
5. On Judgment day teams have to pitch in about their product and business.

Theme: Hospitality and Travel Sector
On 28th Oct the Theme was announced at the inauguration. It was the Hospitality and Travel sector. At first thought I was afraid and at the same time relieved. Afraid I don’t know much about this sector and also have not tried to know. But relieved because recently only I had done a consulting program in which I had to study this sector but for the Italian market.

Team Announcement:
On the same day (28th Oct) the teams were announced and were part of team 9 with Arnav Agarwal, Anjali Jadhav, Divyam Kaushik, and Pranav Bg. To be honest on the google sheet beside Arnav against everyone it was written Cohort 3 which was our cohort. I was like who are they because from our cohort I only recognized Pranav and no one else. I was like if they do not come to lecture then how can I expect that we can rely on them for start-up weekend? But it was a mistake besides Pranav and I everyone was from Cohort 2. It was a great team as I learned a lot from Arnav, Anjali, and Divyam as they ended up teaching me how to make User personas, User flows, and Figma (wireframing and prototyping).

Preparation:
1. Ideation: We connected virtually on 29th Oct and first got to know each other. After this, we decided each one should write any idea that he/she has in a commonly shared google doc. After 2 days we will meet and finalize one of the ideas. On the 31st after discussion, we decided to finalize the Solo traveling segment and a product that will help solo travelers to get a one-stop solution for all their needs.
2. Work Content Divide: I and Pranav were responsible for research and business plan preparation. Arnav and Anjali for User persona, basic building blocks of presentation, empathy maps and if time permits help Divyam with screens, Divyam was our UI/UX expert trust me he was an inspiration for all of us with his simple yet most effective designs.
3. User research and Business Model: First searched for any research paper or blogs out there. Then came across India govt’s Tourism report which had interesting data and insights. Which became our base for User research. For Business model and valuation used frameworks and also assumptions for valuation it was mainly calculated through the demand side and with calculated growth targets.
4. Final presentation: We complied everyone’s work on 05th Nov and had a discussion on what is good and what needs improvement and did some last min tweaks.
5. Pitch: I was responsible for the pitch on 05th Nov compiled everything that needed to be done and practiced in front of the mirror as had to restrict the pitch to 3mins. Here is where I realized that the content we had was not 3 mins but at least 5 to 8mins. Had to prioritize the content. Made some cuts and removed 1 or 2 slides.

Judgment Day:
1. Everyone had their presentation prepared and was giving the pitch on various ideas from medical tourism to gamification tourism to finding local specialties. Each one had the best ideas along with a unique deck and very different business models. Was thrilled and very intrigued to see how different perspectives. How there is no right answer in such setups.
2. When our turn came I tried to complete the pitch by 3 min but exceed by some. Had fun while pitching and also got good and honest feedback from Mayur (Judge).

Learnings:
1. Next time wants to have the same experience in person which would be much more fun after seeing peers on campus celebrating and learning. Definitely for next startup weekend will be there on Campus.
2. Our last-moment preparation felt short we had a great start but fell short at fine-tuning and could have done better.
3. The product can cover everything but there can be also a product that will create value in Niche. There is no need for creating something which can do everything.
4. While preparing the final presentation the most important thing is to keep the content simple but effective there is no need to overload the audience with numbers and research. It is good to have research handy but should not be in-depth in presentations. Can just have a summary.
5. Taking feedback on an idea or presentation or pitch is very important before the final day it always helps avoid getting into an obsession with the Idea which leads to irrational thinking.

Was happy that within a week how much I have learned it was the most productive week I had in quite some time. Thanks JigyasaMalhotra and Student’s Experience team at Masters’ Union for arranging such a great event