Portland.Startupweekend.org Sellhapplee

Hello World!

http://facebook.com/sellhapplee

http://twitter.com/sellhapplee
http://sellhapplee.com
Real Problem - Youtube - Chris Testimonial
Team members - Youtube - Developers 
Team Members - Youtube - Front end

Hasan, David and I arrived in #PDXSW (portland.startupweekend.org) at 530pm Friday

There were many people standing around networking already. I immediately went for the pizza and soda to fulfill my needs. 

I spotted someone who is standing alone, not talking to anyone, seemed shy. Typical tech person behavior and my kind of person to go have interesting conversation with. His name is Kim Pedersen. His skill set is best use for communicating with servers with 3rd party applications.  I talked to several people.

Built special relationship with Kim and Pekay (ex intel, MBA, Programmer, Entrepreneur) throughout the weekend. Really cool people.

7pm.

After introduction of PDXSW staff and sponsors. Da da dannnn... the PITCH!! begins

90 participants. 40 people pitched their idea to form a team acting as a CEO. 12 ideas were voted by the participants. I was one of the 12!

9pm. 

Formed a team. 

David Gonzales - coFounder, Web 

Cecelia Fresh, Web content, PR

Hasan Edain, iPhone Developer

Market Research

Chisung Lee - Founder/CEO

Ken Gengler, API 

Great group of people, many years of experience and variety of skills. Great idea. It is all matter of execution.

10pm. 

Team introduction and defining role and expectation.

Chisung sharing vision and getting people excited about the goal for the weekend.

Inserting everyone to take ownership.

Organize schedule and set goals for the weekened.

11pm.

Get to work. Mentors visit to give us certain guidance. 

12am

Everyone Leave. Lights out.

SATURDAY

8am

Let the day begin.

Team huddle - update on our task and setting detailed goals.

9am - 3pm

ahhh... so many crazy roller coaster things happen. Many roadblocks and overcoming them. Many different opinions and arguments.  So many different approach to go about it. The biggest thing that we overcame was to figuring out API for each target ecommerce sites that and having a deep knowledge of what works and what does not and why. There was one point where except for the developers we were all looking for different venues of ecommerce sites with solid API available for us.

Realizing complication with Amazon was a bit of a disappointment. Realizing that how much of puzzle solving that Ken had to do was gratifying.

4pm.

Back to our original tasks because we were behind at this point from our goal. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube ready. Reaching out to friends, family and SW community to get 25 LIKES. Logo design and rebranding company name. Market research survey and appropriate question. 

7pm 

Reaching out to Amazon/eBay powersellers for direct questions and generating prospect list. Inspiring market research people to get on the phone to talk to sellers failed because they thought calling people on middle of Saturday was rude. I was frustrated but had to hold back. Many moments of frustration and anxiety. 1. We are working as a team, not my dictatorship. 2. Everyone had to feel valued 3. I have been wrong before.

10pm

Emotional control needed to calm my impatience.

Success ons eBay server sandbox connection. iPhone app prototype built

11:45pm

SCREAM of excitement!! We are connected!! It is finally working

Our mobile app took a photo ipod cord, typed in description and price, and successfully uploaded to eBay in this simple 1,2,3 step!!

I got a notification into my gmail inbox! 

ipod was posted into the ebay sandbox.

12:00am

Lights out. See you all tomorrow.

Pekay gave us a ride to downtown Portland to meet up with Alex. Saturday night out. Guys/Gals in their fancy attractive clothes ready to dance. David and I were carrying our big bags full of laptop and notes, not dressed for typical Saturday night bar scene. We didn't care. We enjoyed the view a lot.

Went to a bar to grab a beer and talk about our exciting journey with Alex. Went to Alex's favorite Groovy House Club and danced. well Alex and I did. 

3am

in bed.

830am SUNDAY

bit of a late start and moving fast now. Lots of redbull and coffee :)

I started preparing power point for the presentation.

David, Ken and Hasan working intensely to polish up our app. 

1130am.

Team updates. Looks like AudioName, Grepic, Spotzie, Skitterlist are making serious movement. They are ahead of us in web design and social media set up. Time to catch up!!

3pm.

Exciting 35 Likes on facebook. Twitter messages going out and getting many followers.

Team huddle and present to team to test.

Everyone giving me many feedback and criticism. Things I need to work on.

Apparently, I've got too much energy and talking too fast. Slow it down and make it more clear.

330pm

Bad News. Bug was created after Hasan changed the buttons. Text saves but does not appear. Annoying at last minute crunch time. Decided to do the screenshot and live demo. I thought it was a bad idea to do screen shots. I still wanted to show the real one even it might crash. Hasan insisted.

4pm

Still believing that if things were my way it would be better but learned to let it go and move on to other important things. Proud of myself for self discipline and control :)

5pm

keynote. Guy from intel who invented USB. Poor presentation but deep meanings of not giving up and pushing was conveyed.

730pm

Presentation!! Judges were all entrepreneurs. Including Seseme Seed and Alex Payne who developed Twitter platform now building a online bank.

First group was spotzie. There asked many intense questions. Got me nervous a bit but no problem. Heart beating little fast but quite normal for prior to presentation. Reading over notes one more time. 

Presentation was bit frustrating because David was in control of powerpoint clicks as i'm presenting on the opposite side of the computer. He did not know when to click to follow my presentation and I constantly had to give him cues.

Passionate remarks was made. 

Judges asking many questions. First question was monetization based on our subscription model of $5 for 100 posting, saying it is too cheap. 

Then I said, then we will charge more as demand increases. 'Whole room laughs except for me' Judge gives up asking more question.

Different judges ask. I answer in simple responses and David and Hasan adds details. Fact that we could not show real demo with the phone made me feel less confident.

10pm. 

Judges made the decision. Team leaders come out and get this feedback. Direct, straightforward. Skitterlist (myreplay live) and Audioname were two finalists.

Audioname won with $2500 funding.

11pm

Touch new friends one more time. Couldn't stay longer to network because Hasan wanted to leave right away. bummer.

230am

In my room unpacking. can't sleep. Doing more promotions and touch up on social media marketing.