Tim Gardner Shares His Startup Weekend Secrets

Khartoum, Sudan, November 08, 2014 --(PR.com)-- That tech startup failure festival Startup Weekend is coming to Khartoum, Sudan for the very first time Nov 14-16. For the uninitiated, Startup Weekend (SW) is where a bunch of wannapreneurs pitch a tech startup idea on a Thursday evening. They’re hoping to inspire a cohort of developers, designers and hustlers to champion their glorious idea into a working prototype by Saturday night. They’ll then demo that prototype to a panel of experts, who are judging – looking for the next big thing in tech – providing feedback, and declaring winners for the weekend of the best startup idea.

SW is now a global phenomenon and has spread to over 400 cities. Now it’s Khartoum’s turn – #SWKhartoum. What winning ideas are going to come out of Sudan? Is there even much tech talent here in Sudan anyway? The event is usually limited to 100 participants plus a cohort of judges, mentors and visitors. Like moths to a light those 100 hungry participants will be attracted to an idea and/or founder they can work with over the weekend. They’ll work hard to co-develop that idea into a minimal viable product (MVP) by Saturday - 54 hours later.

Throughout the weekend, contestants will be aided by an esteemed assemblage of mentors; battled hardened warriors of the tech startup scene. Mentors will be dispensing valuable advice and feedback to tweak that startup MVP and prototype pitch to perfection. Mentors are the movers and shakers of the tech startup world, their one-on-one advice at SW is indispensable. So what kind of advice can a SW participant expect from a mentor?

"Fail fast and fail forward," says Tim Gardner, a first time SW mentor from Perth, Western Australia. Here in Khartoum exclusively for the inaugural event, Tim Gardner discloses his startup mentor qualifications and dispenses more helpful tips to the budding SW wannapreneurs.

Startup weekend is essentially about failure - fail your bad ideas then keep, tweak and retest your good ideas until you're full of win. You winning, is you making sales and generating revenue. Tim Gardner shares his experience, "I've been involved with 6 startups - 5 losers (lost money), 1 winner (made money). I failed. I learned. We call that a 'flearn'. My background isn't hardcore tech, I'm an ideas guy."

Tim Gardner says the trouble with being an ideas guy is that you are at the bottom of the heap. Everybody has ideas. You need to be able sell that idea. Find your first 3 customers. Slap an MVP together. Continually evolve according to that beloved customer feedback loop. Solve a problem. Pivot. Switch. Repeat until you get cash in the bank.

At SW you want to fail ideas as fast you can. You only have 54 hours to get an MVP together. From Tim's involvement at SW in Perth, he witnesses one team pivoting 7 times. You can't waste time at SW completely changing your idea, you have a time limit.

Tim offers some final advice, "Get out there and start your startup now! Go find your customers to test your idea on and actually go ask for the sale."

If you want more startup advice and would like to connect with mentor Tim Gardner before Startup Weekend Khartoum begins you can find him here www.timgardner.info