The Art of Getting Out of the the Building

We are wrapping up Day #2 of Startup Weekend for Social Good in San Francisco.

It’s 11:26 pm and the Hub–the co-working space for social entrepreneurs in SOMA—is still abuzz with groups working on coding, building out a business model, asking for feedback, socializing, swapping life stories, and figuring out what to include in their pitch at tomorrow evening’s presentation.

It’s not every day you can say you’ve worked on a couple of ideas you’re passionate about, given feedback on a few others, connected with people from backgrounds ranging from high-tech to social media to venture capital to poverty alleviation—who are from places spanning France, Arkansas, SF, and Denmark (to name a few).

There’s one theme that captures an essential aspect of StartUp Weekend. And it’s repeated over and over again (for good cause)…”get out of the building.”

Teams are told to get out of the building to ask as many people as they can about their startup idea, the platform, the product, whether people use something like it, or whether they would.

And though it may seem obvious to do so—in reality sometimes it’s just much more comfortable to work quietly or with your team or in solitude behind your laptop or at your desk. It can be daunting to think about going outside, approaching strangers who are too busy/disinterested/borderline-irritated to hear about your latest and greatest startup idea.

But that what makes it thrilling.

You have no idea what people will say—they might love it, totally not understand it, and even tell you something your team hadn’t even considered.

And getting out of the building builds character. You have to stick your neck out—pull yourself out of a comfort zone—and into something much more unknown.

If you make it through the excursion, and through the weekend, your team will enter into a whole new phase of startup entrepreneurship. From ideation to something a little less romantic—into deeper strategy talks, pivots, building, implementation, and execution.

And, it will be thrilling too.