Few people will ever have the guts to tell you that your idea is worthless.  Quite frankly, it is.  You may feel that your idea is the best thing since Google.  You're wrong.  You may consider your invention as the next billion-dollar idea.  Most likely, people won't care for it.  Yet, your idea is the catalyst for a potential transformation for Champaign.

Your idea is wonderful, but it is still worthless until you reach out to others.  Collaborate.  When you take your product or idea to a customer, the customer will ask for additions, subtractions, or modifications 100% of the time.  By the time your customer is done, your product probably looks nothing like your original idea.  Thus, your original idea was worthless, but your evolved idea is amazing.

So here comes the point: YOU have an opportunity to meet with businessmen/women, engineers, venture capitalists, and other prominent groups about YOUR idea.  You make a pitch.  You invite others to join your team.  Your team innovates/collaborates.  Your team makes the final pitch to venture capitalists.  You get money.  You start your own company.  You win; Champaign wins.

This magical date is November 11, 2011 (11/11/11).  For three weekend days, you will have an opportunity to join others in our community to hash out a new business or product.  The event: Startup Weekend - University of Illinois Edition.  This weekend is designed to bring together our community to help foster and organically grow our new products and technology.  You don't need to have an idea to attend.  You don't even need to have any engineering or business experience.  You just need to go and be part of a (hopefully) recurring event in Champaign.

In all honesty, the website doesn't provide much detail.  Yet, the idea is so compelling, I encourage everyone to ask questions on the site.  Show your interest in attending.  Call your friends and tell them of this opportunity.  It's up to us to make this happen.  I ran across this event via Facebook on the UIUC Research Park site.  I'm hoping, through all of our interactions and requests for information, that this event can become a reality in November.

For more information on general startup weekends, please watch this short video.  It gave me some clarity on the event.


Startup Weekend Website: http://champaign.startupweekend.org/

PS: I stole the "Your Idea is Worthless" title from some other websites.  Truth be told, the concept is a great way of transforming your thinking.