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Comment by kodeshpa | Hacker News Reader

We have gone through similar situation and my first piece of advise is,if team members are ready to keep aside their ego's then put your efforts with them else as startup weekend idea's are open, go ahead and work with people you know better. Secondly, give people proper roles and set expectation right on front else if at all you grow it creates problem. Lastly before registering company as per roles and involvement decide on equity.

Idea's are worthless, implementation are priceless.

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Definitely need a solid base before moving forward. Personality, chemistry etc are everything. I think these are readily fleshed out in a weekend though. There was one dude who kinda self excluded himself. Not sure if we are ready for roles yet. Like a vinn diagram many of us overlap, in a good way. The equity discussion should be fun. Any recommendations? What worked for you?

These dude are always there to spoil the party. Don't give/commit any equity upfront. Workout chemistry, commitment level,start building a real world product and on the way distribute equity amongst those who stays with you along the path. We know how we built products in startup weekend :).

Any recommendations for when to make this distribution decision? If applicable, what have other (successful) startup weekend guys done?

What I've seen work: everyone who worked on it has full rights to the IP generated by that team (so if there's a split of opinion on how to proceed, separate team members are free to fork). Then you can move forward with the team members who want to continue and agree equity going forward on the same basis as any other startup.

Can you expand a little on the IP part. I was at the same Startup Weekend, which the Talkible guys certainly deserved to win.

My team is getting together this week to have "the talk" about moving forward. Our idea is has a ton of IP but know that not everyone wants to move forward and/or work with each other.

Additionally, I came up with a pivot while working on this one that is related but certainly different. I have not shared it with the rest of my group yet(mostly because I thought of it 2hrs before we had to present), would they have any claim to that IP if I ran with it?

In terms of code, graphics, etc. there are two common approaches:

1) Release everything generated on the weekend into public domain or under a general free licence (LGPL, Creative commons) that for practical purposes let's everyone use what was generated.

2) Draft an agreement which says something along the lines of "anyone in this group is granted a perpetual licence to use the IP generated on the weekend for whatever purpose they see fit"

What you want to avoid doing is granting equity based upon IP created on the weekend, that will just cause you a nightmare down the line. Equity should only be given to people who are making a long term commitment to the project, and use cliffs, etc.

Typically IP only covers code, design, etc. it doesn't cover ideas, so an idea for a pivot wouldn't be protected by IP law regardless of who came up with it or where. If you decide to build a startup based on your pivot idea just don't use any code, designs, etc. from the weekend unless you've got some kind of agreement in place for it.

  "Personality, chemistry etc are everything. I think these are readily fleshed out in a weekend though. "

If you met a girl/guy and had one awesome weekend - would you believe you've figured each other out enough to commit to marriage?

People are complex. Walking in with optimism is great but with a blind-eye to respecting the complexity of human nature may be unwise. In every social dynamic there are storming stages and if the relationships aren't strong you simply won't survive the storm. Or at least, most probably won't.

The next step seems clear to me though. Keep communication levels within your team high and find customers. Avoid the rocks and keep your eye on the prize. Welcome to the fray.

@kerryfalk Good point. It's easy to be smitten with googly eyes. So, how do you know then (for a business), and with like ~8 people is probably exponentially more complex. I wonder if though some people/personalities will more or less cancel each other out...making it easier than with just two people.

To make a dating parallel though, I think we def got at least a triple.

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