#falade

I feel like I am about to explode!  I've been positively grinding and with my head down for so long, but I'm finally starting to get a glimpse of what the future will be like.  Getting to the point where I really understood my purpose, what my role was and how StartupWeekend, StartupWeekend Education, and LessonCast all came together to help me express my purpose has been tremendous.  As I encountered gifted creative thinkers and have been able to articulate that purpose what they've been able to do with that message has been amazing.  

This guy Falade (Fal-a-day) and his partner Brian were possibly the most memorable team I've had at any StartupWeekend Education.  He's from Orlando, his partner is from Dallas Texas.  Their story is amazing.  

The only two black men at the event they both pitched two of what I felt were the strongest pitches of the Friday night pitch fire.

During the team formation session Brian struggled to form a team around his idea.  Falade formed a good team and went to work.

After checking on the teams.  I left at 11:30 Friday night to get some sleep and prepare for Saturday while the teams worked.  Sometime during that night, Falade began to get cold feet.  There was an added prize of funding and a spot in an incubator and he began to fear the possibility of success.  Without anyone to talk to he sent a text to his team in the early morning hours saying he wasn't sure if he could do this.  By the time I found out 8AM the next morning the damage was done.  His team bolted, they joined other teams and though Falade showed up ready to work Saturday morning his teammates politely told him that they were happy with their new arrangements. (Trust lost is nearly impossible to regain)

Eventually Brian and Falade team up.

They have a breakthrough on Saturday night when they realize that they'd been focused on trying to scale Brian's successful after school program that taught math using garage band the wrong way.  They'd been trying to REPLACE  Brian using technology and build a way for them to run a scalable program when they had the epiphany that what the really needed to do was to TRAIN other teachers to use his content and approach to build their own programs.  A highly technical project (which seriously infringed on some Apple IP) all of a sudden became a low-tech professional training program that was highly scalable and easily executed.

But they had to get the communication down - and Saturday night, it was rough and unclear.  Eventually as coaches we had to back off and just tell them that these were problems that they could solve on their own.  

For tech check they brought their computer, still hadn't heard the presentation but I had faith. 

They were up 4th, when they went to set up, they had a different computer!  Not just different but one of those, you-have-to-hold-the-power-cord-partially-in-and-up-to-the-left-to-work computers.  So they fumble, fumble and finally the computer completely shuts down.  After 5 minutes of stalling I tell them that I have to be fair, we don't stop for technical failures they have to do on without slides.  I am destroyed.

What ensued was magical.  Brian takes the mic and proceeds to give an amazingly clear, empassioned, story driven problem-solution pitch.  He has the judges eating ut of his hands.  Plus the idea is so simple, not having a tech demo doesn't really hurt them.  The idea is clear and powerful and they get the idea.

The judges come back and award them 2nd place.  I punch them for giving me a heart attack.  A lot of people love working on education and I do too.  I love StartupWeekend because I get to be a part of changing people's lives.