I had a quick conversation with Mark Annett, founder of Snackbuilder about his experience winning the LSM Newark workshop in March 2013.  Here are his thoughts ...

There is a different class of people that are willing to give up an entire weekend dedicated to learning and practicing the lean start-up methodology in a 72 hour marathon.  They are not the same people that you will meet at normal meet-up.  These are dedicated individuals who you definitely want working on your start-up team! This is also definitely not a hack-a-thon!  In order to win you need to get out of the building and talk to your potential customers and learn what they really want, not what you think you want.  It is a very humbling experience to learn that the brilliant idea that you walked in the door with is completely wrong.  However, it is the most empowering experience in the world to not only watch the team that you are leading pivot but to lead them by rewriting your company’s new narrative. Reading the techniques  in a book is one thing but practicing them among a group of highly motivated learns like yourself is life changing. You will not be the same entrepreneur that you walked in as 72 hours later. Our riskiest assumption as a new company is that “We think we know what we are doing.”  If you are not listening to your customers and validating your assumptions then believe me you have no idea what you are doing.  We constantly return to our experience and the tools we learned in Lean Start-up Machine Newark to guide our new company, and you will too.