So the other weekend I attended a Sydney Startup Camp. While I am not going to say that the entire experience was positive im not going to call out the reasons in too much depth. What I have noticed is that its very ‘clicky’. It seems that despite the organizers attempt to break up up people who know each other it seems to be impossible.
A lot of the experience seems to focus on the non technical side of things which is good for people like me who are mostly technical it also means that you end up having a marathon sprint to finish features and then spend a lot of time trying to keep awake while going though things that I would describe as about as interesting as watching paint dry. A necessary evil but I still hate doing it.
In short, while I think the experience was worthwhile I doubt I would go and try another one. The thing I found is that generally as a developer I can take the ideas I have and do something with them myself. It seemed people were more interested in actually launching a company rather then treating the whole thing as a worthwhile experience allowing you to connect and cross skill. The other thing being I am a fan of regular sleep patterns and I certainly had none of that! I think that I could have gained almost as much value from doing my own, with people I know and eating and sleeping well at the same time. That said the experience was exceptional and I am a big fan of trying new things.