[YS TV] "I always encourage startups to bootstrap"- Adam Stelle, COO, Startup Weekend

Founded in 2007 in Seattle, Startup Weekend is a global network of entrepreneurs that organizes 54-hour weekend events across various cities of the world. During these events, groups of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more pitch ideas for new startup companies, form teams around those ideas, and work to develop a working prototype, demo, and/or presentation by Sunday evening. Startup Weekend has grown into an organization with a global presence and will soon hit 1000 events.

Adam Stelle, COO of Startup Weekend recently visited YourStory.in studio and shared his first hand experience of Indian startup ecosystem from his Bangalore Startup Weekend visit. He observed that the technology startups held a clear lead among all other innovations going on in the country. He mentioned – “If you ask entrepreneurs what is their number one pain point, they would say lack of investment. I tend to push back on them & disagree here. Obviously it’s important but there are organizations which are providing a little bit of safety net for startups wherein they doesn’t have to incur much in starting days without giving away any equity. I always encourage startups to bootstrap.”

Prior to Startup Weekend, Adam was at South Africa working for a micro-finance organization. He spoke about how Startup Weekend was started with only three people & working from the basement of an incubator in Seattle in 2007. He goes on describing his journey with Startup Weekend so far & his expectation from the events in India.

To know about Startup Weekend and other startup & technology events happening in India, please visit our events listing.