James Hamilton, Designer/Developer, Team Last Sandwich

 

What were you hoping to get out of participating in BeMyApp before the actual event?
I was hoping to meet other developers and work as a team. I thought it would be an all night sleep-under-the-desk kind of thing which reminds me of playing network doom back in the 90′s.

Can you explain what happened over the weekend?

So to start, after a bit of random networking drinks, we had a couple of sponsor presentations and then on to the idea presentations. With 12 ideas it was quite hard to know which to pick so I ended up ‘joining’ 2 teams in the small recruitment interval. After forming we spoke for a while about what we would build and I actually went home to start coding, having a small prototype ready by the morning. The two teams ended up merging because of a lack of developers, and I think we came out much stronger because of it.

Over the next day we were visited by a couple of mentors who threw us off of our path and into a bit of a freefall of brainstorming, but some good things came from that.  I’d guess we lost best part of the second day just talking through ideas, pivoting and not making so much progress on the actual code which was to my mind the idea of the hackathon… but actually it forced us to be more creative and become more of an ideas factory which was ultimately more useful.

The final day we spend focussing on our submission after a bit more pivoting and brainstorming and got down to getting the presentation working.

 

What did you learn from your experience?

More than learning I’d say I met great people that I’m looking forward to continue working with, and that at other things I can meet more great people. It makes me want to keep going to more events like it and become a part of the tech scene in London. I go to a few things but I didn’t realise how much was going on. There’s a ton of help and support out there and now it’s on my radar I will be doing a lot more to take advantage of that and try and build something worthwhile!

 

Has the experience changed anything for you?

We have been in almost daily contact and it was a really great way to meet amazing people who have similar interests but not similar skills. That’s generally the problem of ‘club’ type settings, people are in different stages on the same path, while this was people from all different backgrounds coming together. I have decided since this (which I have been thinking about for some time) to change the direction of my company and go from providing direct service to clients, designing and building, to a more product based company. This has given me the opportunity to meet people that I finally feel comfortable doing that with.

What would you advise anyone thinking about attending a future BeMyApp event?

Keep open to all things whether they seem right or wrong and go more for the people than the idea. If you find a great team that you really want to work with, you’ll be able to find your idea later, and build a longer term friendship/working relationship, and hopefully business.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to say about the event or your experience?

I would say you have nothing to lose by going, and possibly a lot to gain, if I’m available I’ll definitely be signing up to the next one!

The next BeMyApp Weekend is happening on February 24-26, 2012 – Get involved!