them a full-time position, and they all said, ‘OK, I’m quitting my job. I’m going to do this.'”
“You’re never going to get rich, you’re never going to get liquidity from it,” Nouyrigat says. “But it’s better to be helping people.”
Nager says the goal is for the local Foundations to be financially sustainable after 10 months— shooting to raise about $100,000 from local sources, with an ultimate goal of a $1 million foundation in each city. After a year, they’d like to have the program started in 50 cities, and say they have about two dozen already interested in getting a Startup Foundation started in their area.
That’s part of the power of starting from a base of meeting so many people through Startup Weekend in the past few years: “We’ve got this insanely unique insight into startup ecosystems around the world from the grassroots level,” Nager says.
“We don’t have all the answers right now. That’s why we call it a test,” Nouyrigat says. But, he adds, “We have a feeling it’s going to be huge.”
The Startup Weekend crew also has a book coming out this fall, which peppers the story of how the organization was founded and grown with case studies from different companies and events. The introduction was penned jointly by entrepreneur and educator Steve Blank and Carl Schramm of the Kauffman Foundation.
“We’ve tried to make it, more than anything, a community-based book,” Nager says. “Most of the content is directly from the community—our supporters, our attendees, our sponsors—everybody that has had an interest in helping us get to where we are.”
