I'm a Maker

This may come as no surprise to you, but it sort of does to me. With a masters in philosophy, I've thought for a long time that I'm mainly a Thinker. It could be that this has changes over the years, but now I find myself to be more and more of a Maker.

Last weekend I attended Startup Weekend here in my hometown. Startup Weekend is an event for entrepreneurs or people who want to become an entrepreneur. In one weekend you work on one idea with your team, going through the whole process of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. That may sound a bit boring, but it is in fact truly inspiring and amazing. The weekend starts with everyone pitching their idea for a startup (mostly web-based, but it could also be a product). Then everyone votes, the ideas with most votes are picked and then you form teams. After that, you've got until sunday evening to build your business. My reason for going was for learning a bit on how to start a business, and get some ideas on what I might need to get there. What I got was a crazy amount of energy, a team full of enthusiastic and creative people, great food, and also some ideas on how to build a business. It felt like a grown up camp, where everyone is temporarily living together, having lots of fun and working together. For three days, I lived in a paralell universe where the only thing that mattered was our startup. I did not know that working on a great idea with great people can give you that much energy. I felt like bouncing and shouting all weekend.

Anyway, on this team I was a Maker, too. We built a real scale prototype of a modular urban farming system we developed. I had taken monday off for some chilling and sewing, but I couldn't stop building. So I made something I bet every sewist would like to have: a little rack to hold my thread spools.





Pretty neat, eh? I made it to fit my new sewing cabinet (which is the former Xbox games cabinet). To complete the collection, I also got myself some french curves and a big case for storing drawings, for my pattern pieces.



Whether you're a Thinker or a Maker, if you're interested, check the StartupWeekend website. With 313 events planned all over the world, there is bound to be one near you! I hope you go and get as much energy and inspiration as I did.