From Participants to Organizers: Why We Keep Coming Back to Startup Weekend Zürich

I'm writing this from my kitchen table while prepping for another Startup Weekend Zürich, and honestly, I can't help but smile thinking about how we all ended up here.

It started with me. I was one of those serial participants — did Startup Weekend three times before they finally asked me to become an organizer. Classic move: once I got hooked on something, I had to drag the rest of the team along.

Enter Katy. I basically peer-pressured her (in the nicest way possible) to join as a participant. Then COVID hit and she could only partly attend, but she was hooked. That experience sparked something in her — she went on to create her NON-networking events after getting deeper into the startup world. Funny how one weekend can plant seeds you don't even realize are growing.

And then there's Roya. She'd been watching from abroad, always wanting to jump in but never quite able to make it work. When she moved to the Swiss-German border, it was like the stars aligned. Finally, she could be part of what we'd been raving about.

Now here we are, three organizers who came to this whole thing from completely different angles. But that's exactly why it works. And here's the kicker — everything we're doing now at Pyango, Katy's events, our whole approach to community building? It all traces back to that first Startup Weekend experience. It doesn't just change your weekend. It can change your entire trajectory.

Picture this: Friday evening, 100+ people walk into a room with nothing but ideas. Sunday night, they walk out with working prototypes, business plans, and sometimes actual companies.

That's Startup Weekend Zürich. It's part of the global Techstars network, which means we're connected to startup communities worldwide. But what makes our Zürich event special is the Swiss touch — we're methodical when we need to be, but we're not afraid to take big swings.

The format is simple: 54 hours from idea to pitch. No previous experience required, no perfect business plan needed. Just bring your curiosity and be ready to work alongside people you've never met before.

I've seen teachers team up with software developers, marketing folks pair with engineers, and students collaborate with seasoned entrepreneurs. The diversity is what makes it work.

Behind the scenes: what it actually takes to organize this thing

You know what nobody tells you about organizing Startup Weekend? It's not the 54 hours during the event that'll test you — it's the three months before.

Two months out, we start our weekly organizer sessions. It's like running a mini startup — we've got our own GitLab instance (sponsored by Pyango, naturally) where everyone has their tickets assigned. Katy's tracking mentor outreach, Roya's coordinating venue logistics, and I'm usually stuck with the spreadsheets that somehow multiply overnight.

The structure helps. For us three, it's just an extension of what we do daily at Pyango anyway — project management, task tracking, team coordination. The difference? This time we're doing it for free, in our spare time, while trying to convince people to give us money.

And that's the real challenge this year: sponsor hunting. We've got the food and snack sponsors locked down (thank goodness), and drink sponsors usually come through. But finding companies willing to write checks for a volunteer-run event in this economic climate? That's where the stress lives.

Right now, I've got seventeen browser tabs open. One is a venue contract that needs signing by tomorrow, another is a spreadsheet tracking mentor confirmations, and somewhere in there is our budget calculator that keeps reminding me we need more cash sponsors.

Then there's ticket sales. We need people to actually show up, which means convincing busy professionals to spend their weekend building something from scratch. If you're reading this and thinking "that sounds crazy enough to try" — here's your sign: grab your ticket now.

Last year, two days before the event, our main venue had a plumbing emergency. 120 registered participants and nowhere to put them. We spent 48 hours calling every coworking space, university, and tech company in Zurich. Finally found a backup location, but then had to coordinate moving all the equipment, updating all the communications, and somehow making sure everyone got the memo.

The thing is, these crisis moments? They're oddly addictive. There's something about pulling together as a team when everything's falling apart. Maybe it's because we've all been through the Startup Weekend experience ourselves — we know what it feels like to have everything on the line and somehow make it work.

But here's what keeps us coming back year after year: it's not the adrenaline. It's watching someone present their idea on Friday night, voice shaking, barely able to get through their 60-second pitch. Then seeing that same person on Sunday, confident and clear, presenting a working prototype to a room full of people.

That transformation doesn't happen by accident. It happens because someone spent weeks making sure the WiFi works, the mentors show up, and there's enough coffee to keep everyone going until 3 AM.

Village: from weekend idea to winning solution

And the winner is... VILLAGE!

This past Startup Weekend Zürich captured exactly what makes these 54 hours worth it. The Village team won with a platform that connects parents with migration backgrounds to other parents in their area — helping them "build their village" of support and community.

What struck me about Village wasn't the execution or the market analysis, though both were solid. It was watching this team come together around something deeply personal. Finding your community when you're starting fresh in a new place — that's a problem a lot of people in this room understood firsthand.

Friday night, someone pitched the kernel of this idea. By Sunday evening, they had a working platform and a clear vision for helping immigrant parents connect with local families. That's the part I still can't fully explain — how 54 hours and a group of strangers can produce something that real.

Congratulations to the Village team. You came, you learned, you built, and you conquered. This is exactly why we keep organizing these weekends.

LENTL: when one weekend plants seeds for something bigger

Sometimes the best stories take time to unfold.

Sien van Boven walked into my first Startup Weekend as an organizer back in fall 2024. She was 26, from Belgium, had been living in Switzerland for just three years, and carried this dream of starting her own company someday. You know the type — that quiet determination mixed with just enough uncertainty to make you root for them.

What happened that weekend? I honestly can't tell you the specifics of her pitch or which team she joined. That's the thing about organizing — you're managing a hundred moving pieces, putting out fires, making sure the coffee doesn't run out. But something clicked for Sien during those 54 hours.

Fast-forward to spring 2025. Guess who came back? Sien, but this time she wasn't just a participant. She had a product to test, a company called LENTL, and she spoke on stage to inspire the new batch of weekend warriors.

Here's the thing about LENTL — it's not just another food startup. Sien figured out how to make lentils the hero of her business. She's creating organic spreads packed with protein, fiber, and iron, while partnering with local Swiss farmers to strengthen the entire lentil supply chain. Every farmer partnership comes with a purchase guarantee and a CHF 1,000 government subsidy. The kind of business model that makes you think "why didn't I think of that?"

The real validation came recently. Sien entered the Luzerner Kantonalbank Zukunftspreis, competing in the ecology category. Remember, she's got a relatively small network in Switzerland — three years doesn't give you the same voting power as someone who's been here their whole life. But her idea resonated so strongly that she collected 1,309 votes and won CHF 40,000.

Her LinkedIn post about the win hit me: "A few years ago, I was still hoping that someday, I would find the courage to start my own company. A few months ago, I stopped hoping and started doing."

That's what Startup Weekend does. It doesn't just give you business skills or contacts. It gives you the push to stop hoping and start doing. Sien going from nervous first-timer to confident entrepreneur speaking on our stage — that's the transformation we keep coming back to facilitate.

PitchPerfect: from weekend project to launched product

And then there's Roya's story.

Spring 2025, Roya attended her first Startup Weekend Zürich as a participant. Her team worked on something called "PitchMaster" — an AI-powered pitch judging agent that could analyze and score startup pitches. The concept was solid, the team had energy, but Sunday night came, the presentations happened, and the team didn't continue afterward. That's how most weekend projects go. No shame in it.

But Roya couldn't let go of the idea. She brought it back to Pyango, and we decided to turn it into one of our Build in Public projects. We renamed it PitchPerfect, rebuilt it from the ground up, and documented everything on our YouTube channel.

We knew we needed real expertise to pressure-test it. So we brought in Dominique Rey, co-founder of Numeric, someone who's pitched to VCs across Europe and the US and raised roughly CHF 20 million over five years. The guy knows pitching.

We invited Dominique to join us for a Build in Public episode to test PitchPerfect and share his perspective. What started as a product demo turned into a masterclass on what makes a great elevator pitch:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DhVsrY2Uyds

Watching Dominique break down the six elements of an elevator pitch — problem, solution, target, USP, vision, and delivery — while testing our AI analysis was genuinely useful. He made a point that stuck: "Most investors invest into you when they see that spark in your eyes because they invest in teams first, products second."

He also challenged our approach in a way we didn't expect. He suggested starting with longer pitches and working down to 30-second elevator pitches, rather than jumping straight to the short version. "No one can do 30 seconds right away," he said. "This is super hard to train." Classic Build in Public moment — real user feedback that forces you to rethink your assumptions.

By early 2025, we launched PitchPerfect as a live product. It analyzes elevator pitches across multiple dimensions — timing, word count, speaking pace, voice quality, hook effectiveness, problem statement clarity, and differentiation. Users upload their pitch video and get detailed AI-powered feedback.

From a weekend idea called PitchMaster that Roya's team built and then shelved, to a launched product helping entrepreneurs improve their pitches. That's the ripple effect of these weekends. Sometimes the best ideas need to marinate before they find the right team and the right moment.

Why we keep doing this

Three different paths into this event. Sien going from participant to award-winning founder. A weekend project that became a real product. A team of strangers building Village in 54 hours.

None of these stories are unusual for Startup Weekend. That's the part that still gets me — this happens every time. Not the same stories, obviously, but the same pattern: someone walks in on Friday not sure if they belong, and walks out Sunday having built something they didn't think they could.

And somewhere in Zürich right now, someone is working on the next thing that started at one of these weekends.

If you're reading this and thinking "maybe I should try this" — don't overthink it. Don't wait for the perfect idea or the perfect team. Just show up. That's what Katy did. That's what Roya did. That's what Sien did. And it worked out fine for all of them.

Grab your ticket now and find out what 54 hours can do.

From Participants to Organizers: Why We Keep Coming Back to Startup Weekend Zürich

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