Recently Andrew Hyde decided to write a post about me on AndrewHyde.net… instead of about the actual non-profit that is “competing” with Startup Weekend.  I was surprised that a guy who seems so into “doing good” would flame me without investigating it (i.e. calling me/emailing me since we’ve met before). I wrote back the response below for him. I don’t understand why:

1. he is focusing on me/photrade.com when he seems upset about InOneWeekend.

2. how he can know whether or not its “copying” his idea or not since he has no idea what InOneWeekend is about (other than some preliminary material thrown up on a website).

I hope that we can come to common ground on this, as I think that both organizations are focused on building and encouraging entrepreneurship and that they should be working together (as I pointed out to him on the phone when I called him). It’s definitely disappointing to be publicly attacked without him first having investigated.

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Andrew,

I was shocked to read your blog post as I have the utmost respect for you and Startup Weekend. Having said that, there are a few things that need to be clarified:

1. The photo used on InOneWeekend.org is a Creative Commons licensed photo, and the CC license selected by the image owner allows use (without requesting permission) but requires attribution - thank you for pointing out the error that the attribution link wasn’t there - that was a mistake. It is unfair to blame me for In One Weekend’s mistake. I’m not running In One Weekend and I think it is particularly unfair that you blame Photrade.com for this.

I have already worked with the InOneWeekend organization to get this resolved and have contacted the photographer with an apology. He said he is perfectly fine with In One Weekend using the photo. Please know that I believe very strongly in respecting the intellectual property rights of photographers and will work my hardest to ensure that all of the organizations that I am involved with respect these rights as I have done with InOneWeekend.

2. I am personally involved with InOneWeekend, but I am not running it. I attended the first evening of the Bloomington Startup Weekend and was excited and energized by the concept. I spoke with Elizabeth Edwards about it and the idea of creating a non-profit to build local entrepreneurship was born, and Elizabeth has been the champion for this locally. Cincinnati in particular is in need of more community in this area, and local organizations have been extremely excited about creating a sustainable community of entrepreneurship built around inoneweekend.

3. Inoneweekend is not a carbon copy of Startup Weekend. Inoneweekend is a non-profit organization aimed at helping communities to build and spread entrepreneurship. It is run with a local chapter model that builds entrepreneurship in the community with an organic continual local focus. Several Venture groups are going to back the companies that come out of it with grants. In addition, all kinds of entities can come out of a weekend - not necessarily a technology startup company. The structure of the weekend is different as well.

4. There are a number of Startup Weekend-like organizations out there already (e.g. ventureweekend.com and others) and at the end of your post you say that you don’t mind other organizations building on the Startup Weekend idea. As I have explained, InOneWeekend is different than Startup Weekend. Based on your comments at the end of the post, I am surprised and truly sorry that you are so upset by this.

As I told you on the phone this morning - I’m sure that IOW would love to have your input as I think that while these organizations are different they do share similar objectives of encouraging entrepreneurship.

5. I do not and would not want to offend you. I have the highest respect for you and Startup Weekend and apologize for any offence that this project has caused you.

Andrew Paradies