Aaron Eden and Dr. Dave

Dr. Dave:          So, hello, Aaron. Thank you for hooking up for another session or for your session with the KnolShare with Dr. Dave podcast. How are you doing today?

Aaron Eden:      It’s been great. Just another Monday even though it’s Tuesday.

Dr. Dave:          Yeah. Just another Monday everyday somewhere. So let’s talk about, we’re going to talk about the Startup Weekend that you’re planning for in the Phoenix. And so, as you’re planning that, this statewide thing, what is this event all about anyway? What is the Startup Weekend? What does it mean? What’s the purpose? Why don’t you give us some insights about this program that you’re doing.

Aaron Eden:      Whoops. Startup Weekend has been around for years. I don’t know how many years but years, probably at least 10, I guess. And it’s a global event really intended to ignite local entrepreneurial ecosystem. So getting entrepreneurs connected together, even if they don’t have a lot of experience, but they’re considering maybe starting a business, whatever the case may be. But really trying to get those entrepreneurs connected with each other and launching new businesses. Take that to Startup Weekend Arizona, what we’re really trying to do in that case is taking it up to a whole another level by having it being fully virtual across the State of Arizona. Number one, of course, connecting entrepreneurs and hopefully helping them launch successful businesses. But then one of the key opportunity areas that we see with entrepreneurs across the state is really diving deep with their customers and making sure that they’re solving real problems for real customers.

Aaron Eden:      I can speak as a technologist, we love building stuff, and we love driving in those ways. And so really it’s important to know that we’re building stuff that customers actually need and care about and solves a problem for them. So what’s different about this Startup Weekend, we’re going to focus 100% over the course of this weekend on market research and understanding customers, and interviewing customers, and observing customers, and applying that to the business model and doing that with mentors. So it’s an exciting opportunity for our state.

Dr. Dave:          That’s really cool, man. So this is really an ecosystem for people who are starting a business. Starting up some type of entrepreneurial venture, is really what we’re doing. And we’re bringing everyone together and you’re doing it in a virtual way as opposed to people coming together physically, otherwise we’ll have to have mask and so on and so forth, right?

Aaron Eden:      Yeah. We’re only a month away and we’ve got regional representative… We’re trying to have regional representatives from every County in the state. So that it really is an Arizona thing, not a Tucson thing, but an Arizona thing. And we’ll see. Similarly on the mentoring side, make sure we’ve got mentors from all over the place. So lots of diversity.

Dr. Dave:          Nice. So how long have you been involved with the Startup Weekends? Not just the Arizona one, but in general, how long have you been involved?

Aaron Eden:      Man, eight years, nine years, something like that.

Dr.