---
title: "Startup Weekend Part I - The Idea"
description: "First in a 4 part series about the birth of Zapier at Startup Weekend - Columbia. The idea. That’s what everyone talks about in anticipation of Startup Weekend."
image: "https://images.ctfassets.net/lzny33ho1g45/1q3004JsPW2uepoZ1xdoIr/fa0b282eb9d41b3a7221e14d0b00f72c/Group_14894.jpg"
---

# Startup Weekend Part I - The Idea

First in a 4 part series about the birth of Zapier at Startup Weekend - Columbia. The idea. That’s what everyone talks about in anticipation of Startup Weekend.

_First in a 4 part series about the birth of Zapier at Startup Weekend - Columbia._

The idea.

That’s what everyone talks about in anticipation of [Startup Weekend](http://startupweekend.org/). The week of my first Startup Weekend everyone at VA Mortgage Center (my place of employment) was asking me ([Bryan Helmig](http://bryanhelmig.com/)) what I was going to pitch.

Like many entrepreneurs, I had no shortage of ideas. I wasn’t sure my best idea could be pulled off in a weekend, though.

Where did the idea come from? I first pitched the idea to my friend and now co-founder, Wade Foster, on September 8th which is detailed in the chat logs from nearly a month ago below.

As they say, ideas are one thing, but execution is another and the crazy thing is I almost didn’t pitch the idea because I didn’t know if we could:

1. Make a demoable app in time
2. Make it easy enough to understand for business and non-technical users

Building an internal API that maps to any API across the net is not easy and even more challenging is doing it in a way that customers can understand and use.

I love a good technical challenge though and the idea would be a ton of fun to build. As Wade and I talked about it more, I decided to pitch the idea and boy I’m glad I did.

If you’re unsure about an idea to pitch - stop over-thinking it and just do it. You’ll thank yourself later. Just ask my friends [Matt McDonald](http://twitter.com/#!/thebrogrammer) and [Rob Stretch](http://twitter.com/#!/robstretch) over at [Drunk Detective](http://drunkdetective.com/).

_Next up: Find out how _[_Wade Foster_](http://twitter.com/#!/WadeFoster)_, _[_Mike Knoop_](http://twitter.com/#!/mikeknoop)_, _[_Daniel Nill_](http://twitter.com/#!/danielnill)_ and I teamed up and won Columbia’s first ever Startup Weekend. We’ll have a post for each night covering the original pitch, building a team, finding users, late night coding, and the final demo._

[Startup Weekend Part II - Friday Night, The Pitch](https://zapier.com/blog/startup-weekend-part-ii-friday-night-pitch/)