the buildspace experience
nights & weekends
nights & weekends is a 6 week program by buildspace, where you figure out how to bring any idea you’re passionate about to life, and turn into into something people care about.
buildspace takes the YC playbook and distills its essence to fit any idea.
the YC motto is “make something people want”, and naturally you’re going to get questions - how do i know if people want it?
where do i find people who want it?
why should i even care if people want it?
i had these questions too. the folks at buildspace have an answer, but more importantly, they can help you get to your answer.
regardless of what you’re working on, it most likely requires people. if it’s a game, you need people to play. if it’s music you need people to listen, if it’s content, you need people to watch. that's where buildspace shines - they help you get your first people.
but it’s not for everyone. if you’re a textbook student who likes following the rules, structured tutorials or requires hand-holding, then buildspace might not be for you. there is no syllabus or curriculum. and if there is, Farza, the founder of buildspace, is probably going to change it last minute anyway.
it starts off… weird. you’re asked to pick a color, and poof! you’ve joined a house like its hogwarts. but instead of the sorting hat, you have free will. you join the first live stream, random anime music starts playing and you’re greeted by a guy who tells you how random all of this is, but in a cool way.
and that ladies and gentlemen, is your initiation into nights & weekends.
week 1 is all about refining your idea and deciding what you want to build. as for me, i started building skive - a mobile game based on competitions you see on youtube. the weeks that follow are pretty straightforward, every week you have 1 lecture, 1 talk, 1 weekly update. you get instructions through live streams, set goals, and make progress towards those goals. and by the end of the week, you submit updates on your progress.
as your ideas evolve over the 6 weeks, so does the program. the team closely monitors everyone's projects, tailoring the live streams to address what participants are doing right or wrong.
the weeks went by in a flash, most of my time was spent just building, but it wasn’t without hurdles. by week 2 i had pivoted to an entirely different idea because the feedback on my first game idea wasn’t great. apple repeatedly rejected my game submission to the app store. it was rough.
the pivot left me demotivated, and the new idea wasn’t gaining traction. the content i put out barely reached anyone, and my game was virtually invisible. it felt like i was shouting into the void. this video sums up my journey 5 weeks in.
.. and then Farza commented on the video and it blew up. the video was featured on the buildspace livestream and newsletter a week before final 32. it let the buildspace team know i existed, got me into the final 32 and the timing couldn’t have been better.
in the last week we’re asked to create demo videos of our project, and that page is sent out to 175k+ people. there were some truly amazing projects, you can access the list of all demos here.
final 32
at the end of the 6 weeks, two things happen. there's demo day, and there's final 32.
on demo day, you're added to several discord channels, and everyone hops on calls to present what they've worked on. you share your idea with everyone else who took part in n&w, and you also discover a bunch of cool projects you might have missed on social media.
demo day occurs right before final 32, and it's a great way for people to discover what you’ve worked on. although it’s scheduled for a couple of hours, many stay longer to discover more projects.
i aimed to present the best demos possible. if i presented early, i'd forget to mention a feature, so i'd ask to share a bit more at the end, hoping regency bias kicks in. i knew these people would be in the live audience voting in the game show the next day, so I needed their support. i stayed up for as long as i could trying to get more people to see skive, fell asleep around 4 am on my keyboard with a very soar throat.
out of tens of thousands of projects in n&w, only 32 are chosen for a live gameshow called final 32. there’s a live audience, and thousands of people show up to vote. out of the 32 participants, 4 winners are selected and given $25k to work on their ideas.
it was INTENSE. i almost got eliminated in the first round, winning by just 2%. with 700 votes, it was incredibly close. throughout the voting, i was on the edge of my seat.
when they were about to announce the winners, Farza said, 'we didn’t expect him to win because we barely saw him in the first couple of weeks' and i immediately stood up from my chair. could he be talking about me? almost everyone at final 32 was someone who was noticed in the earlier weeks. there was almost no surprise in the picks. since i wasn’t noticed until the last week, i felt like the odd one out.
and then he announced my name, and i couldn’t believe it. had I really won? my mom started celebrating, my phone started blowing up, but the thought of winning didn’t sink in until the next morning. had to go back to youtube and rewatch the livestream just to make sure i wasn’t dreaming.
if you’re interested, here’s the full replay + the winning announcement clip
the irl experience
This was my favourite part.
at the end of nights & weekends, they host a 3 day offline event which is optional to attend. and only the ones who make it past 4 weeks with their updates are invited. going in, you’re not told what’s going to happen at the event.
over the 6 weeks you’re going to come across a bunch of people. some of these people are going to become your friends, and the irl event is where you come to see that the person you knew behind that cool twitter account, is actually even cooler irl.
you can just show up at the venue in a foreign country and hope that whatever buildspace has planned is worth attending. hundreds of people just show up. so i’m not gonna spoil it for you. attend and witness the magic yourself.
but i will say this, buildspace irl has the highest concentration of people who just do things. every single person there figured out a way to give their idea legs. it’s where you see the people behind amazing ideas, and amazing people behind the most absurdly fun ideas. people who gtfol.
how to win buildspace?
Please don’t ask me this. I don’t know the answer.
if you’re working on an idea that excites you, and you make meaningful progress with it, you’ve already won. it’s cliche, but it’s true.
the $25k was never the goal for me. i optimized to get into the final 32. i wanted an opportunity to get to sf2, a 3 month long offline school program in san francisco by buildspace. i knew if i made it into the top 32, i’d have a good shot.
it was a little bit of luck, being blessed by the twitter algorithm gods, but a lot of it was just effort.
winning is an external outcome. focus on the input, empty your ‘potential’ tank. if the delta between how hard you try, and how hard you could possibly try is zero, then you’ve done your best. I ended nights and weekends knowing there was nothing more i could’ve done.
ps: notice how everything is lowercase, this is the law of the land at buildspace
ok mister winner