By Guest Post 12/15/11 4:57pm

Motivation

headshot alex k

Learning to Code: I Did It This Year. Your Turn!

Alex Kehayias is a Startup Bus veteran who was named one of Betabeat’s 20 to Poach in 2011; he’s currently working on GoalSay. A version of this post originally appeared on his Tumblr. He’s “totally serious” about finding developers mentors.

Next week marks the one year anniversary since I started to learn to code with no previous experience (I have a bullshit degree in marketing). I still worked full time on my startup while learning at night and on weekends. In three months I was contributing code to my startup, in five months I was writing web apps from the bottom up. Since then I’ve become the tech co-founder for my startup BeanSprout, and built six web apps, websites, a simple iPhone app, and never stopped learning. I never thought I could do it. I was just some incredibly handsome business dude.

This is a call to arms and a challenge to those of you who always wanted to, but for whatever reason, haven’t taken the plunge to learn to code. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 11/17/11 8:54am

Startup Weekend Edmonton. (flickr.com/mastermaq)

Startup News: Save Amit, and Hm, Not Too Many Launches Last Week

CONQUER THE WORLD. Startup Weekend just closed a partnership with the Kauffman Foundation; now it’s announced a two-year agreement with Google. “Google is supporting Startup Weekend through a global sponsorship, which will not only allow for the expansion of current operations, but also enable the global roll-out of pre-Startup Weekend Google developer workshops and vertical specific initiatives in areas such as education and health.”

SAVE AMIT. Seth Godin, Michael Galpert, and Jakob Lodwick have pledged $10,000 each for the first person whose marrow matches that of Amit Gupta, recently diagnosed with leukemia. Party and cheek swabbing session on Friday at New Work City. Read More