Imagine putting a bunch of entrepreneurs in a room for 54 hours and not letting them out.  Sure, you can give them pizza and chinese food.  But don’t distract them.  They’ve got innovations to plan, ideas to spark and worlds to change.  If this sounds interesting to you, then you’d be fascinated (and eager to participate in the next one) by the Startup Weekends held across the world this past week.

I was fortunate to attend the Startup Weekend in Los Angeles and I have to say that the event exceeded my expectations.  My original pitch involved an idea to round up the end-price of purchases made in stores to the nearest dollar with the extra change donated to charity.  Implement this model in stores around the country and lo and behold – you’ve raised millions of dollars for your favorite charity (mine is charity: water and you should donate $5 right now).

Suffice to say we ended up doing something far different.  This probably had to do with things like group momentum, ensuring team support, and getting everyone motivated behind a common goal.  In any event, our team ended up with an idea that will CHANGE THE GAME for charitable fundraising and volunteering.  Our answer?  YouImpact.us, a website and eventual iPhone and Android application that will make it INCREDIBLY easy for people to donate to causes they support, volunteer for projects in their area, and bring all their friends with them in the process.  Much more on YouImpact.us to come in the blog.

Suffice to say that the weekend was an incredible success.  The connections I made and the people I met on this weekend were amazing, friendly, and intensely helpful.  I owe an extra debt of gratitude to Steven Diebold who offered our group an utter wealth of information related to consumer action and customer acquisition models (dating, anyone?).  Ultimately I can’t think of a better way to have spent a long weekend.  Incredible people and connections and a working project emerged as a result.