Startup Weekend • 54-hour MVP blueprint

FloodReady NYC

New York City

Policy + Climate + Civic Tech

Basement and coastal flood risk—actionable, not scary.

A neighborhood tool that combines flood risk signals with a “what to do now” playbook for tenants, landlords, and community orgs.

Local fit: Dense buildings, climate hazards (heat/flood), and complex compliance regimes—good for building compliance copilots and low-bandwidth civic information tools.

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Core user stories

As a tenant, I check my area and see flood risk context and what to do before a storm.
As a landlord, I see a checklist for mitigation and documentation.
As a community org, I share a low-bandwidth preparedness page in multiple languages (stub).

Clickable demo scope (what you build)

Address/neighborhood lookup → risk summary card (mocked tiers).
Preparedness checklist page + printable one-pager.
Resource directory with filters (sandbags, evacuation info, insurance help) (mock).

Team of four roles

Product & Policy Lead: Define risk communication principles and an action playbook; pick 2–3 neighborhoods to seed.
UX / Frontend: Build address lookup → risk card → checklist; include multilingual stub toggles.
Backend / Data: Implement mocked risk tiers + resource directory; generate printable one-pager.
Partnerships / Story / Ops: Validate with a community org; craft preparedness narrative; deploy demo.

54-hour build plan

Hours 0–6: Pick one user segment; do 5–8 quick interviews; lock the “one workflow” MVP.
Hours 6–24: Build the clickable flow end-to-end with stubbed data; draft the policy narrative.
Hours 24–40: Add one policy-ready output (brief/dashboard/export); tighten UX; seed data for 2–3 neighborhoods.
Hours 40–54: Polish demo script; add analytics mock; finalize pitch + one-page handout.

What to show in the final demo

The “happy path” (one user completes the core task in under 2 minutes).
One policy-ready output (a brief, dashboard view, or export).
One local proof point (seeded neighborhoods / agencies / partner types relevant to New York City).

How it can earn revenue without becoming extractive

Revenue fit (values-aligned): sell a low-cost subscription to local governments/nonprofits, or charge implementation/support for pilots—avoid extractive fees on community participation.

Guardrails: publish scoring criteria, minimize data collection, and default to community ownership where possible (co-op/commons patterns).