Startups and their communities are the seeds of renewal of a collapsed and corrupt venture capital market in Canada, says StartupNorth. “Local communities are important because they are far easier for local Angels and Entrepreneurs to connect to, and they also act as a great filter to help find people who need national and international exposure.”
While I was in Vancouver, Jevon, Jonas and co-conspirators over at StartupNorth announced and quickly sold out StartupCamp Toronto1.
For those curious about how this “community thing” works, notice how the model is the defunct Canadian Venture Forum turned on its head. Tickets are allocated based on your community of practice: Entrepreneurs, Students and Gurus are free. Service Provider tickets are still available at $199 and you get recognized as a sponsor for supporting the community! $199 for that kind of whuffie is a fantastic deal.
Now if the Board of Trade could get hip to the model, we might see a few more tech innovators at those Tech Innovators Breakfasts! In my experience, these breakfasts are an old-skool sausagefest of service providers trying to catch a deal, and if it weren’t for the odd enlightened friend of the community like RBC, Idée, Microsoft/David Crow – you would never see a garage startup show its face in such an environment. (I’d link to the next one of their events, but the Board of Trade’s website is too painful to navigate and doesn’t use permalinks! Hello??)
I’m looking forward to putting my community co-creation ideas in front of more people in the startup ecosystem as the BarCamp community continues to gain traction in the eyes of policy, corporate and capital players. I see my role in this is to help these people perceive community and give them tools to engage with it in a way that creates new value for the whole system.
I was invited by Catarina von Maydell, formerly of the Toronto Angel Group, to attend a gathering of investors (mostly angel) at ISCM, the Innovation Synergy Centre in Markham north of Toronto. Investors learned about the services that this hub of so-called “4th pillar” organizations offers to small-medium sized growth companies. The invited investors had an opportunity to learn about and meet with some of the companies that ISCM helps prepare for investment.
READ MORE at Startupnorth.ca
StartupNorth.ca: The Life, and Death, of Canadian Startups has launched. Stories from the leading edge of startup life in Canada.
It’s a place to share the real stories of Canadian innovators that are creating a buzz; lessons from the trenches; resources, criticism and commentary from the edge. I will be making contributions there about some of the bigger policy questions, where entrepreneurs can go to find support and maybe even sharing some of my own experiences.
Let me know if there’s something cool or helpful that you think should be covered there.
Technorati Tags: canada, startupnorth
I attended the Ontario Centres of Excellence Discovery07 event at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre yesterday, May 1, 2007. Is it worthy of mention? One major wow moment: disembodied 3D holographic virtual Ray Kurzweil addressing the audience live from the podium:
Take me to your leader.
The Good, the Bad and the Indifferent after the jump…
Technorati Tags: ontario centres of excellence, ocediscovery07
The ConceptShare boys have been burning things up just about anywhere that gives a damn about Web 2.0 and online collaboration software.
Now ConceptShare is moving from image-based collaboration into rich media: audio, video and flash. Adding new media types only enhances the application’s value to a wide audience of designers and their customers, while retaining the key differentiator of the original: you don’t have to book a meeting to collaborate. ConceptShare is based on the simple but powerful idea that meetings suck.
At the rate they’re improving, I think we can expect them to continue impressing customers and industry watchers alike. Bernie, Scott and Chris are very smart guys who can teach the Toronto web development and startup scene a few lessons on how to do it right. Fast, agile, iterative and savvy. Luckily, you will have the opportunity to learn more when Scott comes to speak at the upcoming Mesh Conference. And, as usual, expect them at upcoming DemoCamps and BarCamps in Toronto.
Technorati Tags: meshconference