Bootup Labs Blog

After a whirlwind tour of the valley for our first Bootup Demo Days, I’m back in Vancouver and got some great news. I left behind a lot of “homework” for our new Jan 2010 cohort, and Zedmo managed to score an “investment

Read on for the full press release and details.

P.S. Thank you to all the people that we connected with on the trip down to the valley. It was a great visit, more coverage to follow.
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Dave Shea is about to flee the city for the duration of the Olympics, and had some free time on his hands. We arranged to bring him in and work with the Jan 2010 cohort on designing some custom beer labels.

Why beer labels? Well, Dave himself is well known in the international web design community, and he’s also known locally for enjoying a beer or two, especially at the Alibi Room.

Also, the new Flack Block offices that Bootup Labs has several full size old bank vaults. While thinking about what do with it, we came up with the concept of everyone pitching in to brew beer, and storing it in the vaults. Couch Beers are about to get a lot more interesting in the coming weeks!

Check back throughout the day as we start posting the beer label designs.

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And here are the final designs.

Dave started with the colour palettes of all the companies, and then figured out two complimentary palettes, so each company started out with either the red or blue base. Each company has a style of beer, the Bootup “power button” icon has been incorporated around the neck of the bottle, and the border around the label recognizes the archway of the Flack Block building that all our offices are in.

These are awesome beers, and now the next challenge will be sourcing how we brew them. I know foodtree is busy sourcing green apples already…

It’s been a long year of ramping up and working with our 5 “Beta Fund” companies. Our first full blown Demo Days are coming up in January/February, we’re finalizing the details to lease a new space, and in general 2009 is aiming to end with a bang.

Today, we’re happy to announce the companies that will be joining us as the January 2010 Cohort:

• Blast Ramp is collaborative distribution platform for companies that sell and ship consumer products.
• Compass Engine helps developers create the next generation of location based games.
• foodtree brings the community and transparency of the farmers market online.
• ReadFu brings contextual summaries for every link
• Status.ly is a device-independent lifestream aggregator with focus on personalized customization and real-time filtering.
• Zedmo lets you find events and social topics. You can discover these Zedmo “channels” according to their location, popularity, or topic

Full details, logos, links to Twitter accounts, and all that good stuff are available on the portfolio page.

Want to get involved? Well, our May 2010 application process will open up in the new year, so register to get notified when applications open. Also, BES is still looking for companies to join us for Demo Days.

We were also covered on ReadWriteWeb as part of The Advantages of Launching Outside the Valley. Hat tip to Techvibes for catching Foodtree and Zedmo before they were officially officially announced

2010 is going to be an exciting year, and I’m looking forward to kick things into high gear and working with such a great crew of people to build their businesses.