Bootup Labs Blog

I’m finally getting around to do the official posting of the date and topic of DemoCampVancouver06. As I had previously announced, we’re going to do things a little differently this time: the evening will have a theme, which is Gaming.

We’ve always said that we want to unite and mix the different “tribes” that we have around technology in Vancouver with our DemoCamp events, so I’m looking forward to seeing more of the gaming tribe. I know a bit about gaming, but I also know that I have much more to learn about this industry.

I’ve already got two speakers signed up:

• Indie Game Development with Dustin Sacks of SillySoft
• iPhone Game Development with Parveen Kaler (Parveen already beat me to the punch and posted about DemoCampVancouver06 as well as linking his presentation on the wiki page.

I’ve got an email contact in to someone with knowledge about developing for XBox Live Arcade (aka XBLA), so theoretically I have one slot left available. Anyone that wants to present on a topic / idea/ demo / whatever related to gaming, please contact me directly at democampvancouver@bootuplabs.com.

Update: that was quick! Jamie Cheng from Klei Entertainment is in. You may know Klei from their games Eets or N+. Jamie also happens to be an expert in AI. Woo hoo…I bet we could fill multiple DemoCamps just with some of the questions that I have for these guys…

As Parveen mentions on his post, I had originally been thinking that we could get a presenter about Sun’s Project Darkstar, but the timing actually overlaps with the Sun Labs Open House (which I’ll be attending at least one day of as well) – as of now, I’m not sure if I can get someone in on short notice.

Lastly, Megan Cole is going to help with BattleDecks. Have decks to submit? Send them along!

So, thanks again to our venue sponsors WorkSpace for the space at Suite 400, 21 Water Street. We’ll see you on April 10th, 2008, at 5:30pm, and please spread the word most especially to anyone in the gaming community so they can see what DemoCampVancouver is all about. See also: Upcoming, Facebook event.

P.S. don’t forget, April 3rd is the first DemoCampVictoria. I’m going to try and make it over for the first event and meet some more Victoria-based entreprenuers.

We’re already down one month of the 2008 year and it seems like the pace of activities are speeding up.

In upcoming order, here are the events in Vancouver relevant to startups that I know about:

• Fusion Forum (February 20 - 21): a financing event put on by New Media BC. What is Fustion?
  

  Fusion is designed to showcase the hottest digital media firms, provide valuable insights into key issues in the industry, provide a premium networking opportunity and a chance to learn from world-class investment professionals involved in the sector.

  Sorry I didn’t mention it earlier, but this past Thursday was actually an Entrepreneur Bootcamp. I believe there is still room if you want to pitch your company to investors. Bootup Labs was invited, but Danny is actually presenting Strutta and we’ve got too many other items still on the “to do” list between now and then to do it justice. Thanks for the offer, Adam!

• Northern Voice 2008: of course there’s a conflict of interest! I’ve helped organize this personal blogging / social media conference for the past 3 years (this is the 4th annual), and it’s always a mind expanding experience. We have people attending from across the country and around the world, with lots of travel from our US neighbours in particular. Anyone wanting to plugin to what is happening online from a personal / social perspective should attend, or at the very least plan some dinners or meetups with the many folks that are arriving from out of town. Almost sold out, so buy a ticket now if you intend to come.
• Launch Party (late March / early April): the last one at the Lamplighter headlined by Sun and their Startup Essentials launch in Canada was filled to the brim: networking and new product launches plus an intro to who’s doing what in Vancouver are the reason to attend every time. Sounds like late March or early April according to Maura.
• DemoCampVancouver06 - Gaming Edition (late March / early April): we just wrapped the DCV05, where I announced that we’d be doing something a little different for DCV06 — a themed version that will focus on gaming. There are lots of big gaming companies that have spun off some smaller studios, some of which only got re-absorbed (Baby EAs, in Rob Lewis’ parlance on TechVibes) — are there more gaming startups, or gaming related ideas out there? I’m going to reach out to the local gaming tribe and see about getting some of them out. Including, hopefully, a guest speaker from Project Darkstar.

P.S. OK, OK, I *didn’t* forget about CaseCamp Vancouver 3 on February 20th, I just would expect any startup worth its salt to know these lessons already.

It’s been weeks since I got back from attending the Founders and Funders event in Toronto, and things have finally slowed down from lightspeed enough to put a quick post up here.

David’s wrap up post reiterates the goal:

The goal of Founders & Funders is to create a social environment where the people who fund companies and the people who start companies can begin conversations outside of the pitch.

I decided to go at the last minute, and to leave some time the next day for any meetings that might come up. It was great to see fellow Vancouver-ites David Gratton, Ian Bell, and new-to-me Tom Williams representing there as well. I’ve been maintaining that cross-pollination in Canada is important, and so that was one of the reasons I decided to make the trip.

As it turns out, I made lots of great connections and the trip was certainly well worth it. One of them is an in progress effort to highlight information relevant to Canadian startups, which certainly fits nicely with the goals of Bootup Labs. More on this when it’s real
I have to applaud Microsoft for their support of this initiative. In working with DemoCampVancouver and LaunchParty, we’ve found that what is “small dollars” for firms like Microsoft or Sun can have big effects at the local level. Of course David Crow’s role within the organization makes it easy to directly point to the benefits, but I think we are seeing a bit of a shift in general.

What’s next? Well, I would certainly recommend any future F&F event to funders AND founders. I feel that these events are, like investments themselves, some what local in nature, and as such can and should be held in different areas across the country. I’ve heard rumours of an event in Montreal, and I certainly intend to help put together such an event somewhere west of Winnipeg (likely Calgary or Vancouver). I don’t even have a concrete date in mind yet, but please do leave a comment if you would be interested in such an event.

Finally, kudos to David and Jevon for putting this together in record time. Hope to see you out west sometime soon (hint, hint).