Open House at Bootup Labs

Jevon, Jonas and I are all heading to Vancouver for Grow Conference happening Aug 19-21, 2010. But I’m hear in Vancouver hanging out at Bootup Labs.

Bootup Labs is holding open office hours this week. Basically if you’re a startup and you’re in Vancouver and you want need some touchdown space, you should visit Bootup Labs.

Bootup Labs
163 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

Hanging out in the middle of Bootup Labs

This is a fantastic place. There is a fantastic vibe. There seems to be real evolution and growth of Bootup Labs since the dark days. I’ve been hanging out the past day or so with:

There are a lot of companies, entrepreneurs and things to like happening at Bootup. I am really impressed with a few things.

The space – it is gorgeous. It’s the right mix of location and finish. The offices are safe, comfortable, and interactive. There’s a great mix of open working areas, private meeting rooms, a kitchen and private offices with sliding doors. The natural light. And it’s nice but not posh. As companies demonstrate traction, there is incentive to find different space, for example Dimerocker has moved out. Having Mozilla and Strutta as “anchor tenants” also reduces the risk to Bootup Labs. It also means that there’s a lot of fun interesting people flowing through.
The location – it is right on the edge of Gastown. There is a great mix of restaurants and other things going on. I had breakfast at the Medina Cafe just around the corner from the office (best breakfast I’ve ever had). There’s the Fluevog store. It’s a great neighbourhood that has come a long way since I first visited Bryght in 2005.
The companies – all of these companies and the entrepreneurs working there are pushing really hard and demonstrating traction. There are exits, see Layerboom acquired by Joyent. And there are a lot of good things happening.

My recommendation is that if you’re in Vancouver you come hang out at Bootup Labs with us. Ping me @davidcrow or @startupnorth or just drop by 163 West Hastings St in Vancouver. I’ll be here until August 20.

My favourite flavour Vanilla Forums

Congratulations to the team at Vanilla Forums. In the past year they’ve attended TechStars in Boulder, moved to Montreal, and released version 2 of Vanilla Forums. What is Vanilla?

“Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, theme-able, pluggable community forum.

Over 350,000 sites use Vanilla Forums to manage feedback, spark discussion, and make customers smile.”

There are competitors ranging from bbPress, phpBB, and punBB (like others we’re torn between bbPress and Vanilla – the proxyConnect plugin allows us to integrate Vanilla with WordPress). But Vanilla is a leading solution offering a great user experience, simple customization and hosting with a large user community. Plus they’re funded by our friends at Montreal Startup which makes them an easy choice.

C100 sees the SUN

The C100 is now coming at you live and in 3D right here on Startup North.

What does that mean for you? Well, as if Startup North wasn’t already an indispensible source of news, insights and opinions on the rapidly expanding Canadian start-up and venture capital scene, you can now check this space for regular news and views on innovation from the unique perspective of the successful Canadian tech entrepreneurs, company execs and VCs in Silicon Valley who make up the C100.

What is the C100 you ask? Remember in Pulp Fiction when Jules Winnfeld (Samuel L. Jackson) refers to Vinnie Vega (John Travolta) as “my man in Amsterdam?” Well, that’s us. We’re your man in Amsterdam.

Except we’re a group of men and women… and we’re in Silicon Valley.

But more importantly, C100 is a huge fan of both technology and of Canada and we’re here to share our thoughts, insights and contacts with the established and the up-and-coming, with the best dreamers, entrepreneurs and innovators Canada has to offer.

So check us out online, visit our blog, get mentored, but most importantly stay tuned to StartUp North where we’ll be looking for new ways to increase the connections and communications between Silicon Valley and Canada.