StartupCamp Montreal 2 – May 15th, 2008

StartupCamp Montreal 2 has been announced. It is taking place May 15th and will be at the SAT again. I am a little sad that I will have to miss it because of another conference, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun!

Make sure you sign up, and if you are a startup, you should consider presenting. StartupCamps are one of the few places you can get no-holds-barred feedback on your business plan. If you are interested in presenting, add yourself to the wiki.

Date : May 15th, 2008
Time : 6pm to 10pm EST
Location : SAT – Société des arts technologiques

They are really stepping it up for this event as well and will provide a bunch of help and support for the startups that are chosen to present.

1) The top five startups selected to present at the event will have the opportunity to participate in a one-day pre-event workshop session. The goal being to have ?pitch? experts help the companies prepare ahead of the event. The workshop will be hosted by Austin Hill, John Stokes, Vincent Guyaux, and 2 other VC / marketing experts.

2) Presenting companies will have 8 minutes to present, with 10 minutes of follow-up questions from the event Gurus and the audience.

3) We will have ambassadors on hand prior to the event and during the event to help with match making and networking.

CIX – Canadian Venture Capital Meetup

Back in June, StartupNorth was one of the first places to break the story of the death of the Toronto Venture Group. Every year the TVG had an event called the “Venture Forum”, which died when the TVG was shut down.

It didn’t take long for the gap to get filled in however, and soon enough the CIX was announced. The premise is largely the same: Companies are pre-selected to pitch a room full of VCs who will presumably think about funding some of them. You need to apply to present, and then your company will be vetted by a selection committee. The cost to attend and present (if you are chosen) is about $1,000 in total, or $495 if you are just attending.

Is CIX worth attending?

This conversation got kicked off today on David Crow’s blog after David posted about CIX, Ali Asaria, the guy behind Well.ca, suggested that $500-$1,000 was actually a lot of money for a startup, no matter what stage they are at.

It is true, $1,000 is a lot of cash, but the truth is: it isn’t too much. The question here isn’t about money, it is about value. Will you get anything out of 2 days in a conference full of other people who are trying to make this ship sail in Canada? I think you will. The thing is: It is completely up to you. You can find the agenda for the two days here.

To make the best of this event you need to come at it with the right frame of mind: Make as many connections as possible, tell as many people as possible about your startup as you can, and finally, get as much advice as possible.

In the run up to CIX we will have a few posts about kicking butt at CIX, for both the VCs and the Entrepreneurs.

StartupCamp

There is also StartupCamp, which we are putting on for free during CIX. We decided to do this because it will give a chance for the startups presenting at StartupCamp to get exposure to a crowd that doesn’t always come out to these events.

Where companies that present at CIX will be somewhat established and will have already figured out their pitch, StartupCamp is for companies who are still trying to work out the details of their business plan.

You can fill out this form to apply to pitch at StartupCamp. We’d love to have some unknown but awesome startups to show off!

You can register for CIX here.

StartupCamp Toronto 2 – Tuesday, April 29th

StartupCamp Waterloo 2 was another big success, and we had a blast at StartupCamp Montreal, so we thought it was time we had another StartupCamp here in Toronto.

The format for StartupCamp is simple: 5 Startups will have 5 minutes each to pitch themselves. The audience will then have twice as much time to grill them on everything from their marketing plan to the product itself.

The 5 startups will be selected in advance.

The event will be held on Tuesday April 29th at The Carlu in Toronto. We are putting on this StartupCamp during CIX, which is a new conference with a focus on connecting VC ready startups and VCs.

The first run of tickets are available here. We will post more information as things come together.

Sponsors

Our kickoff sponsor is the Canadian Innovation Exchange. If you are interested in sponsorship options, please get in touch.