Software Hamilton

For the last two years I’ve been co-organizing the first three Startup Weekend events with Stephanie Shuster (@stephshuster) and Tammy Hwang (@tammyhwang), with Ash Ayyaswamy (@ayyaswa) joining the team for Startup Weeeknd Hamilton 2 and 3. It’s been an awesome experience watching relationships form at these events, and watching teams like Nervu and WalkBug go on to compete in Lion’s Lair. Startup Weekend plays an important connective, motivational, educational and even company creation role in the community for startup rookies and veterans alike. My favourite thing of all was watching the collective experience of the community grow from the first event to the most recent.

All that said, Startup Weekend has a policy of having organizers continually hand off the event to others roughly every 3 events or so. The policy makes a lot of sense, I’ve been treating the book Startup Communities by Brad Feld as a bit of a Bible for community organizing, and one suggestion is to, “nurture new leaders, hand off existing activities to them, and take on new activities yourself and hand those over”. New people means fresh approaches to things and the development of more event organizers in the community.

It’s important to us to see Startup Weekend continue to play the role that it’s playing in Hamilton, so expect myself and other organizers to stay on as “mentors” for Startup Weekend Hamilton 4 to ensure all goes well. But we’re looking for a kick ass team to take over as organizers for the event going forward. If you’re interested in becoming a Startup Weekend co-organizer e-mail me at kevin@kevinbrowne.ca, let us know about yourself, and we’ll get back to you over the summer!

I’ve been a co-organizer of the three Startup Weekend events that we’ve done so far in Hamilton. As always it’s been interesting to watch the community grow and evolve. Simon Woodside correctly identified at Startup Weekend Hamilton 1 in October of 2011 that the community was somewhat immature – few people attending that event had ever started up before.

That’s why there were a few subtle things that stuck out at this Startup Weekend that I really liked, besides the obvious awesomeness of WalkBug and Pastee coming away with the top prizes.

1) Teams were helping each other

The vibe, at least from my vantage point, didn’t seem cut throat at all. Teams were communicating with and helping each other. This hasn’t always been the case. Good-natured competition is awesome, but ego-driven one-upmanship can be unhelpful. Even during the final presentations before the judges, a participant asked a team a question that actually helped them make a better case for their startup to win. I know the participant that asked the question is a bit of a startup veteran; perhaps that’s maturity coming into play?

2) Prototype products were developed

Both winning teams made progress on product development. Maybe not all the way to an MVP, but with enough of a prototype that they could demo the basic concept to the judges. I know that pitches are important, but there’s something about a live demo of a concept…

3) Damien Steel’s talk

He gave a really great talk largely focused on pitching to institutional investors like OMERS (his employer). But my favourite part was that he didn’t knock the companies looking for smaller investment than OMERS handles; he made a point not to put them down. Over the next 5 years it’s very likely that those smaller startups are going to matter in Hamilton.

4) A team that “failed” still pitched

One team was based on a service idea that YouTube itself is about to launch themselves. The team found this out 16 hours into the weekend. The team was unable to pivot into another idea in time. But a few members of the team still came up before the judges and outlined what happened. They got a huge applause, and damn right. Lots of people talk about embracing and learning from failure – these guys actually did.

5) XCEEi stepped up along with others in the community

Startup Weekends obviously cost non-trivial dollars to hold. Hamilton Economic Development’s Small Business Enterprise Centre, Ridout & Maybee, BDC, Radius and Big Bee all deserve a big thanks for their support and sponsorship of this event, as do organizers Kitestring, Innovation Factory and Vana Workforce. But you do need a lead/gold sponsor or two to continue to make these events happen in Hamilton, and we owe XCEEi a huge thanks for stepping up this year as gold sponsor. Check out the video below that outlines their program and students:

Hamilton, ON (April 29, 2012) – Last weekend, over 50 developers, designers, marketers, business professionals, animators, and engineers came together at Radius Cafe (venue sponsor) to spend 54 hours trying to launch new startups in Hamilton.

This spring, Innovation Factory, KITESTRING, Software Hamilton and Vana Workforce announced that they had teamed up to bring the international movement of Startup Weekend to Hamilton for the third time since 2011. In addition to a very generous contribution from McMaster University Xerox Centre for Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation (Gold Sponsor), many local companies from across the community showed their support for this exciting initiative – BDC, Ridout & Maybee LLP, City of Hamilton Small Business Enterprise Centre, (Supporting Sponsors), and Big Bee Convenience (Food and Beverage Sponsor).

The 54-hour event was designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs. Beginning on Friday night, the attendees met, shared their concepts through a series of public pitches, and voted on the most popular ideas before breaking down into 7 teams (they named themselves Walkbug, Fitted, Shelf Spotter, Pastee, RedB, Key Space, and Placement). The teams spent the rest of the weekend on brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, and culminated on Sunday night with demos and presentations. Participants created working startups during the event and were able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks.

The Friday night kickoff party included inspirational speeches by Stephanie McLarty (REfficient), Matt Gartner (Group Notes), and Heather Payne (Ladies Learning Code), while a panel of mentors worked with teams throughout the weekend to help refine their ideas and build better projects. On Sunday afternoon, each team presented to a panel of judges – Carolynn Reid (City of Hamilton), Bill Brown (MaRS), and Justin Hogeterp (Fluid Media) – who selected the winners: Pastee (winner of a 2 hour consultation with Strategic Innovation Works) and Walkbug (Winner of a 1 hour consultation with Strategic Innovation Works, a Net@ccess hosting package, a SEO package from KKTI, and 6 months of office space at Platform 302). Damien Steel (OMERS) gave a closing address about seeking investment as a startup, and the group celebrated with a closing night reception.

About Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend is designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs. The weekend is focuses on action, innovation, and education. Whether you are looking for feedback on a idea, a co-founder, specific skill sets, or a team to help you execute, Startup Weekends are the perfect environment in which to test your idea and take the first steps towards launching your own startup.

Media Contact: For more information, contact Stephanie Shuster, stephanie@kitestring.ca, 905.296.9575

Invest in Hamilton TV by Hamilton Economic Development (@hamiltonecdev) released this video covering Groupnotes (@Groupnotes), Startup Weekend Hamilton, and the XCEEi program at McMaster University. Since winning Startup Weekend Toronto in November of last year Groupnotes has gone on to win the Global Startup Battle and join the prestigious HyperDrive incubator in Waterloo. Check out the video below:

Do you want to be next Groupnotes success story? Then you need to register for Startup Weekend Hamilton 3! If you’re a student, don’t forget to use the discount code ‘student’ to get a ticket for just $69!

When: Friday April 26th – Sunday April 28th

Where: Radius at 151 James Street South

Register for SWH3!

Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: after hearing talks by a few industry speakers, anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.

Whether entrepreneurs found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new, or learn a skill far outside their usual 9-to-5, everyone is guaranteed to leave the event better prepared to navigate the chaotic but fun world of startups. If you want to put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur, register now for the best weekend of your life!

When: Friday April 26th – Sunday April 28th
Where: Radius Cafe @ 151 James St South in Hamilton
Register: hamilton.startupweekend.org

Speaker Line-up

Stephanie McLarty – CEO, REfficient

Stephanie McLarty is CEO of REfficient, an online marketplace that allows you to go shopping in other companies’ surplus inventory for Telecom and AV product. Like an eBay for used and surplus new industry products, REfficient allows businesses to buy telecom and audiovisual equipment at significant discounts, keeping reusable products out of landfills. REfficient also allows equipment to be resold and recycled, and companies will receive sustainability reporting for their Corporate Responsibility reports.

Since launching REfficient in 2010, Stephanie has led the growth of the technology-based company to a customer base spanning 11 countries on 4 continents that have diverted over 1M pounds from landfill using REfficient. She and the company have received many accolades, including being the second-place winner at LiON’s LAIR 2012 and profiled in Biz Magazine as one of 20 game changers for the Golden Horseshoe region in 2013. REfficient is also a Certified B Corp.

Stephanie has been a member of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) since 2008, where she sits as the Canadian Technical Expert on international standards for reuse and recycling. She was chosen to represent Canada at the 2010 and 2011 IEC Young Professionals workshops, and then selected by her peers as one of three global young leaders to work with the IEC moving forward.

Stephanie has a MA from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and a H.B.Arts.Sc from McMaster University in Hamilton, ON. She has lived, studied and worked in five countries outside of Canada. She currently resides in Hamilton, ON. 

Heather Payne – Founder, Ladies Learning Code

Heather Payne is the founder of Ladies Learning Code, a Toronto-based not-for-profit startup that runs popular workshops for women (and men) who want to learn computer programming and other technical skills in a social and collaborative way. Ladies Learning Code now has chapters in Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax. In 2012, she founded HackerYou as a way to bring more intensive technology learning experiences to Toronto and beyond. Recently she spent a year working on a project for the Mozilla Foundation: her job was to build a community of people and organizations in Toronto who care about raising youth as creators – not just consumers – of technology and the web. In December 2012, the project was granted $365,000 in funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Heather was an early investor in ShopLocket, and in a former life, she helped startups like Pinpoint Social and Shopcastr to acquire their first users. In her spare time, she enjoys building websites and furthering her knowledge of Ruby on Rails.

Damien Steel – Director, OMERS Ventures

In his role as Director at OMERS Ventures, Damien Steel is responsible for contributing to the identification and execution of investment opportunities in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sectors. Prior to joining OMERS Ventures, Damien was a Vice President with EdgeStone Capital Partners’ venture capital funds. Damien has over 10 years of experience working with growth companies on all aspects of their business including finance, acquisitions, and overall growth strategies. Damien currently serves as a member of the Ontario Security Commission’s Small and Medium Enterprise Committee and is a member of the Ontario Center of Excellence’s CCR Commercialization Panel.
Damien has an H.B.B.A from Wilfrid Laurier University, is a CA and a CFA charter holder.

Matt Gardner – Founder, Groupnotes

Current owner of four companies ranging between technological marketing consultation to a technology-heavy startup. Passionate about proper software architecture as well as leveraging new technologies in marketing and design. Always keeping tabs on the newest UI/UX trends and using them to help clients as well as improve my current ventures.

Past work experience in software (RIM), hardware (RIM, BB10), and process automation and currently completing an undergraduate degree concurrently with an MEng and MBA at McMaster University.

Pitched the ideas and managed the team that won Toronto Startup Weekend 2012 as well as the world’s largest startup competition, Global Startup Battle 2012. The company, Groupnotes, was the first North American winner of this international competition run by the Kauffman Foundation. Groupnotes now works out of the HYPERDRIVE incubator in Waterloo, ON and me and the team could not be any more excited! Check out www.groupnotes.ca for more information and to get started with out platform.

Read more on my homepage, www.thatmatt.ca, and find articles about Groupnotes and myself in Techcrunch, Mashable, Venturebeat, the National Post, Financial Post, CBC, Spectator, Toronto Star, San Fransisco Chronicle, etc.

Startup Weekend is a global network of leaders and entrepreneurs with the goal of promoting entrepreneurship in their community by organizing 54-hour events where developer, designers, marketers, product managers and professionals come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch startups!

For the last two years we have hosted Startup Weekend Hamilton where young professionals, students, startup enthusiasts in the Hamilton area and beyond (last year we had participants from Ottawa & Montreal!) joined us for 54-hours to launch startups and learn what it is like to participate in a startup venture. It is a terrific opportunity for professionals to learn about startups, work as team and find partners that complement their skills. You can find last year’s winning presentations here.

We have had companies like Nervu Ninja launch from our Startup Weekend Hamilton who went on to become one of the winners of Lion’s Lair, it is amazing that they meet each other, came up with the idea and developed a proof-of-concept in only 54-hours and are a successful small business in Hamilton.

This year Startup Weekend Hamilton 3 is from April 26-28, 2013 at Radius Cafe on James St. We expect it to be even bigger with more participants than the last two, you can find the information on the website here

If you would like to participate in the event as an attendee you can register here

Last night was the ticket sale launch party for Startup Weekend Hamilton 3! The event took place at the cool new Platform 302 (@Platform302) working space and was kicked off by a keynote from Andrew Holden CXO of Weever Apps (@WeeverApps). Weever Apps is a well known company in Hamilton, a lot of people have referred to it as a bit of a poster child for new industry in Hamilton. But Andrew was pretty open about the challenges they’ve faced along the way. Like how the two technical co-founders had to bring in people with different (i.e. business) skill sets in order to take the company to the next level. Or how it took some adapting to find the right product-market fit. He did a great job of tying it all back into what Startup Weekend is about: putting people with a common interest in starting up a company but with different skill sets together over a weekend.

Startup Weekend Hamilton co-organizer Ash Ayyaswamy (@ayyaswa) talked about his own experience at Startup Weekend Hamilton 1 with Caltrakr. Caltrakr was a smartphone app that “allowed users to systematically manage their nutritional intake and exercise schedules in order to help them achieve their desired health and fitness goals”. Though Caltrakr itself didn’t go on Ash emphasized that the relationships formed at the event did, both within the team and with mentors. Sometimes people ask “what can you really startup in a weekend?” and the truth is Startup Weekend is as much about co-founder dating as it is actually starting a company. There’s no better way to figure out who you can and can’t work with then by working with them over a weekend long crunch.

Finally Matt Gardner of Groupnotes (@Groupnotes) talked about his experience with Startup Weekend. Groupnotes won the most recent Startup Weekend Toronto and Global Startup Battle and are now in the Communitech HYPERDRIVE program. Matt talked about the importance of validation – at the end of the day judges want to see that there’s a market for your product! This has been an important factor in determining the winner of the last two Startup Weekend Hamilton events. And it’s not just about throwing up a landing page and signing people up for a mailing list or getting them to follow you on social media. There’s nothing stopping participants from lining up paying customers over the weekend. Matt also emphasized the importance of peer and mentor relationships that carry on far past the weekend is over.

Startup Weekend Hamilton 3 will be taking place from April 26th – April 28th at Radius Cafe (@RadiusDowntown). With Radius hosting you can expect amazing food all weekend. Startup Weekend Hamilton is the best way for the startup curious to dip their toes in the water and for those looking to a start a company to find talent and potential co-founders. And for a limited time you can buy a ticket for only $79, sign-up below!

 

Ticket Sale Launch

When: Tuesday March 5th @ 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Where: Platform 302 (302 Cumberland Ave)
Register: swh3launch.eventbrite.com

Do you have a creative passion such as software development, music, fashion, film, art, or design?  Or do you enjoy talking to customers, marketing, and developing monetization strategies?  Maybe you should be part of a startup…

Startup Weekend Hamilton is an event where startups happen in a single weekend.  Ideas for startups are pitched on Friday night, teams form to work on the business model and build prototypes, and by Sunday night the teams are presenting their new startup in front of a panel of expert judges to select a winner.

This ticket sale launch party is for all those interested in attending Startup Weekend Hamilton 3!  Startup Weekend organizers and veterans of past Startup Weekends will be in attendance to answer any questions you have.

Keynote Speaker

 

 

 Andrew Holden 

  

CXO @ Weever Apps

 

Weever Apps is one of Hamilton’s hottest tech startups!!  Weever Apps is located in McMaster Innovation Park and were the first prize winnner’s of the inaugeral Lion’s Lair event.  One Weever mobile web app works across almost all touch phones and tablets – and can be shared instantly between two people.  Weever Apps is used by over 14,000 customers in over 60 countries.  Andrew Holden is a co-founder and Chief Experience Officer at Weever Apps.  Andrew is a web development expert and frequently writes about mobile visitor engagement and online best practices. He is a contributing writer for many online publications including Social Media Examiner, KillerStartups, and Tech.li.

Startup Weekend Veterans

We’ll also have Mohamed El Mahallawy of Nervu Ninja and Matt Gardner of Groupnotes give Startup Weekend advice and do some Q&A.  Nervu Ninja was the winner of Startup Weekend Hamilton 2, and Groupnotes won Startup Weekend Toronto last November and went on to win the Global Startup Battle.

Startup Weekend Hamilton is Presented By…