If your interested in hackathons or startups, then you should check out Startup Weekend Vancouver. It’s my first year going but have heard good things.
The idea is to start a business (generally around a web/tech idea) and launch it over 1 weekend. This means they need developers, UX/UI Designers, and business professionals (marketing, PR, business strategy). Some of the ideas that form over the weekend, do become ventures and companies afterwards.
If you’re planning on going, let me know here and perhaps we can go in with a bit of a team and strategy. You don’t need a team to do this - they are formed during the weekend I believe.
I’m signed up - but Nov 14 also happens to be my gf’s birthday. I have no idea how this is going to play out, and fully expect to not be able to participate at all (since you can’t exactly miss the first evening when teams are formed).
I wouldn’t worry too much about that. My coding experience is nearly nilch. I can design websites and that’s about it. They need non-technical as well that can work on coordinating the team, business plans, presentations, logos, design, website… etc.
I’m really looking forewords to that kind of stuff, I’m currently starting a small business, and I’m learning as I go, so I think Start Up week would be a great way to get a taste for it, and learn what NOT to do before you invest a bunch of time and money into lemons.
Anyway, my plan is to have fun and just play with some ideas. I haven’t figured out a pitch yet, but I am really interested in the idea of “Carbon sink” projects… It basically means taking the money from Carbon Tax and investing it into eco-systems that are incredibly efficient at reducing our carbon output.
Whales, for instance, are like underwater transport trucks who eat tonnes of kelp on the ocean floor… and then release it in the form of iron-rich fertilizer… If a price tag was slapped on each tonne of carbon…then this process would account for millions of dollars.
(This is described in J.B. Mackinnon’s outstanding book, “The Once and Future World.”
Why I mention this is because there used to be an organization called “Pacific Carbon Trust” that actually funded the preservation of ecosystems and funded projects that were designed to reduce carbon.
It was a bit controversial; but I’m sure that there are still programs in place to fund such programs.
Although at the end of the day, I’d like to simply have fun at Start Up week and simply learn… I’d like to orient myself towards such projects.
No idea off the top of my head, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out eventually.
Alex, it sounds like you’d get a LOT out of the Lean Entrepreneur Program that Launch Academy runs. They’re currently taking registrations for their November cohort: https://www.picatic.com/LEPNovember14
I was part of their first cohort back a few months ago, and it was absolutely worth the price. So much incredible, practical knowledge and great connections.
I participated in the startup weekend a couple of years ago, to be honest it didn’t blow my mind. The ratio of technical people (coders, engineers, designers, scientists) to business people was quite low, although this could vary a lot from one event to the next, perhaps.
It starts on Friday evening, after a bit of mingling they open the mic and anybody can do a one minute pitch. People vote, and the top 10 or so are accepted. After that there’s an hour or so for everybody to join one of the winning teams, and you can start working right away. You present preliminary work on Saturday, and a final 5 minute pitch on Sunday (I think).
I didn’t have any particular ideas I wanted to develop, and once the pitches were done it was nice for my ego that I was suddenly courted by a few of the projects. Quite a few people seemed to have “awesome” ideas, they just needed someone to develop them, with the usual work for free thing.
There did seem to be a few investors walking around and giving good advice, and it honestly was fun to spend a full weekend rushing to develop something (in contrast to being a grad student at least). I learned a little bit, made new friends, which for $100 wasn’t too bad.
Looking at their signup page, they seem to have about 20 each of designers and developers, but don’t specify how many business people are attending (unless none have signed up; doubtful). I do regret that I spent most of the my time working, and on the fringes and short breaks heard cool conversations. Definitely try to meet as many people as you can, take the time to talk to the different projects and mentors.