Like a time-laps photo sequence of an egg hatching, a new business will crack through its shell to be born into the world.
Every year the Startup PG group, the Innovation Central Society (ICS), and supportive partners incubate a set of business ideas in a weekend-long focus exercise. The best ones hatch into actual ventures. This is the weekend when that business heat is applied.
Startup Weekend is more than a brainstorming session. That is how it starts, with a pitch session on Friday evening. Then, on Saturday and Sunday, participants are arranged into teams and put through a program of steps for building the best of the brainstorms into a business blueprint. Everyone involved will have access to a number of business veterans and professionals as in-house mentors and advisors.
"It is the lowest-commitment introduction to entrepreneurship for people thinking about going into business for themselves or for people who have an idea they want to test out," said Ryano Taylor, the Startup Weekend co-ordinator.
"There are valuable people going to be in that room who would not have time to sit down with each and every one of you under normal circumstances, but here you'll have a number of them right at your fingertips, right there in the room, for hours and hours," said Robert Quibell, executive director at ICS. "This is your chance to pick the brain of people who know a whole lot, and move your ideas forward with some professional quality."
Startup Weekend is part business incubator, part entrepreneurship class, part peer networking meeting, and part contest. The best idea will win a prize. A ticket most be purchased to take part, but it also covers most meals, since participants are focused on a 54-hour business project and who wants to break the mojo by leaving for something as mundane as finding food?
Tickets are available at the eventbrite.com website under the Startup Weekend Prince George heading.
"You aren't doing mock exercises," said Taylor. "These teams are all working on actual startups of actual businesses. This is an intensified version of what entrepreneurs do every day. You get to live the life of a business owner for two days. Some are going to say 'that isn't for me. That was fun and informative, but I want a dependable paycheque and a regular life schedule' but for other people it will be the spark they needed to go into business for themselves."
"ICS is there in the room with the Startup Weekend team because it is our job to take the best innovation and technology business ideas in the region and help them to be the best they can be," said Quibell. "We are here to make sure the ideas that come out of Startup Weekend don't lose their momentum once the event is over."
Startup Weekend takes place at CNC. See the eventbrite file for further details
START-OFF TO STARTUP
One of the special guest mentors at the event is Haig Armen of the Emily Carr University of Art+Design. He will present a keynote speech on Friday at noon entitled Design-Driven And Agile Startups.
Armen was one of the elemental minds behind ventures like CBC Radio 3 and LiFT Studios (an interactive design boutique in Vancouver).
The speech will centre on Lean UX, a methodology of marrying human innovative thinking with the technical and clinical software/computer side of modern startups. Most new ventures in the startup world are technological in nature, because it is easy to start such businesses in small spaces like a home studio or a corner of the basement, technology is applicable all over the world, and the return on investment is large for a good tech idea.
Armen's lecture will be held at CNC's Shaffer Theatre (Room 1-306) from 12-2 p.m.
