Squamish’s entrepreneurial spirit will be bolstered when Startup Weekend hits town on Saturday, Oct. 24. Keen participants – aspiring entrepreneurs – will gather at Quest University library and go through the process of creating startup enterprises over the following 52 hours.
Though the emphasis of the event is on bringing together people with compatible skills, sharing ideas and learning, teams will seek to launch functional startups.
For a town to foster a vibrant entrepreneurial culture, the right conditions must be in place explained StartUp Squamish co-founder Mario Gomes, citing examples like Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Boulder, CO.
“Prior to their start-up booms, these cities had a young demographic; an innovative university; an environment of collaboration between the city, entrepreneurs, the university and local businesses.”
Gomes thinks Squamish is ready to become such a place.
“The idea is that it’s continuous; it’s not a one off. If we have enough people in town we can run two events a year,” he said.
“This is the first event in town that is not only focused on startups and entrepreneurship, but it has also brought together the district of Squamish, the university, the local bank – the key players that we have to bring together to make Squamish become a real start-up community that fosters new business.”
The Seattle-based Startup Weekend organization now runs events in cities around the world. Since registering as a not-for-profit in 2010, the group has held some 1,500 events in 726 cities. The company corresponds with people from interested host cities, ensures they have adequate preparedness and sends a representative to facilitate the weekend.
Cheryl Draper, who works at Invoke Media in Vancouver, is the facilitator for the Squamish weekend.
On Friday evening, after participants have a meet and greet, they will have a chance to pitch an idea to the group. The ideas receiving the most participant votes will be carried through into startups, a process including creating a business plan, observing the market to see if the idea has potential, and creating a minimum viable product. This is a process similar to what is taught in business schools, but condensed for entrepreneurial rapidity.
“At StartUp Squamish, we talked this through with some of our members, to know if there was enough people interested in volunteering their time to pull something like this together,” said Gomes.
He noted fellow organizers who put in a significant effort to bring the event to Squamish in particular JP Tondreau, David Crewson, Robbin Miller, Amanda Gomes and Stephanie Hayes.
Other organizations contributing to the event include the District of Squamish, the Bank of Development Canada, Proforma and Squamish Savings.
The cost to participants is $99 per person for the weekend and includes food. More information can be found at squamish.startupweekend.org.
