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David Crow

Connector of dots. Maker of lines. Rider of slopes.

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DemoCamp rising to the challenge

by davidcrow

Jerry King has a treatise that challenges the development community in Toronto to find a business model. This challenge should be embraced, and approached by the community. DemoCamp is primarily a community. And Jerry has issued us our first challenge, I hope that we are able to rise to this challenge. DemoCamp is the start of bringing the technology folk and the business folks together in to a community. To start a conversation. To increase collisions between these often disparate communities.

Jerry’s analysis is bang on about the state of software entrepreneurship in Toronto. When I looked out at the DemoCamp audience, I was most disappointed to see a very small number of grey hairs in the audience. We need the insight, the experience, the networks, the business acumen and the mentorship that seasoned entrepreneurs can bring. BarCamp is a place to start and we need collaboration with existing business leaders like Jerry to help deliver us from obscurity and lead us into economic salvation.

DemoCamp is about building a community. The demos while not necessarily commercially focused, are the starting point for conversation. This is a meeting point for technologists, entrepreneurs, designers, leaders. We need a strong community of talent: developers, designers, entrepreneurs, marketers, business leaders, CEOs, etc. People who understand the risks and challenges (and possible failures) of starting, growing and delivering early-stage businesses.

“I didn’t sell out son. I bought in. Keep that in mind.”—Christopher Lloyd’s character in SLC Punk

There is no shame in building successful companies. In fact, it is my goal, I just needed to find others in Toronto so I didn’t have to toil alone in my bedroom (it’s a condo so the garage is a little dirty and not very private). We need to do this to help seed a growing community. A lot of the DemoCamp model has been very altruistic, but this is not exclusionary of business and commerce. So where should we start?

  • Entrepreneurship 101 [PDF]
  • Stanford’s Interdisciplinary Podcasts about Business and Engineering
  • MIT’s Open Courseware Economic Analysis for Business Decisions
  • How to Develop ‘Breakthrough’ Products and Services
  • Entrepreneurial Finance
  • Entrepreneurial Marketing
  • Global Entrepreneurship Lab
  • The Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans
  • Developmental Entrepreneurship

I invite Jerry and Sean and Selim and Ilsa and Mark and others to come out an participate. Guide us! Mentor us! Grow something successful with us!

Posted on March 31, 2006 Filed Under: Articles

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