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!