David Crow

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

democamp

DemoCamp Ramen Edition

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Photo by frippy

It’s time again for DemoCamp. There are a few tickets remaining. But this is DemoCamp Ramen Edition. Why ramen? Well it’s pretty easy. The first is an homage to being ramen profitable. The last event with Gurbaksh Chahal was great, my only complaint was that by 9pm I was hungry. The great folks at Liberty Noodle have offered to help us out. They are providing take out boxes of noodles or rice as part of the DemoCamp registration. Hopefully this should make it more tenable to spend time watching a stellar line up of local startups and a keynote. This is all made possible by our friends at SIFE Ryerson, who have recently launched StartMeUpRyerson to be the SVASE of Canada, go have a peek.

April Dunford is keynoting.  April is one of my favourite marketers in the world. She has lived in big organizations (IBM, Nortel) and at small organizations (DataMirror, Infobright, VersePoint). She has a wicked grasp of customer development  and this #leanstartup thing. April has agreed to talk about the myths of product market fit. Well at least the challenges about figure out if you’ve got product-market fit and how to know when to begin to transition to go-to-market. This will be a must attend discussion for startups about products, marketing and corporate development. (Don’t worry if you miss April at DemoCamp, you can see Sean Ellis at MeshU).

There is an outstanding line up of startups:

I’ve seen a few of these demos, and they are fun. It’s exciting to get to see world-class technologies and startups here in Toronto (Ottawa and Montreal). I’m looking forward to hanging out with everyone, learning from April and watching the best demos.

We’ll be heading out for beers afterwards. We’re heading over to the Imperial Pub. And if you haven’t figured this out, let me help you, The Imperial Pub is a great place for a couple of beers, it’s not the place to go for dinner.

HoHoTO and DemoCamp

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HoHoToLogo

It’s time for HoHoTO again.

Join us for #HoHoTO at The Mod Club. Last year, we raised $25,006.67. In the summer (for hoHOTo), we raised $13,317.87. That’s a total of $38,324.54 to date.

You can be proud of what you’ve done so far, Toronto – but why stop there? Each time you inspire us to do good, we want to do great. And we know we can, because you’ve taught us that we are part of an amazingly generous community. Since we first tweeted the idea for HoHoTo in December 2008, you’ve joined us and embraced our pet project as your project. 
Inspired by your support, we’re pushing ourselves further. This December, our goal – your goal – is to match the total amount raised so far in one night.

Target: $40,000. That’s a lot of money.

And a big thanks to the DemoCamp attendees. I made a donation to HoHoTO today with the registration money from DemoCamp Toronto. This means that the donation was made possible by the DemoCamp Toronto 24 attendees. I’ll be giving away the 12 tickets randomly to the attendees at DemoCamp. Thank you to every DemoCamp participant. To show my appreciation, here’s some link love.

DemoCamp Toronto # 24 featuring Gary Vaynerchuk

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crushit We’re really lucky to have Saul Colt working his ass off in Toronto. He’s done a great thing. He’s invited his friend Gary Vaynerchuk to come to Toronto and talk to startups about his book, Crush It, and entrepreneurship. That’s right, Gary Vaynerchuk in Toronto on December 3, 2009 for the next DemoCamp Toronto (which will be number 24 for anyone keeping track).

Gary is keynoting SxSW. Here’s your chance to see Gary without the trip to Austin. However, I strongly recommend the trip to Austin if for nothing other than the BBQ and the Shiner Bock.

The event is sponsored by Zoocasa, Saul Colt, Rogers Ventures, OCE, Microsoft BizSpark and StartupNorth are working together on this one.

I haven’t had the chance to read the book yet. Adding it to my queue along with Trust Agents, Six Pixels of Separation and a few other books.

DemoCamp Details

DemoCamp Toronto 19

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Hard to believe that it’s been almost 7 months since DemoCamp Toronto 18. It’s just crazy.

 democamp

How to attend?

Everyone needs a ticket. You can register for a ticket at EventBrite.

Why?

Space at the venue is limited. And this is an iterative process. We’re trying to figure out how to make this work.

There are essentially 5 types of tickets:

  1. Student – Must be enrolled in a full-time academic program, and you must be of legal drinking age as the event is happening in a bar.
  2. Early-bird – Access to view the demos.
  3. Regular – Access to view the demos.
  4. Sponsor – Logo on the site, 2 tickets to view the demos.
  5. Networking Only – No access to view the demos.

What the hell is the networking only?

After the disaster that was perceived as paid seating at DemoCampToronto18, we are separating the networking and the demos. This time we really are going with paid access to the demo floor.

The networking will happen on the first floor. The demos will be happening on the second floor. The second floor is limited to 80 people. This will hopefully allow the audience to be a little quieter and give people the opportunity to listen and watch.

How to present?

All presentations are 5 minutes long. There are 2 types of presentations:

  1. Demos – maximum 2 slides and a functioning software or web application demo. Hardware and mobile demos are allowed however, please discuss with me.
  2. Ignites – 20 slides that advance automatically every 15 seconds

Basically drop me a note (I’m david at this domain dot ca), I’m hoping to have our Strutta submissions up and running soon.  The biggest thing is to tell me why incredibly connected, informed and engaged people will care about what you have to say.

Prizes

in09_logoSarah Baird from Interactive Ontario has offered up 3 passes and a session (3×15 minute presentations) for the best presentations at The Interactive Exchange: IN09 conference.

There are some other door prizes including a ticket to MeshU.

 

When and where is it?

It’s a secret. Do you know the handshake? Seriously relax!

DemoCamp Toronto 19 is happen on March 3, 2009 at The Imperial Pub.

Who should attend?

DemoCamp is a social event. Cocktails and startup demos for designers, developers and marketers in Toronto.

Bring out your dead.

Run what ya brung.

There is a lot of cool software, applications, campaigns and other things happening in Toronto. DemoCamp is a way to bring out the designers, developers, marketers, funders and everyone else associated with early-stage technology and emerging companies. Attendees tend to be interested in technology, design and entrepreneurship.