From a germ of an idea to bona fide business in less time than it takes to kick a common cold may sound ambitious. But 20 Victoria entrepreneurs have spent $99 each to give it a shot this weekend.
Startup Weekend, a Seattle-based non-profit organization that brings together entrepreneurs to learn the basics of creating and launching start-up companies, has landed in Victoria. Starting at 6 p.m. tonight, 20 local entrepreneurs will dive into a frenzy of business development for 54 hours with a view to coming up with what they hope will be a viable business by the end of the weekend.
"It's an experiential exercise for folks to play with and get excited by entrepreneurship," said Startup Weekend Victoria organizer Evan Willms.
"It's about taking an idea that one of the participants has - a problem or challenge they've faced - and exploring what it would take to turn that into a business."
It may sound an impossible challenge to pull all that off over the course of a weekend, but according to its website (startupweekend.org) Startup Weekend has run 672 events around the world bringing together 57,000 entrepreneurs who have created 5,005 startup firms.
According to Willms, 36 per cent of the startups created over these weekends are still going concerns three months later while 80 per cent of participants continue working with the teams they form over the weekend.
He also notes the intense and focused week-end provides a variety of benefits from working with new people, hands-on coaching, tapping into entrepreneurial expertise and the chance to work with established mentors.
"It means seven out of 10 people may leave without a startup at the end of the weekend, but they leave with a new network of people who they have demonstrated their skills to and that they understand," he said. "It's tough to measure that follow-on effect."
The Victoria weekend, which will be held at the Victoria Advanced Technology Council's Accelerate Tectoria centre, kicks off with a reception and an ideas session where the group will decide on the best ideas and then break into groups of four to six people to start working on a business model.
The rest of the weekend is a mix of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation, and climaxes with the teams pitching to a panel of judges.
The Victoria judges are Aaron Smith, founder of GoVoluntouring.com, and Peter Nieforth, co-founder and CEO of TicTalking.
Willms is hoping this Startup Weekend will be the first of many in Victoria. It will bring together entrepreneurs with a variety of backgrounds. He hopes the diverse group can be knitted into a support network of sorts that lasts beyond the 54 hours.
The weekend is also a competition for prizes both within the Victoria event and on a larger stage. The winning teams in Victoria will also go up against the best from the more than 100 other Startup Weekend events being held during Global Entrepreneurship Week.
