StartUp Revelstoke is beginning phase two of their initiative: events and workshops.
Through entrepreneur nights and innovation nights, the team at StartUp Revelstoke wants to help people navigate the landscape of creating a new business, nurture new ideas and build business networks.
“If you’ve got a great idea, whatever that is, we want to try to bring it forward,” said Hayley Johnson, StartUp Revelstoke Coordinator.
Entrepreneur nights are straightforward, someone presents about their business and there is networking opportunities, however, innovation nights are more collaborative. A problem is presented, ideas are pitched to address the problem and then the crowd breaks up into groups to do a strengths/weakness, opportunities/threats analysis for each of the ideas. In the end there is a framework for all of these different business ideas, which is then posted on the StartUp Revelstoke website for anyone to grab and use.
“We want to build this event series so that at every single stage you are coming in with a set of deliverable and you are coming out with another set,” said Jean Marc LaFlamme, StartUp business coach.
It is a super cool, interactive and motivating way to move an idea forward, LaFlamme added, much better than sitting around a boardroom table.
The team is also hosting a StartUp Bootcamp in January.
“Anyone with a business idea or a problem that they want to solve can talk to specialists in each field,” Johnson said.
Along with these workshops, LaFlamme and Johnson will continue nurturing and growing entrepreneurship in Revelstoke which includes day to day support of startups that are in motion, attracting entrepreneurs to Revelstoke and building a business network of investors and mentors.
“Part of our role is to link the person that is having the problem to somebody who has already solved that problem,” Johnson said.
StartUp Revelstoke launched in February.
It’s a watershed moment for the regional economy, said LaFlamme at the time, who hopes it will spearhead a transformation of our local economy from a resource-based one to one that is centred on technology, research and development, and design. That infrastructure can help solve critically important global problems, like climate change.
But it all starts, said LaFlamme, with building the social, digital and brick and mortar infrastructure, and educating folks about the ways technology is changing how we interact with one other, industry, and manufacturing.
Upcoming Innovation Night:
Sports Rec and Adventure Tech, November 22, 6-9 p.m., Revelstoke United Church
Entrepreneur Workshop:
Project Management Essentials-Oct. 26, Okanagan College, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., register in advance online.
Tech Meetup-Cloud-based software for business finance-Oct. 26, Mountain Colab, 6-8 p.m.
Blockchain-Oct. 27. 9 a.m.-12 p.m., Mountain Colab