Comments on: Cambridge – putting the pieces together by opening up

By: Course, we ad to kill ‘im » Blog Archive » Momentum Building…

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:52:38 +0000

[...] – I’ve offered up our space at Citylife as a venue for the first session – more discussion on Jed’s blog here. Posted in [...]

By: jedc

jedc — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:45:54 +0000

My mistake; I forgot that tech & social entries don't do demos as part of the competition.

Perhaps there could be a seperate demo night (outside the judging process) that would be for all finalists, or even all entrants depending on quality. Tech, social enterprise, and s/w startups could all have their 5 minutes of fame either showing off or pitching their ideas. The idea would be to have everyone get more practice and experience pitching, and show off some interesting potential businesses to the Cambridge community.

By: amirmc

amirmc — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:29:06 +0000

Demo should be standard for s/w entries at the Grand Finale (prize giving) on 10 Jun. Can't really open up the s/w judging process since entrants need to be able to have frank discussion with judges which can get awkward if there's an audience. CUE learned this the hard way a few yrs ago.

Tech & social entries usually don't have demos

By: jedc

jedc — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:25:48 +0000

Thanks, Martin. I really like what you're doing with CamCow, and would be keen to see if/how we can scale that up. And I agree wholeheartedly with the notion that it will take several inititives working together to build Cambridge.

By: martinkl

martinkl — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:32:30 +0000

Excellent idea. I would love to come, and also would like to give a demo at some point. Demos are a lot more meaningful than talk or slides. Thanks for initiating this — as you say, I've tried to give start-ups an opportunity to get together in the CamCow coworking space, but it several different initiatives working together to really build a community.

By: jedc

jedc — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:45:03 +0000

I'm quite envious Geoff; have a great time! Thanks for the heads-up on The Barn. I'll put it on the list of venues I've been thinking about.

By: jedc

jedc — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:44:10 +0000

Thanks, Matt.

That's a great story, and to me shows how virtually all the expertise that startups need can be found in Cambridge. We just need to figure out valuable ways of putting the right people in the same room(s) with each other. Definitely look forward to chatting soon!

By: jedc

jedc — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:40:57 +0000

I think that would be fantastic! I'm curious how some entrants that are really concerned about IP would respond. (Probably not as much of an issue in the software and social enterprise categories, but more so in the technology category.)

By: jedc

jedc — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:37:28 +0000

Thanks, Laurence, I appreciate it. Not only do demos cut through the BS that some entrepreneurs/talkers spin, but they're interesting to see! I hope we build a strong audience beating down the door to get in.

By: jedc

jedc — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:34:04 +0000

Hi, Jeremy. Interesting thought. I agree there is a lack of drivers, but think that people need to be shown other people and companies *doing* it. While Cambridge is known for a lot of startups, I don't think other people have a lot of exposure to them, so a strong culture of startups hasn't been built. These Demo nights are meant to show off to everyone what people and companies are actually *creating*, and potentially connect people doing related things in order to build bigger and more comprehensive businesses. (Which would certainly be unique to Cambridge, with our expertise in both hardware and software technology.)

As to your question about getting companies and executers to match, I think we need to discover who the “do-ers” are and encourage them to come out to OpenCoffee, Demo nights, etc. and see what happens. Like I wrote at the top, we need to open Cambridge up and get people talking to each other, and then work on putting all the unique pieces of businesses together.