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VeloCity Entrepreneur Lunch

February 7th, 2010 by viafrate

VeloCity will be hosting a second meet and greet at the Bomber tomorrow Monday February 8th from 12-1pm.
Be sure to stop by and have lunch with some Entrepreneurs in Residence from Communitech and learn more about how to begin your own business.

This is also an excellent opportunity to find out more about this summer’s VeloCity Entrepreneur Boot Camp and get to know the VeloCity team and the Waterloo start-up community. Food and a great opportunity to network will be provided.

This event is open to all UW students so be sure to inform your fellow entrepreneurial friends and classmates.

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VeloCity Entrepreneurship Bootcamp programming

February 5th, 2010 by Jesse Rodgers

Besides office space and living at VeloCity, what else is there to help students this summer? The folks at Communitech have been hard at work putting together current CEOs and local entrepreneurs to deliver a great program for the summer. This is the outline of what we have so far and will be in once a week, 2 hr sessions:

  • VeloCity 101 (full day)
    • Introduction to course
    • Accelerator Centre and Communitech intro
    • Presentations from entrepreneurs in the community
    • Bootcamp teams deliver a pitch
  • Starting a Business
    • The mechanics of starting a business
    • Building a business model
    • IP management
  • Selling Your Products, Your Ideas, Yourself
    • Basics of sales, marketing
  • Business Management
    • Budgeting, written tools for building a business
  • Raising Money
    • Term sheets, terms of investments
  • Building a Team
    • Human resources management, building marketing/sales teams
    • The role of Boards, Advisory Panels, Service Providers
  • The Pitch
    • Teams deliver their Pitch
  • Start-up Success Story
  • Start-up Success Story

Throughout the term we will offer opportunities to work on pitching as well as attend community events in both Toronto and the Waterloo Region. Regular VeloCity students will be invited to attend the regular program but there will be a few things that are exclusively for VEB students that we are working on — like providing a ride to events in Toronto or Guelph.

More questions about VEB? Be sure to attend one of our info sessions on ustream on:

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Posted in Bootcamp
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Answering some questions about Bootcamp

February 2nd, 2010 by Jesse Rodgers

We have a number of emails from students and have updated the VeloCity Entrepreneur Bootcamp page with a FAQ to address some of them. We are planning a Q&A session over ustream for Thursday or Friday this week as well – will have a time for that shortly.

So far, this is what we have for a FAQ:

What if I am a team of one?

Individuals are welcome to apply .

Work term or academic term?

VeloCity Entrepreneur Bootcamp requires you work on your startup full-time. For students on co-op that means, if accepted to the program, this will be your work term. Students from other schools that might typically take the summer off and work at summer jobs, this is your summer job.

What if I just want to live at VeloCity?

You are welcome to apply, we have room for up to 70 students and will be running are regular programming over the summer. We do allow non-UW students to apply but you need to be enrolled in a post-secondary institution that can provide a reference for you.

What have previous bootcamp students worked on?

We haven’t had a bootcamp yet — this is our first. VeloCity is a residence at U of Waterloo that has 70 students every term that are working on different startups while on academic term. Bootcamp is a new twist for the summer that enables teams of students to work full time on their startup and allows us to invite students from across the country.

What if my idea is already been tried at VeloCity?

If you have a similar idea as something we have seen before we would certainly be willing to consider seeing it again.

Will you sign a Non Disclosure Agreement?

No. We are strong believers in valuing execution over ideas. Rarely has an idea not been tried before. You should be able to explain your idea and what you plan to achieve without giving up any valuable IP, marketing advantage, etc. If you ask us not to talk/tweet/blog/etc about something we will honour that request.

Equity?

If accepted to the VeloCity Entrepreneur Bootcamp we do not ask for anything besides you putting in the effort it takes to build a company that has a product or service.

What about non-profits?

All are welcome. Some of the most exciting ideas are not driven by profit but the pursuit of making the world a better place. We would love if they were developed here at VeloCity.

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Kik at Blackberry DevCon

January 29th, 2010 by Jesse Rodgers

All of us here at VeloCity are really excited to follow the success of a winter 2009 resident, Ted Livingston, and his product Kik (once was known as unsynced). His company has found a home in the Accelerator Centre on north campus and he has caught the attention of some of Waterloo’s best Angel funders — all in less than a year. Recently Ted presented at Blackberry’s DevCon in San Francisco. If you are wondering about the calibre of student (now entrepreneur) we have here in Waterloo, have a look at the presentation.

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Posted in Alumni
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VeloCity Bootcamp for Canadian student entrepreneurs

January 26th, 2010 by Jesse Rodgers

We are really excited to announce the VeloCity Entrepreneur Bootcamp open to all post-secondary student entrepreneurs across Canada! The program will draw on the strengths of the Waterloo community to help up to three teams of three build a real startup by the end of the Summer 2010.

Student entrepreneurs that are accepted to the program will live at VeloCity and work out of the Accelerator Centre on north campus where they will have access to a group of mentors along with the Waterloo community at no cost to them. They will also get $3000 while giving up nothing but their time and commitment to build a real product and/or service over the summer. Details of the program can be be found on our Bootcamp page and there is a press release, “Waterloo launches new bootcamp for young entrepreneurs to build future economy” that has some more information.

A big task over the next couple weeks will be putting together a group of mentors for the teams to work with. We already have a commitment from folks like Jacqui Murphy and David Crow to help out and there will be other great folks we can announce soon.

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