University of Ottawa, the last stop on the VeloCity National Bootcamp Road trip

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

From Sunday until now, Laura and I have been on the road visiting different schools within Ontario and Montreal, working to promote VeloCity and the National Bootcamp this summer. Today marks the last day of our road trip, which brought us to the University of Ottawa in the University Centre. Luckily we snagged a table right in front of the bookstore and the Federation of Students office that attracts a large amount of traffic, especially because it is election season. In addition to the bookstore and student offices, our table is at the bottom of the main staircase in the University Centre, which allows us to be strategically visible to the majority of students and teachers entering and passing through the building.

The game plan today is to hand out and post our flyers, talk to students within the University Centre building and casually run into teachers in hopes of making more impromptu class presentations. In addition, I will be visiting student clubs to ask them to spread the word using their own resources, all while running the VeloCity booth.

Please continue to follow us on twitter @UWVeloCity for updates and check out our facebook page @UWVeloCity Residence for more pictures.

Tags: Promotion, recruitment, Student clubs, University of Ottawa, VeloCity, VeloCity National Bootcamp
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Day 3 of the VeloCity National Bootcamp Road trip brings us to McGill University

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Today is our last day in Montreal, QC and to end our time here, we have stopped for the day at McGill University. We have set up a booth in the William Shatner University Center, right beside the student lounge and cafeteria. The building has a constant flow of traffic, which makes recruiting interested students much more convenient and effective.

As I did yesterday, I will walk around the 4 floor building, handing out flyers and talking to students, while Laura “mans the booth”. We find this method extremely valuable because students will know that we have a booth set up and will later come to the booth to find out more information if they are really interested.

In addition, I hope to make a few impromptu class presentations as I’ve done at previous schools so we can maximize our time and experience here at McGill U.

We are expecting great results today since the feedback we’ve been receiving from each of the previous school has been getting better and better.

Please continue to follow us on twitter @UWVeloCity and visit our facebook page @UWVeloCity Residence for photos and more information on where we are heading next!

Tags: Booth, McGill University, recruitment, University Centre, VeloCity, VeloCity National Bootcamp
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Concordia University marks Day 2 on the VeloCity National Bootcamp Road trip

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

We arrived at Concordia University a little bit behind schedule today at 10 am. Our booth is located in the high traffic John Molson Business School, where possible entrepreneurs and business savvy students are constantly walking through.

As we saw yesterday at Queens University, the most traffic of students occur promptly after lunch time, however, our booth is right in front of the doors so we have students and even business professors walking by and asking what VeloCity is. I really appreciate the response we get when we explain exactly what VeloCity is and why we are here. People are truly amazed and interested when we finish our explanation, which is what makes this road trip so rewarding.

In addition to setting up a booth at Concordia University, I also take advantage of having many students sitting at tables doing their work around us. I hand out our flyers and talk to them about the VeloCity program, which receives great attention and interest as I’ve seen while boothing at Queens University.

Please continue to follow us on Twitter @UwVeloCity and our Facebook page for constant updates and photos.

Tags: Booth, Concordia University, Promotion, recruitment, VeloCity, VeloCity National Bootcamp
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Queens University marks day 1 of the VeloCity National Bootcamp Road trip!

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Laura McQuinn and Erika Naraghi left VeloCity yesterday at 2pm to journey across Ontario and Montreal to promote the VeloCity National Bootcamp. Queens University is the first stop on our road trip. Such a beautiful school, our booth is located in the middle of the JDUC, which is the University Centre at Queens University. Our booth is covered in VeloCity flyers, shirts and pens, which looks really great and is attracting a lot of attention. We are hoping for even more traffic as lunch time approaches, however, we are surrounded by the athletic complex and the cafe so I am positive that we will get great results in our current location.

At 5 pm today, we will pack up and head back on the road to Montreal, tomorrow Concordia University!!!

Please visit our facebook page for photos and stay tuned to our twitter @UWVeloCity for updates.

Tags: Promotion, Queens University, VeloCity, VeloCity National Bootcamp
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VeloCity Bootcamp: Summer 2011 edition

Friday, January 28th, 2011

We are once again opening up the residence to students across Canada for the Spring term at the University of Waterloo! As long as you are currently enrolled in a post-secondary institution in Canada and you have a strong desire to try and build a start up you qualify to apply to come live at VeloCity from May through to the end of July. Details and a link to the sign up form is over on our Bootcamp page.

What has changed since last year? The major change is that we decided to run a more intensive term that focuses on the things that VeloCity does best: live in an environment of entrepreneurs where a young startup community exists and you can meet as well as work with future co-founders. We have planned a more intensive term than normal where we expect a major feature or new product to be released every week and give you plenty of networking opportunities to connect with the Waterloo startup community.

We want you to have fun, build stuff, and get connected into Canada’s hottest startup community.

This means we aren’t necessarily looking for startup teams, we are looking for students that want to be in an environment that pushes them from idea stage to getting people using your product. There are no frills, no special offers, no promises beyond what we offer any University of Waterloo student. We are looking for students with a desire to give the student startup lifestyle available to University of Waterloo students a try. VeloCity is a different kind of incubator, we work on building community and developing ideas, we look for talented young folks from different disciplines that bring many different perspectives to the residence.

At VeloCity are very excited about being able to offer a more intense term for young entrepreneurs that aren’t just enrolled at the University of Waterloo. We wanted to do this because we had a lot of feedback from students at other schools that wanted to come to Waterloo or have us bring VeloCity to their schools. Although we would love if a network of residences like VeloCity were popping up across Canada, the best we can do for now is open up some spots to all students. Please have a look at our info page on Bootcamp and let us know you have any questions (comment below). We also watch the VeloCity Residence topic on Quora, in case you wanted to post anything there.

Tags: Canada, Entrepreneurs, Ontario, Spring 2011, Startups, students, Waterloo
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