10 years ago, Gary Will and I facilitated a little get together called Ground Zero (this was pre-9/11). Basically the idea was ripped off from Round Zero in the valley: get pre-VC backed companies together to hang out, commiserate and support one another.
At the time the driver was a chasm between the “old guard”: Descartes, RIM, OpenText, Sybase and the new startups that were forming at the time. There was no agenda, a varied mix of attendees and beer. We offered to advice, connected to resources that help and supported and celebrated one another. We also mercilessly sponged free advice from any lawyer or accountant that happened to pass by accidentally.
For the past year that we’ve been working on ParkVu, I’ve often been reminded of the same dynamic between the startups and the old guard. Things are friendlier now then they used to be and RIM has been very approachable but ah, obviously we don’t have the same issues.
We’ve talking about getting together all the mobile startups, in Waterloo for beverages. Nothing formal, just hang out, get to know each other, etc… This isn’t yet another *-Camp, those all serve a valuable yet different purpose. This is just for early stage mobile companies to start to form a community.
We (ParkVu) will pull something together in the next couple of weeks, and I’ll post details here. Leave a comment if you’re interested in attending.
Drae says:
Can I come even though we’re not into mobile yet?
17th February 2009 at 5:10 pm
jeff says:
of course but you should probably have a mobile device first
17th February 2009 at 12:17 am
Buzz Pressure » Blog Archive » MoFo - Building a Wireless Community in Waterloo says:
[...] while back I mentioned building a Wireless Community of Startups, but this time less talking and more doing. So there’s MoMo (Mobile Monday’s), Wireless [...]
17th February 2009 at 11:29 am