Startup Barcamp Sydney Nov 2009
Startup Barcamp Sydney was on yesterday and I managed to drop in. It was held at one of my favourite venues for unconferences - ATP Innovations- and it might possibly be the first barcamp to feature fresh coconut juice in the shell.
This event was part of Global Entrepreneurship Week (which was hosted nationally by Matt Jones from Social Alchemy) and it provided a chance for the local startup community to get together & share ideas.
Due to other commitments I was only able to stay for the morning sessions - but saw some really good quality presentations from Brian Menzies (@BrianMenzies); Joseph Renzi (@josephrenzi) and Matt Jones (@socialalchemy).
Major kudos to the un-organisers - including @davidsoul & @ryancross - it was a good event. Reading through the Twitter stream made me wish I'd been able to stay for the afternoon sessions.
I also gave a little talk about Trade offs, balance, support and Startups. It came about through a realisation that most of my friends are startup junkies. Also I had come to notice the sheer number of broken relationships (across families, friendships and partnerships) in the startup community. Upon consideration, it seemed to me that startups are not so much about technology or the ideas - they are about people and relationships.
The slides are up on Slideshare. The key message was that startups don't leave much room for work life balance & that people really need to weigh this up before they decide to undertake the startup journey.
