Martin Ertl of Contractually, LPV9 Startup Competition People’s Choice Winner
Photo credit: Jeremy Lim

Our ninth edition of Launch Party Vancouver on June 17th was definitely our biggest event yet.  As Debbie Landa tweeted, LPV9 was definitely a “who’s who of Canadian tech.” We were thrilled to have Chris Albinson, Katherine Barr, Dan Martell, Debbie Landa, and Anthony Lee from the C100 fly up from Silicon Valley as well as Chris Arsenault and Shawn Abbott from iNovia Capital in the house.  A great big thank you to all of our out of town guests for making the trek to Vancouver.  Go Canada!

Chris Albinson of the C100 Organization and Panorama Capital
Photo Credit: Jeremy Lim

Put your hands together for…
We rely on public and private donations and a whole lot of sweat and sometimes tears to make this all possible.  Many thanks to Sonia Ryan and volunteers Melissa Joaquin, Angela Baldonero, Tarlan Klo, Tina Hoang, and Laurent Munier for working the door and helping us set-up.

We could not do any of this without the backing of our LPV9 Partners:

• BCIC – the lead organization charged with advancing innovation and commercialization in British Columbia.
• Canpages - fastest growing local search company in Canada with a nationwide API for smart phone application developers.
• Clark Wilson - BC’s Law Firm for Business. Mark Longo & Brock Smith are the go to guys.
• HSBC - the world’s local bank with startup banking packages.
• Fasken Martineau - a leading international business law and litigation firm. Keith Spencer and Shahrooz Navabi are the real deal.
• Strutta - the platform for creating online contests and the brains behind the LPV9 Startup Competition.
• Lonsdale Rentals – the place to go for all of your corporate and private party rental needs. From bar rentals to glasses, they have it all.
• Pixstar - Pixstar Photo booths provide the perfect memento to remember any party.
• Mission Hill – Mission Hill has an amazing selection of Okanagan wines. They featured Rigamorole red and white at LPV9.
• Russell Brewing - committed to brewing 100% natural, real Canadian beer. And it shows!
• Jeremy Lim - Check out Jeremy’s awesome LPV9 photo set on Flickr and contact him for your event.

Our Media Sponsors rock:

• Techvibes - our favorite technology blog does an amazing job highlighting all of the LPV9 startups and covering daily tech news in cities across Canada and the United States. And best of all, Techvibe’s President & Editor, Rob Lewis always shows up as promised   ——->
• Startup Digest - All you have to do is enter your email address and choose your favorite hubs to receive the best startup events in your inbox every week.  Jon Chui runs the weekly Vancouver newsletter.

Thank you all for making LPV9 so great!

LPV 1 – September 27, 2007
Section 3, Vancouver
120 attendees, 6 Startups

Photo Credit: Phillip Jeffrey

LPV 2 – Launch Party with a Twist
December 5, 2007
The Republic
Special Guests – Mike Macadaan, Shira Lazar, Bill Wetherell, David Robinson & Heather Vescent from Twiistup in Los Angeles.
200 attendees, 6 startups. Check out the Video here

Photo Credit: Duane Storey

LPV 3 – January 28, 2008
The Lamplighter
250 attendees,  6 startups

Photo Credit: Philip Jeffrey

LPV4 - May 21, 2008
The Republic
300 attendees, 7 Startups

Photo Credit: Ianiv & Arieanna

LPV5 - September 18, 2008
Unwine’d
300 attendees, 6 Startups

Photo Credits: Tris Hussey, Raul Pacheco

LPV6 - February 26, 2009
Uber Lounge
350 attendees, 6 Startups

Photo Credit: Bobby Dassler, Ianiv & Arieanna

LPV 7 – June 2, 2009
Uber Lounge
400 attendees, 7 Startups

Photo Credit: Jason Brown

LPV8 – Under the Launch Party with Dealmaker Media
September 16, 2009
Circa Resto Lounge
400+ people, 8 Startups

Photo Credit: Bootup Labs

LPV9 – June 17, 2010
The Roundhouse
Special Guests: C100 Organization, iNovia Capital, Dealmaker Media
500+ attendees, 9 Startups

Photo Credit: Jeremy Lim

Thanks for all the fun and support over the years.

To view more LPV photos or share some that you have taken, please add them to our Launch Party Photo Group on Flickr and tag them with LPV#.

]]> http://bootup.ca/1288/lpvphoto/feed/ 1 http://bootup.ca/1290/and-the-lpv9-winners-are/ http://bootup.ca/1290/and-the-lpv9-winners-are/#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:42:30 +0000 sonia http://bootup.ca/?p=1290 The judge’s and community have spoken and it’s time to announce the winners in the LPV9 Startup Contest.  A panel of 8 Judges casted their votes for the “Startup Most Likely to Succeed” and awarded Unbounce. From Judge Amar Varma’s comments: “Love that they are focusing on simplicity, and the creation of landing pages and not web pages in general. Identified a target niche market and are attacking it. Neat solution to bridge the gap between marketers and IT.” Kudos to Unbounce.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Lim

All of you have spoken and your votes went to Bootup Labs company Contractually.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Lim

Big shout out to the 9 demo companies who were hustling the entire evening and talking up the crowd. Great job! Thank you for making another Launch Party a fun and successful event. Stay tuned for our announcement of our next Launch Party Vancouver event.

Considering it also the Vancouver Launch Party for the C100 and it is almost summer, we think everyone will be in the mood to celebrate.  As I was checking my Twitter stream this am, I came across a tweet from #LPV9 DJ, Jeremy Lim:

@jeremylim: Sounds like #lpv9 is going to be nuts. On photo / DJ duty back to back. Any music requests? I feel like house and electro. You?

Jeremy will be taking the stage after all the demos are done and from his tweet, you can see he is already taking requests.  And why not!?  Feel free to leave a comment in this post if you have any requests or send @jeremylim a message on Twitter with the hashtag #LPV9.

If you have not already registered for LPV9, what are you waiting for!?  There are still a few early bird tickets left, so scoop them up now.

Co-Founder Speed Dating

Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. It’s more important than your product, market, and investors. Co-Founder Speed Dating aims to bring together talented entrepreneurs with different backgrounds and skill sets to start innovative new companies.  All too often you know people with similar backgrounds and skills sets to your own.  We help you find co-founders with complimentary skill sets.  Entrepreneurship can be lonely.  It’s important to have someone else there with you to help you ride out the lows and celebrate your successes.  As the BES blog says,

.. finding a co-founder is a lot harder than finding a contractor or temporary help. So, how do you do it? As with all things people related, networking (off-line and on-line) is the answer. Yet, one of the biggest problems for early stage entrepreneurs, is that their social networks are small and local. We’ve been thinking about how we can help solve this problem (aside from manually introducing people we think might be a fit) and have come up with an idea: take all the early stage entrepreneurs, who are looking for co-founders, put them in a room together, and give them a chance to “speed date” with as many potential co-founders as they can.

How does it work? You’ll be matched with potential “dates” who have complimentary skills and interests.  You’ll get to spend some focused time with each of them discussing you and your big ideas.

Who should attend?

• You have an idea that you want to pursue, but don’t have the right partner
• You are a superstar with a job, but open to joining a founding team if the right idea came your way
• You are an aspiring entrepreneur open to trying new ideas with the right mix of people

Interested? Fill out the form here.

Co-Founder Speed Dating is free to attend. If you’d like to continue the networking at LPV9, you must purchase tickets directly here.

We have some special guests lined up for LPV9 including:

• Members of The C100, a non-profit organization comprised of a select group of Canadians based primarily in Silicon Valley, including executives of leading technology companies, experienced startup entrepreneurs and venture capital investors.
• Techcrunch Founder, Michael Arrington just moved to Seattle and will be a startup Judge for the LPV9 Startup Competition.  He will also be in town for the big event. Vancouver, get ready to be Techcrunched!

Ticket Prices
Since LPV started we have quadrupled in size. To accommodate our growing tech community, we will be holding LPV9 at the Roundhouse in Yaletown. We are told that we can fit 500+ of our closest friends in there, so hopefully we will have enough room for all of us.  A Bigger venue + growing community = bigger costs. We have tried to keep the ticket prices low, still cover our costs and offer lots of value and fun at every event. Ticket prices include appies and a drink.

Cash Bar
Currently, there is no credit card service on site at the Roundhouse, so bring cash or feel free to pre-purchase drink tickets. We are looking into mobile payment options and securing a credit card service and will update this post if we can accept CC payments.

DJ Jeremy Lim
Jeremy wears many hats – marketer, photographer, musician and wicked DJ.  After the startup demos are done, you can rock out and dance to the music of DJ Lim.

Pixstar
Pixstar is a Vancouver photo booth company that has lots of great booth options for corporate events, weddings and Launch Parties!  Be sure to drop by the LPV9 Pixstar booth before you leave to take home a special memento from the evening.

Superheroes Wanted!
We are looking for the best Internet startups around to apply to show-off their wares at LPV9.  If accepted, there is no cost at all for you to demo and participate in the event. Startups get a table, some signage, wifi, promotion, and lots of love from the BC technology community.  **Warning: You may sound a little hoarse or lose your voice altogether when the night is done.**

Tickets
As always, we will try to keep ticket prices low but because of the size of the event, our costs have gone up too.  Ticket prices may rise a bit as a result but will include a drink, and appys in the price.  And since we won’t be getting kicked out of the venue early, the celebration will go late.

Once we finalize the details, you will be able to register to attend.  Startups feel free to apply now.  We will be accepting applications until May 14, 2010.

But I need your help…
I’ve been sourcing out venue after venue after venue but can’t seem to find a space that will fit all of us.  I feel like I have looked at every venue from Gastown to Yaletown but it is hard to find a big enough space within our non-profit budget.  So, I was hoping that you might have some venue recommendations for me.

This is what we need:
At our last event, we had over 400 attendees.  And if you recall, it was pretty hot and cramped in Circa.  This time around, we would like to have a bit more breathing room.

• Capacity 500
• Natural Lighting (preferred)
• Bar and on-site kitchen
• Wifi
• Screens
• Air Conditioning / Ventilation
• Fantastic speaker system & working mic.

We are shooting to have our next Launch Party in mid May, early June.

If you are a Venue and would like to us to host our next LPV at your venue, please contact me at – sonia (at) bootup (dot) ca or if you have any recommendations, please leave a comment on this post.

Connect 09 is the aiming to be the biggest gathering of the technology industry, and is being hosted by the BC Innovation Council on October 19th. They’ve just opened up a CrowdVine-powered networking site so you can connect with attendees ahead of time. We’ve found it a useful tool in the past when we’ve used it at Launch Party. If you’ve signed up for one of the previous Launch Party networks, you can sign in with the same email/password to join the Connect 09 Network. You can register and buy tickets here: http://connect09.eventbrite.com/

DemoCamp Vancouver is coming up later the same week on October 22nd. We’re going to hold it at our old favourite standby, the atrium space next to the private Steamworks lounge at 375 Water Street. There will be a handful of featured presentations, and we’re looking for a few more 6 minute presentations to round out the evening. There is no charge for the event, but please register to indicate attendance. In particular, if you want to give a presentation, sign up for a “Pitch Presenter” ticket with a description of the pitch you want to give.

We’ll be having some out of town guests give presentations on a variety of things, including an announcement of some new funding sources for startups in Canada.

As always, if you want to be notified of major events and applications, subscribe to the Startup Events notification list, or check the list on Upcoming at http://events.bootuplabs.com. Want your event shared? Add it to Upcoming!