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!

New Ventures BC Seminar – Corporate Structure

• Tuesday, May 11
• 6:30pm
• SFU Segal School of Business – 500 Granville St., Vancouver
• $20

Social Media for Social Change – Part 3 with Strutta’s Jordan Behan

• Thursday, May 13
• 1:30pm
• Hollyhock Room, Tides Renewal Centre. #304-163 W. Hastings St. Vancouver, BC.
• $105 for single session price

If we’ve missed an event, please add it below as a comment.

Shira was joined by other social media specialists from LA, Darcy Jouan, Peter Huh & Gregory Markel, who spent the day discussing transmedia storytelling and how to engage audiences across multiple platforms including mobile and social networking sites.  For example, Darcy discussed the TV Series, Ghost Whisperer and how they created a series of webisodes to create a themed experience for viewers both on and offline.  The webisodes named The Dark Side were spawned by fans of the TV series. The purpose of the webisodes was to allow the audience to experience something beyond what they experienced from week-to-week on TV. In return, both audiences tuned in on and offline as the series runs parallel.

Shira’s presentation focused on her personal brand and how she bridges the online and on air worlds together using multi-media platforms.  Here are Shira’s ”Five Steps to Becoming a Media Empress”:

1. Be you! People can see through a fake brand of image, and it’ll drain you to maintain something that you’re really not. Once you embrace your authentic voice, you’ll find your audience and your audience will find you.
2. Balance PR/buzz with actual work, i.e. new content and projects. As much as it’s great for everyone to see you at that party or getting interviewed by a cool outlet, it can only go so far. If you’re not continuing to challenge yourself and your audience with some real projects outside of publicity than you’ll lose engagement. Your brand isn’t just about you, but the conversation you create and what you contribute.
3. Maintain a consistent presence on and offline. As powerful as all these online tools can be to make an impact and be heard, meeting your network and community in person is the incing on the cake.
4. Think multi-platform. Whenever you have an idea, think of how you can integrate other mediums to get the message out there.
5. Call yourself a media empress. Michael Jackson actually pegged himself the King of Pop, and he delivered that above and beyond. Don’t wait around for someone to discover and brand you. You have the power to create what and who you are now — and as we all know, perception is reality.

Shira and I sat down during lunch to discuss her presentation.  At the end, she gives a shot out to some of her favourite Vancouver peeps!

Lunch with Shira from Sonia Ryan on Vimeo.

Many thanks to DigiBC for letting me attend this event on behalf of BES.

• Coincidence Labs: a stealth social commerce platform, with Giftolicious being the first platform app
• Mobify: a hosted platform for publishers to provide mobile views of their content
• Strutta: a hosted promotion platform that makes for easy online contests
• Unbounce: self-serve hosted landing pages with A/B testing and no developers required

The selected companies will give 10 minute investment presentations in front of angel and early stage investors, and will be joined by the 2009 graduating class from the Bootup Labs portfolio.

Are you an investor interested in attending or a member of the press wanting to cover the event? Please sign up to attend »

Companies and entrepreneurs interested in future opportunities like this, make sure you are subscribed to the Bootup Startup Event Notification List.

2010 is starting to smell really good as our new office is equipped with a full kitchen where resident foodie Boris Mann has already started to whip us up some delicious Bacon & Egger sandwiches and pizza!

Here’s a short video Jordan and I created touring our new office.

Come on by and visit us at our new office for a tour. I might even whip you up some butter chicken!

*Post written by Sonia*

• 6oz: Great job on #LPV8 last night @sonsryan ! It was teh hotness – both literally and metaphorically – Kirsten was demo’ing Hootsuite, and perhaps remarking on the fact that it was the temperature was a *little* high last night
  
• tinatinatinah: my friend just asked me how the “nerd convention” went last night. well, i replied to my disconnected friend, #LPV8 went rather well! =) – Tina is the newest Strutta employee, and this was her first Launch Party
  
• davidascher: Enjoyed the #LPV8 event last night — saw old friends, made new ones, and got great feedback about Thunderbird 3. Lots of “wow!”s – David is the CEO of Mozilla Messaging, and was demo’ing Thunderbird 3
• quickmobile: great party last night at #LPV8 – best event of the season so far! Kudos to @dannyrobinson and the team – thanks… – thanks Patrick – we attended and/or helped organize 4 events in the past 3 days, so it was a pretty intense kick off to the “season”
• gheer: Fun night last night at #lpv8, met a lot of interesting people. Really enjoyed meeting the @yowza and @gist folks. – all the companies were great, and LP makes it easy for lots of one-on-ones; forget standing up and pitching once – you’re pitching to 200 – 300 potential users, partners, and investors, one at a time
• justincumby: #LPV8 = fantastic event. Kudos to @yowza @hootsuite @angelpui @zed5000 @gist @lilipip for the great demos – awesome west coast innovation! – Justin was part of the Sun Startup Essentials crew that sponsored the event
• SeattleCityGirl: sad I didn’t know about #lpv8 until now. Would have been fun to attend! Guess I’ll just have to wait for #nPost event Tues night! – Gist and Lilipip were up from Seattle, and Groove Systems was representing Kelowna; every Vancouver Launch Party is likely to feature folk from elsewhere. Portland, I’ve got my eye on you for LPV9!
• launchpartyhq: Hey @stewarttownsend – we met with @thinklondon and @jshack at #LPV8 – maybe we can do Launch Party London? – hmmm…who tweeted this?! No promises, but sounds like fun!
  

I’m Sonia. I currently work a Coordinator of “Things” at Bootup Entrepreneurial Society (BES).

Preceding BES, I was working as a Sales Coordinator at the Opus Hotel and a Sales & Catering Coordinator at the Hilton Vancouver Airport. I needed a change from Vancouver and decided to satisfy this “change” craving by leaving Vancouver to work for Royal Caribbean as an Entertainment Coordinator. Unfortunately, I became a victim of the big (R)ecession and used this time as an opportunity to explore other areas of interest. Fast-forward to a few months back, I applied as an intern with Strutta, loved it and the rest is history.

You can find me running around at BES Events or on twitter @sonsryan. Don’t be shy come and say hi.

The votes have been counted and it’s time to announce a winner in the LPV7 Startup Contest. A panel of 6 Judges casted their votes for the “Startup Most Likely to Succeed” and for the first time ever in LPV history Tynt won both Judge’s and People’s favorite. Sun Startup Essentials has awarded Tynt with a brand new camera.

As for the event itself, the 7th installment of Launch Party was again a huge success with the highest number of attendees. The 7 demo companies were busy all night spieling to the crowd. Stay tune for our next Launch Party, happening in September.

1) What’s the one piece of online or offline technology that you can’t live without?

Online: Up until June 2007 when my husband surprised me with my first MacBook, I was a PC. And as of two weeks ago, when I finally traded in my Blackberry for a shiny new iPhone, this girl is all Mac. The iPhone does have it’s limitations. It is not great for someone, who needs to reply to loads of email on the go and the built-in camera is not so hot, but I am smitten. It’s my favorite tech gadget right now.
Offline: My Wolf Gas Range. When I am not plugged in or at work, I am entertaining. And my gas range is a beautiful cooking machine.

Read Maura’s full 5 question interview at Kontent Creative Group Inc.