Investing in Startup Culture
Startup Edmonton and our new startup space is about more than just investing in tech startups. It's about spreading startup culture and infusing entrepreneurial thinking into our city's DNA.
January 20, 2012
It's an exciting day for Startup Edmonton and our city. At a press conference this morning, we officially unveiled our new downtown headquarters in the Mercer Warehouse in the Historic Warehouse District. It's a space that will not only be a place to launch startups, it will be the epicenter for something greater in our city.
This city of ours is on fire. We live in the second most bustling economy in the country, thanks to population growth, lots of employment and plenty of construction activity. We're also one of the top five entrepreneurial cities in Canada. Edmonton is and has always been powered by entrepreneurs.
Now, we can ride the wave, or use this wealth and good fortune to invest in a new generation of high-growth businesses who'll diversify our economic growth and create jobs. Home grown entrepreneurs who'll keep pushing the bar as the world shifts to a knowledge-based economy where the renewable resource is creativity and innovation.
Innovation is social
Where does innovation come from? Those eureka moments don't come from people working in silos. They evolve from the exposure to both things similar and things completely different. Innovation evolves from the collision of ideas and people.
We all remember college and university life. Where you meet different people, come up with ideas, and work to make things happen. But then we grow up and graduate, get jobs and careers, and in the process lose that sense that anything is possible.
It's this kind of post-academic, industry-side, campus-like environment that's missing in our city. A place where budding entrepreneurs have opportunities to find co-founders, collaborative partners, and get feedback often as their products and startups begin to take shape.
The most innovative companies in the world build campuses, not office towers. Game changing companies like Google, Apple, Nike, and Pixar - design their campuses with open, collaborative spaces that cultivate creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship from within.
A spark plug that activates startups
High-growth startups are hard to come by. It takes more than venture capital and tax incentives to attract a Google to come to Edmonton. We believe Edmonton's strategy should be all about growing a Google from within.
For every high-growth startup, we need thousands of entrepreneurs who'll take that first step to turn an idea into the first version of a product or startup. Time, money, talent - there are plenty of competing factors that see prospective ideas and startups never get off the ground. It's a challenge for all sectors of the economy, not just tech.
It's this gap from idea to startup that has always existed and this is the gap that Startup Edmonton is attacking. Like a spark plug, we can be the component in the ecosystem that activates a new generation of startups in our city at the ground level.
It's something we've been working on in the community for years now. With a "screw it, let's do it" startup mentality, we've moved forward, inspiring entrepreneurial, innovative thinking within thousands of young people in the city through grassroots events like DemoCamp, Startup Hackathons, and TEDxEdmonton.
We've heard about big ideas, dreams, and side projects from talented Edmontonians who don't take that first step towards a startup because they're locked in a job they do for money, not passion. To which we say, "Who says you can't change the world and make money doing it?"
This is what our space will be all about.
It'll be the headquarters of a high-performance startup culture built around speed, traction and hustle:
- We're delivering industry-led courses and classes around technology, design and entrepreneurship, augmenting existing education programs, and strengthening the local talent pool of designers, developers and entrepreneurs.
- We're hosting build events like Startup Hackathon and Designlabs, where prototypes are created and innovative solutions are designed in our Innovation Lab.
- We'll have co-working space where members can rent full-time desks for $275/mth or drop-in for $125/mth to work alongside other new entrepreneurs in a campus-like environment. No offices, no siloing. The more we share, the more possibility we can unlock.
- We already have some of the city's hottest startups moving in this spring, including Rinksters, Empire Avenue, Edistorm, Cinder, and Touch Metric, and community groups like GameCamp Edmonton and Ruby Users Group.
- Each summer, we'll invite the city's top startup prospects into our new Flightpath Accelerator Program, a four month intensive program that helps startups go from prototype to first market validation. It's supported by angel investors in the community who have committed nearly half a million dollars to our first Fund.
These are just some of the ways we plan to help startups refine ideas, create momentum, gain customers, fight constraints, and build something great for the world - right here from Edmonton.
Welcome to the startup city
But we won't stop there.
Edmonton has more in common with cities like Austin, Texas and Boulder, Colorado. Small cities in size, but big on startup culture and creativity. This isn't about us building the next Silicon Valley. Let other cities keep trying. We don't have to be big, we just have to be great.
We'll spread startup culture across this city, with entrepreneurial thinking invading corporations, government and the arts. But it needs an epicenter to start from.
With the Mercer Warehouse as an anchor, our vision is to lead the continued development of the downtown warehouse district into an urban campus where artists, geeks and entrepreneurs gather, create, and socialize. It's the perfect fit for what's already underway here on the 104th Street Promenade.
We've seen startup culture rise in districts like Gastown in Vancouver and the Meatpacking District in New York, where historic buildings house 21st century startups, designers, and amenities like restaurants, coffee shops and exclusive retailers. These districts are more than simply entertainment destinations - they become startup epicenters for creative entrepreneurs living and working to change the world.
Startup Edmonton, this space, and our accelerator, are ways we can mobilize our best talent. So let this be a call to all the visionary and unstoppable entrepreneurs out there in our city - we're here and we're ready to invest in you.
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