Toronto Startup Event List Fall 2012

Getting ready for startup event fatigue? Toronto is an active ecosystem (based on total activity in the Startup Genome database). But there are a lot of upcoming events, here is my inital tracking of Toronto startup events list for fall 2012. The question is which events to attend and which ones to stay heads down and work. An actual guide would breakdown the benefits of each of these events. But I’m being lazy, I’ll add some commentary around each event. Or please feel free to add events and commentary. I’ll update the post.

And for those of you thinking about attending everything, go read Mark Suster’s Be Careful not to become a Conference Ho.

September 2012

October 2012

November 2012

December 2012

Waterloo Region StartupFest

Update: The team at Communitech recognize the gafoo. They are rebranding the event Tektoberfest (which I think is an amazing fun brand that is a fun play on Oktoberfest). Great work by Phil, Iain and a group of people that should be collaborating. 

Update 2: Looks like the Communitech folks have updated their branding. Calling the event Techtoberfest and the previously mentioned Tektoberfest. They’ve also rounded out the line up with more great speakers including Devon Galloway and Michael Litt from Vidyard, Carol Leaman of Axonify. This means you’ll get 2 Hot Sh!t Listers (Devon and Eric) and 2 more incredible CEOs as part of the line up. Shaping up to be a great event.

Techtoberfest, Waterloo Region, Oct 11-13, 2012

Apparently the Communitech team went to the rip, mix and burn school of branding. Founders & Funders – check. StartupFest – check. I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I gave permission for the Communitech team my support for using Founders & Funders in Waterloo Region. No bitching about that. Not sure how Phil Telio feels about his trademark being reused. I’d be upset. But I digress, maybe serves as evidence that more of the operational money goes directly to entrepreneurs and companies that Communitech helps, because it’s not going into new branding.

It looks like an amazing event!

They have a great line up featuring:

Given the strong history of Entrepreneur Week. And the speakers and types of events lined up, it is set to be a fantastic week.

Waterloo mafia invade Toronto

I’m guessing this is confirmation that Waterloo Region is really just part of the Toronto ecosystem.

CC-BY-NC-ND-30 Photo by nadiakushnir
AttributionNoncommercialCreative Commons - By NC-NDSome rights reserved photo by nadiakushnir

I have seen The Communitech HubSpot space. Not a bad name given the facility that houses Communitech is called The Hub, calling a smaller zone in Toronto “The HubSpot” would make sense. Other than one of the leading CRM vendors based in Boston that has raised a combined $65MM in financing is also called HubSpot. That’s got to be bad for SEO.

I first saw the Communitech HubSpot space when I looked at moving the Maintenance Assistant offices earlier this year. It’s space located on the 2nd floor of 170 University Ave, that doubles as offices for Phil Deck. Phil was previously the CEO and Chairman of MKS Inc. which was acquired by PLC for $305MM in 2011. Phil is also on the Board at Communitech, which features other key players in the Waterloo and Toronto ecosystem including John Ruffolo of OMERS Ventures, Carol Leaman of Axonify, Ali Asaria of Well.ca and John Baker of Desire2Learn.

“It’s been a lot of hard work and even more fun putting Waterloo Region tech on the map with the help of a hugely supportive community.”
Iain Klugman, Communitech Marks 15 Year Anniversary of Supporting Waterloo Tech

Communitech in Toronto

It’s great news as Well.ca already has offices in Toronto. Previously Waterloo-based companies like Top Hat Monocle have moved to Toronto. There are a large number of Waterloo alums actively working in the Toronto startup ecosystem (I’m a UWaterloo alum along with Farhan Thawar, Zak Homuth, Zach Aysan, John Phillip Green, Dan Holowack, Oshoma Momoh, Bruce Chin, Garry Seto, Mike Rhemtulla, Monica Goyal and that’s just off the top of my head).

Too bad they chose to leverage an existing StartupNorth brand for the event. The least they could have done was invite us. Oh well, they stuck with our own “invite only” model.