Bolidea – Giving Rise to Stellar Companies

by Martin-Luc Archambault

We’ve just hosted our first Co-Founder’s Monday this week, and I have to admit that I was really impressed by the genuine passion and motivation projected by people in the room.

Unfortunately I had to leave after welcoming the attendees, but from what I heard from the event organizer Felipe Coimbra and from Raphael Ettore, an entrepreneur in residence at Bolidea working on ArtFox , I think the event was an overall success.  Many thanks to everyone that attended and especially to the organizer, Felipe.

I’ve asked Raphael to write a couple paragraphs on his view of the event and this is what he had to say:

As most entrepreneurs know, it is crucial for the well-being and growth of a project to find key collaborators who will bring their expertise and ideas, and ultimately help you bring your startup to another level. Initiatives such as this event are great, as they facilitate connections, as well as give the opportunity for people to talk about their concepts and ideas and receive feedback from other people’s experiences. This can be very enlightening for someone who has been toying with an idea for a long time in the privacy of their own minds.

My first experience at the Co-founders Monday was on the second floor of a coffee shop—which made the seating arrangements and discussions a little bit difficult. As much as I found this initiative great, both for entrepreneurs and developers, I really wanted to repeat the experience in a more appropriate setting. Being a resident entrepreneur at Bolidea, I figured that having Bolidea host the event at their offices would not only offer a more appropriate location, but it would also give the opportunity for entrepreneurs to discover Bolidea and meet its founders.

Basing myself on the comments that I collected from the participants during the event,  it seemed to me that  everyone was very pleased with the location and really intrigued by this new web incubator company. It was also a pleasure for me to explain to fellow entrepreneurs my experience here at Bolidea and encourage them to continue in their projects.

Of the projects that were presented by the event’s participants, I really liked Guillaume Ferland’s Ustream, which offers fully managed streaming services for radios. There was also Loïc Karinda’s great deal- finder tool for any online or locally distributed products: ZeroRiskShopping.ca. George Favvas’ established SmartHippo project was also featured at the event, as well as a new, neat iPhone application by Robert Crecco named ” I Sell That”, which facilitates matches between business people and potential customers through a profile-matching process that could eventually eliminate the need for business cards! Thus, more connections and more trees .

All in all, I met some very interesting people and am looking forward to the next event. And, last but not least, a big thank you to Felipe for putting this event together.

In tune with Raphael’s observations, I received a few emails from attendees who were also very satisfied and I’m glad that this first occurence of the Co-Founders Monday in our offices went well. However, from the feedback I have been obtaining, it’s obvious that we need to get better in attracting people looking to join startups, as the majority of the attendees already had projects and were at the event to find potential co-founders and employees to join their startup.

As Olivier mentioned in a previous post, we are trying to solve this issue and we will soon propose a few things to better match people with different expertise, in a way that everybody feels comfortable and truly benefits from each other’s help. If you’d like to share your ideas to make this happen, please don’t hesitate to post a comment or to email me.