DemoCamp18
I think this was my 4th or 5th DemoCamp. It wasn’t my favourite, but the demos were definitely better presented than those in the past.
- Chris Gurney represented Blueprint Requirements Center. This demo was great for several reasons. The main one being that I could follow it and understand what he was talking about, it was quick and to the point. The 5 min demo flew by. Also, their product seemed to get an excellent response from the audience. Even though I would have preferred it to be open source, it was pretty awesome.
- Ali Asaria from Well.ca showed his company’s new Jabber Chat for websites that’s better than Meebo and GTalk. Another fave because the demo was humorous and it seemed to work flawlessly.
- Great presentation by Kosta Zabashta on Dr. Project. I may be biased, because I have used Dr. Project in the past, but it has come along way since I was in university. They integrated IRC logs into the framework, and vice versa by means of a bot. While the bot seemed to flood the IRC channel with info when you asked it details about a bug, it did what it was supposed to do. Well done for sure.
- Jesse Brown from Bitstrips talked about why everyone should make comics. Again, very entertaining demo. I, for a second, wanted to go home and make a comic. Launch party tomorrow (July 16) in Toronto.
- Jevon MacDonald from Firestoker/StartupNorth ranted about Venture Capitalists. While he said he had not practiced his talk, he gave a very quick “feel good” talk about why VC’s suck in Canada at the moment. I couldn’t follow completely, since a lot of info was squeezed into 5 min. I am sure if he had more time to rant, I would have more information to pass on. I walked away knowing that VCs suck in Canada… but don’t ask me for details.
I have few complaints about DemoCamp. One major one was the “boys club” jokes. I can roll with the best of them when it comes to humor, but I think it became slightly uncomfortable/tiresome for several people. I like that the democamp’s are not “uptight”, but maybe there needs to be a slight balance at times. The only other complaint would be the venue- too small; that or democamp is becoming way too popular.
Overall, it was another success.
Hey, Nice write up on DemoCamp18. I agree about the venue being too small – especially for ~ 350 people. Also I thought it was a bit too noisy and too distracting. I definitely prefer the Board of Trade or MaRS.
Hey, thanks for the kind words about our demo for Well.ca. We had a lot of fun. The venue was tight, and I was annoyed by the “boys-club” jokes as well.
Thanks again and take care,
-ali
I have to agree with you on the boys club jokes. I’ll be happy if I never hear another barely legal joke again.
Agree with most of your points. I didn’t like the venue, and the jokes were waaaaay over the top. Doing it once may have been tolerable, but it got pretty ridiculous.
I also just don’t get how people can possibly mis-interpret the word “demo” (repeatedly at that). The Refresh Partners and Spreed presentations were just garbage, it wasn’t even pretending to be a demo.
If you want to market yourself, buy some subway advertising! Saying “I know you guy won’t like this” and then going ahead and doing it is just pure stupid.
A good summary! It was my first DemoCamp, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’ll certainly go to the next one, and David already sent out a note with some changes for next time ( my favourite is reserved seating for All-star ticket holders) My biggest disappointment was that there were no ignite sessions.
Well captured Lillian… I thought the rant could have led to some constructive dialog – it started to feel like a one-way soap box. Would have been nice to showcase some (even if only a few) Canadian start-up success stories that were able to get VC and highlight why. As a newcomer, the jokes didn’t help to make a welcoming environment – I guess I got over it though.