Re-booting StartupDrinks

StartupDrinks is a 3.5 year old event now. Scary to think. In the first couple years it was really one of the only places to go to meet people doing tech and/or startups in Hamilton. A purely social pub night had value. Toronto’s StartupDrinks event started off similarly before adding a keynote speaker and series of pitches to the recent events.

I experimented with adding in talks this year, which was interesting. It brought out a different group of people each time, and a bunch of people seemed to get something tangible out of it, even if it was a new perspective or a view of the road ahead from someone further along. I’ve really liked the Freelancer Association meetups I’ve been out to because of this approach, each event I’ve actually come away with something tangible that I can use and have used.

The other thing with purely social pub nights is that they slowly gravitate towards piss-ups / drinking clubs, which 1) actually turns a lot of people off, 2) isn’t for me anymore either. The social part of the event can (and does) always happen after the value part of an event anyways. If anyone wants to take a stab at making a purely social tech and/or startup pub night I’d say go for it though, there will always be interest in a relaxing night with like-minded people after work.

What I’m going to be doing is inviting 2-3 speakers out on a given startup related topic each month – UX, funding, sales, management, etc. We’ve got a lot of expertise in town when you add it together, and I just want to try bringing some of that expertise together each month for everyone interested to learn about a topic.

The next StartupDrinks will be Wedensday December 10th from 6:30pm – 9:00pm at The Pheasant Plucker, the topic will be UX and so far we’ve got Andrew Holden from Weever Apps and Michael Bonds from FluidMedia (with one more yet to confirm). Check out the details/registration here: eventbrite.ca/e/startupdrinks-user-experience-tickets-14179897455