An industry thrives on the edges of the normal start-up business, these are neither VCs nor entrepreneurs.
These are the facilitators, people who earn there living telling serious and/or worried-looking entrepreneurs how to get where they want to be. I can’t tell you if they are worth the fee, although the events I’ve attended have mostly been worth going to as a journalist.
Apart from the worrying trend that these events appear to be taking on some characteristics of the motivational or ‘how to change your life’-type event, I was rather struck by the idea that you can be transformed from ordinary person to entrepreneur in the space of a few days.
In the technology sector you tend to need years of knowledge in the bank before you can start putting funds in there too. One event in the US is called Startupweekend, where after a marathon 54 hours, participants will leave with a start-up business ready to go. As the website says: “Sound intense? It is.”
Meanwhile, Startup Camp looks like it is coming to London sometime in March. You get “a half a day of Startup University and one and a half days of Camp”. It is “an unconference-style event”, apparently because those who go can decide on the discussions that will take place.
If any reader goes they must let me know how this event works.