Congratulations!
ilab UQ offers 25 Germinate 11 Accelerator shortlisted teams the chance to attend an action packed Bootcamp Weekend. There will be highs lows, founder fall outs and teams that won’t make it to the finish line. Bootcamp is a chance for you to workshop your business or social enterprise idea, pitch your idea each day in person to ilab’s expert judging panels, and learn about startup fundamentals and be inspired in an intense 3 day event. After the ilab expert panel judges the final pitches on the Sunday afternoon, ilab will invite 10 successful teams to join the Germinate 11 startup Accelerator program.
On this page you’ll find all you need to know about Bootcamp, including how to prepare, the draft schedule, how pitching works etc.
Whatever the outcome, we hope Bootcamp benefits your business or social enterprise and you have a great time!
The ilab Team
Get social!
Remember, follow ilab on Twitter and Facebook, and tweet with the #ilabUQ and
#UQgamechangers hashtag!
Schedule
Please note the schedule is still in DRAFT form for now and will evolve. Bookmark this page so you can return to it easily.
Friday 2nd June
Friday, November 24th, 2017 | Saturday, November 25th, 2017 | Sunday, November 26th, 2017 |
8:30 Registrations open, networking, meet your fellow founders | 9am Fireside Chat with Anna Robson, Refugee Talent | 9am Founders, Agreements & Incentives (Terry Woodcroft) |
9am Welcome & Introduction & Elevator Pitches (Bec, Sam, Peter).Elevator Pitch | 10am Business Modelling (Assoc Prof. Dr Tim Kastelle, UQ Business School) | 10am Panel session – Life in and Beyond Germinate (past ilab participants) Chris Drake – Arrowana Investments, Alastair Blenkin, Maya Founder of MYK’s Kefir, Jake Oseyeris, Melody Noshable |
9:45 What does it means to be a startup? (Peter Laurie) | 11am Morning tea | 11am Morning tea |
10:45 Morning Tea and Group Photo | 11:30 Business & Pitch Development (Team time) | 11:30 Lets talk about Germinate – Next steps, Q&A – Bring Questions! (Bernie Woodcroft) |
11:15 Pitch Tips TBC | 1pm Lunch | 12pm Business & Pitch Development (Team time) |
12pm James Fielding and Chris Jefferies The Audeara Story | 2pm Practice Pitch Session 2 Petrina Dean Alley, Matthew Deshon Tech One, 1. Andrew Hamilton – Social Scaffolding, 2. Dean Alley dean@bwiseip.com *, 3. Erez Saf – CRiskCo, 4. Manfred – FlowPay, 5. Kellie-Anne Robinson Obserrz, 6. Timothy Hui – Partnerships Manager QUT Collider, 7. Dan Founder Entrepreneur Haus, 8. Gaurav Tyagi 9. TBC * 10. Peter Laurie (EIR), 11. Anna Jenkins (Lecturer Entrepreneurship) 12. Mark White (Telecommunications Entrepreneur and Founder of Locatrix) |
12:40 Complete ilab Commitment Form |
1pm Lunch | 3:30 Afternoon tea | 12:45 Lunch |
2pm Practice Pitch Session 1. Mikaeli Costello (QBI, Director of Advancement and Communications), 2. Christopher Biggs (Founder of Accelerando) 3. Simone Joyce (Founder, Co&Co), 4. Tim Anderson (Fintech Qld), 5. Marc Orchard (Fishburners) 6. Ian Connor (CTO and Founder) 7. Matthew (Innovation Manager -Technology One) 8. Dave Masefield Toowoomba Canvas Co-working 9. Tex Anderson (FounderTalent Vine) 10. Lucio (Founder Site See) 11. Tiah Goldstein (Community Lead Codebots) | 4pm Business & Pitch Development (Team time) | 1:20 Final Pitching and Judging session (Includes 10 min break) Two streams: Elaine Stead (Head of Investments, Private Equity, Blue Sky Investments, Peter Laurie (Software Engineer and Startup Mentor, Junta), Terry Woodcroft Commercialisation Expert, Uniquest), Michael Bruenig (Head of ITEE), Danielle Lewis, (Founder of Marketing Influencer Platform Scrunch) Phil Livingston Redback Technology, Sharon Honeybell (CEO Startup Qld) Rebecca Hay (Singtel / Optus Innovation Partnership Manager for Asia Pacific) |
3:30 Legals and IP, Jane Malloch, Senior Counsel Uniquest | ||
4:15 Pitch Q&A and General Feedback | 4pm Networking & Drinks | |
5pm Close (work on pitches) | 5pm Conclude |
How to prepare, and other general info
Preparing for Bootcamp
How to prepare for Bootcamp including preparing you initial pitch
There are two things ways in which we’d like you to prepare for Bootcamp: prepare your startup pitch, and watch the first two lectures from the Stanford course, “How to Start a Startup”. We’ll talk about both these items below.
Watch first two lectures from “How to Start a Startup”
CS183B “How to Start a Startup” is a great course that was run at Stanford University by Y Combinator, an accelerator in the US that has helped start some of the biggest startups in the world, like Dropbox, airbnb and reddit. We will be discussing the first two lectures from this course during Bootcamp, so we ask that you watch the lectures beforehand. Each lecture is around 45 minutes. Although there are many lectures in the course, you only need to watch the first two lectures:
– Lecture 1: “Welcome, and Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part I”
– Lecture 2: “Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part II”
Prepare your startup pitch
Please prepare a basic 5 minute (maximum) investor pitch. As a starting guide, the presentation slides should include the following:
- Problem (What is the problem your startup / product is solving?)
- Solution (How are you solving this problem?)
- Market size (How big is your potential market?)
- Team (Who is in the team? What are their specialities?)
- Business Model (How will you make money to grow, sustain your business)
- Execution plan (A rough schedule of what your business will do once in Germinate)
Although this is a good starting guide, your pitch will almost certainly change once in Bootcamp, so don’t rely on it too heavily. Keep in mind that the most important aspect of the pitch is your ability to clearly demonstrate and articulate the problem you’re trying to solve. Your pitch does not have to be perfect coming in to Bootcamp, as the feedback you receive in pitching practice, along with watching other people pitch, will give you insight into ways you can improve. We often see a remarkable improvement when comparing the pitch you give on Friday to that of Sunday.
During Bootcamp, you will be practicing your pitch on Friday and Saturday afternoon, and presenting it to judges on Sunday afternoon. A two hour (approximately) pitching session will be run at the same time daily (please consult the Bootcamp schedule for more information). Each startup will have approximately 5 minutes to pitch and 5 minutes to answer questions and ask for feedback. Practice your pitch at least once or twice before you come to Bootcamp so you know you can finish it in 5 minutes – but don’t practice too much, because the pitch will almost certainly change. To help you with your pitch during Bootcamp, there is a pitch tips session that is run on Friday before your first pitch, and we have quick pitch Q&A sessions after your Friday and Saturday pitch sessions. You can also speak with mentors and staff individually during morning tea, afternoon tea or lunch.
Do you need to attend every day of Bootcamp?
We use participation in the whole weekend as part of the training and selection for Germinate. We expect that the core of the team is able to attend all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
If you are unable to attend some of the weekend, a cofounder or another person in your team may be able to attend the session you need to miss. The most important session is the final judging session on Sunday.
If you or a member of your team are unable to attend any of the Bootcamp, unfortunately we are unable to consider you this time around.
Food
Lunch is provided daily. At morning tea and afternoon tea breaks ilab provides coffee, tea, water and fruit. We will review your registration for special food needs and try to cater for those. If you have very particular needs, then our advice is to bring your own food in case we get it wrong.
Dress code
People wear whatever they like to ilab. You can Google “startup casual dress” if you are still unsure.
Your Social Media details
We are keen to know your startup’s social media details so we can like, comment, tweet and generally support your social media profile. Please provide these to us so we can help out. You can certainly change these as your startups evolve.
Pitch Deck Upload tool
Just bring your slides and your laptop.
Bootcamp Presenter Slides
We ask each ilab speaker if they are willing to make their slides available for download after their presentation. Slides that are available will be published here for your own use following bootcamp. To access the presenter’s Bootcamp slides, click here.
End of Bootcamp Confirmation Form
On Sunday, prior to your Sunday pitch, you will be asked to reconfirm your commitment to the three month Germinate program. You will need to fill out this Commitment Form. Please complete one per startup but only do this on Sunday.