“It’s not the idea that matters, it’s the execution.” That may sound counter-intuitive in an era in which companies jealously guard secrets and patent everything, but it’s the guiding principle behind Startup Weekend Toronto, an event that commences this Friday at which an idea goes from pitch to its first real iteration in a scant 54 hours. Started in Colorado in 2007 and now a global phenomenon, Startup Weekend differs from many other such events because rather than only bringing together programmers, it also adds to the mix designers, marketers, business development experts and, perhaps most importantly for the Toronto scene, investors too. Product ideas are pitched on the Friday night, and after some whittling down through voting, a small number of projects are tackled by impromptu, cobbled-together teams. It may sound chaotic, but it creates results. Most notably for Toronto, Startup Weekend 2010 produced vizualize.me, a service that turns one’s work history and skills into a kind of infographic resum– that team has gotten enough buzz to be currently seeking funding in Silicon Valley. To find out a bit more about how the event works and to get a sense of the state of the startup world in Toronto, the Standard spoke to Chris Eben, one of the organizers of this weekend’s event. Presenters at Startup Weekend are often given 90 seconds to pitch their ideas. What’s the elevator pitch for the Startup Weekend itself? Basically, it’s a coming-together of people from all sorts of different backgrounds–technical, non-technical, designers–getting together for a condensed period of time to pitch and launch an actual startup. So it’s really all about experiential learning. A lot of events are about going and listening to people speak, but this one gets down to working together and producing something. It incorporates the whole business strategy and gives you a chance to put that in front of real live investors who can provide feedback and also connect you to people who might help you take that business forward beyond the weekend. So how does the weekend work? It’s a mixture of all sorts of things. Theoretically you could have 200 people show up to the event none of whom know each other. Some number of those will get up and pitch an idea. We have a little mobile application that allows everybody to vote on their favourite 3 pitches. From that, we pick the top whatever number is reasonable to work with, and then you let people go out there and start networking and finding the people and ideas that resonated with them. Then they start talking about whether they want to work with them, or what their needs are. You just kind of throw everyone into this big pile and see what comes out. But the point of the weekend is not that you came out and pitched your idea; it’s that you came out and met a lot of interesting people and got to work on something and see what came out the other end. How frequently does a team or product stay together after the weekend? The answer from a statistical perspective is that 30% of teams are still doing something 3 months after the event, 10% go on to find some form of funding. From the last Toronto event in June, six months later, 10 of the 20 teams are still actively working on their project. And then of course, you have great stories like vizualize.me. I’m a bit shocked and surprised at the sheer number of things that come out of Startup Weekend that keep going. Why did you choose to focus on this type of event rather than other sorts of startup gatherings? I found this kind is the most open format I’ve seen, in terms of people from all sorts of backgrounds and different skills coming together to join forces. It mimics what it’s like to create a real product or real business more than a lot of other events. There are hackathons, which are good for a specific purpose like exploring a given technology in a given time frame. But they’re typically not about creating a business. They’re not like a real life startup where you need strategy , you need a go-to-market plan, you need a venue model etc. You would never take a developer, code something intensely and then present that to an investor. So to me, Startup Weekend goes beyond this and brings different groups together, which is itself one of challenges in this space. In terms of that kind of overlap or meeting up of different skill sets, how is Toronto doing at facilitating those kinds of connections? I’d say it’s doing amazingly well now. I’ve been in the tech and startup community for many, many years,and 3 or 4 years ago, it was a small community. As a result, a lot of people who had these inclinations and skills weren’t really “inside the group”. But over the last 3 or 4 years, there’s been an explosion in the city, and Startup Weekend is part of that explosion. The community is getting bigger, which you can see by looking at the first event, and looking at the last event. The level of interest and how quickly tickets sell gives you tangible information about what’s going on. All of that gives you an indication of how big the community is in Toronto and how much better connected it is than it used to be. What needs to change with regard to digital tech and startups in Toronto? Is it a question of venture capital funding, or R & D, or something else? What needs to improve? A few things, I think. The community itself has done a huge job of coming together to keep innovation going. But I do think that Toronto and Canada, and the world as a whole, has struggled with working within the confines of traditional venture capital models. Canada, too, has had a checkered past when it comes to venture capital. So defining some of those things and changing expectations and focusing on the early side of innovation needs to happen. And nothing defines early-stage funding like the concept of a Startup Weekend. It connects early-stage seed investors with entrepreneurs. You might not, as an investor, invest in something you’ve seen come out of one weekend, but you’ve met potentially 200 people entrepreneurs and know who they are and know what they can do. Making those connections, that’s an important area. It’s about creating an environment for people who come out and sign up that connects them to a bigger world where they know some investors who can help them succeed. The event also connects them to government funding and the grant system. Canada is actually one of the top supporters of R&D, when it comes down to pure financial incentives. But on the flip-side, we’re also extremely cautious and conservative with the use of those proceeds and that support, especially at the big companies. The RIMs of the world, who obviously invest, do so typically at a smaller amount than of course the Americans and now certain other countries that are really pushing innovation. I guess it just comes down to the Canadian make-up and Canadian culture in terms of the ability to take on risk. There’s certainly an interest at the grassroots level to deepen support for technical innovation. Now we need to connect those dots all the way up to bankers and the money people who can take it the next level. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Images by Eighteen Eighty Startup Weekend (Nov. 18-20) will be held at the Burroughes Building, 639 Queen St West. __ Navneet Alang is the Toronto Standard Tech Critic.