Event review: Collaborate at RCL

I attended “Collaborate at RCL” last night, an event hosted by River City Labs, described as follows:

What do you do when you have an amazing business idea, but you don’t have the skills or resources to make it happen? Help others with their ideas, and they’ll help you with yours!

That’s the idea behind Collaborate @ RCL. Meet some great people, learn some new skills, and work on some fantastic businesses - all at the same time.

Each week we’ll pool our resources and work on a different attendee’s business.

The session was facilitated by Nick Robertson, a chef-turned-entrepreneur and founder of SwapU. Only 7 people showed up, most of which were new (it was the first session of the year and 6 others pulled out at the last minute, which gave everyone a bit more time to introduce themselves).

Nick started the session by going around the room and having each person introduce themselves in two minutes by providing just two pieces of information:

• What experience do you have?
• What help do you need?

The simple and to-the-point format of the introductions made it very easy for attendees to quickly know who they wanted to connect with, and guided the smaller group conversations that followed directly toward focused topics that provided value to all attendees.

The below notes were taken during the introductions:

Who?	Have	Need
Jeremiah	Business dev, Marketing, Fundraising, Basic Dev skills. Built multiple startups.	Co-founder with Security & Database admin skills, to build “code-free data warehouse creation” product
Ameet	Product dev, Web app dev, Enterprise software	Co-founder, Clients
Ilia	Engineer, Architect, Consultant. Full-time data engineer, runs a small consulting company onthe side	Networking, connecting with startups experiencing issues (Clients)
Blake	Creative director, consultant, graphics design	People with experience in Fin-tech and Superannuation (advice for business idea)
Jack	App dev (Bubble, JS)	Product feedback for his productivity/motivation app
Adam	IT, hardware. Founded RDCQ.org.au	MVP, app dev, SEO
Chris	Engineering consultant, Project Management	Co-founder, Enterprise software mentor, product feedback for document-sharing app idea

The session was relaxed, casual, and provided an effective way to connect people. It was refreshing to network with like-minded people in a setting that didn’t involve drink-in-hand awkward small talk or sit-down lectures from suppliers using powerpoint slides to peddle their wares.

I found out about other companies who have a product similar to my idea, recieved advice on further developing my idea, learned about about a couple of new products and tools that I might find useful in my work, and was told about a company who is currently hiring for which I may be a good fit.

I’ll be attending the next session in two weeks, and for anyone who thinks they would benefit, you are welcome to join me.