Novotorium & SeedPhilly Call Lights Out For Summer Camp

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We received some disheartening news this morning from our friends at technicallyphilly.com . Apparently Entrepreneur Summer Camp, a joint venture between Novotorium and Seedaphilly has been cancelled due to lack of Internet.

We’ve been big supporters of both Novotorium, SeedPhilly and the Philly tech scene, especially because our co-founder Cameron is based in Philly.

We are members of the Phily listserve and we’ve seen a mixed bag of talk about Philly’s startup community. There are those like Novotorium Mike Krupit who are big advocates of growing startups right in the city of brotherly love.

On the flip side the are those who wallow suggesting that there’s not enough funding available in Philly. Some of these folks actually commute to New York in hopes of having a more successful launch in the big apple.

As for Entrepreneur Summer Camp, both Novotorium and SeedPhilly along with others in the Philadelphia startup ecosystem put together a great bunch of programming that was to occur over the summer, with nominal fees for space, food and drink and overall costs.

After the first event though Kuprit found that there just wasn’t enough traction and interest from entrepreneurs, Startups and the tech community. We found from our analytics that all of the stories we’ve used to promote this series of events had a good deal of interest. Whats wrong with you people, support your local tech ecosystem if you want it to grow.

Kuprit is still feeling positive about this weeks “not a hackathon” 36 hour event. Rather than using the 54 hour hackathon style model, this event is for Startups a little further along to get mentor ship and help around the clock. Think of it as 36 straight hours of office hours.

Kuprit beefed up the prize money and this event is still on. You can find out more about the sleepover event here

As for summer camp Kuprit told technicallyphilly “Philly takes the summer off,” he said, comparing our scene to New York’s and California’s. “We need to raise the bar.”

Philly’s entrepreneur summer camp isn’t the only signature event on the east coast this summer to get cancelled. Earlier this month we reported that the Startup BeachHouse event was cancelled when the group putting it on we’re repeatedly denied beach house rentals because ignorant beach house owners thought the event would be like the show The Jersey Shore.

Linkage:

Source: technicallyphilly

Check out Novotorium here

Check out SeedPhilly here

Nibletz is the voice of Startups “everywhere else”

Philly’s Novotorium Hosting “Not A Hackathon” Entrepreneur Sleepover June 27 & 28th

Mike Krupit and the crew at Novotorium are holding a really cool event June 27th and 28th in Philadelphia. The event, that they’re calling the “Not a hackathon” Entrepreneur Sleepover. The event is not a “build a startup in 48 hours” type event. Rather it’s more like a weekend worth of valuable office hours to refine your startup, develop your product, work on your marketing and pick the brains of Krupit, and other great mentors.

Novotorium promises 36 straight hours of “eye popping, brain swelling, undulterated business progress”


There is a $20 participation charge which of course will cover things like fuel (food and red bull) along with other considerations. But not only that, there will be a $2,000 prize. Krupit told Nibletz.com the companies won’t do “pitches” but their progress throughout the weekend will be judged by the Novotorium and SeedPhilly team. Both Novotorium and SeedPhilly will meet with each startup individually.

The best part of the entire process is that everyone will be on hand all 36 hours, so if you’re knee deep into problem solving at 3am you’ll be able to get a mentor to help you solve your problem.

Krupit responded to criticism on the Phily Startup Leaders List Serv saying:

“We know that there are entrepreneurs are reluctant to attend hackathons or startup weekends because they don’t own what the community helps them produce. That’s why we called this a “Not-a” hackathon – to demonstrate its approach from another perspective. We added the cash prize as an incentive to those who maybe weren’t purely in it for the community, learning, and fun.

 The $20 registration is a token to basically ensure that people show up. It’s even lower than other similar events.
This model isn’t for everyone – and we never intended for it to be. There are already a number of registrants, so I’m assuming some find it interesting. For those that do, we’ll build some good business models and product, build more community, and have a good time.”
We totally get it here at nibletz, as we said the best way to describe it is 36 straight hours of office hours type access to some of the best mentors in the Philadelphia area to help any startup who registers, work on their business.
Linkage:
Find out more about this event here
Find out more about Novotorium here and Seed Philly here
This is part of Philly’s Entrepreneur Summer Camp, more here
Nibletz, the voice of startups “everywhere else” could use your support, check this out