Big tech companies may be preparing to downsize, but startups are still hiring like mad. Particularly engineers.

It’s hard for one startup to get noticed above the crowd, but what if twenty of them pool their resources, hold a competition and throw a five day party for top recruits? That’s the goal of Gnip and 19 other Boulder, Colorado based startups who are pitching in $5,000 each to host a multi-day job fair at the end of October.

Engineers are invited to upload their resumes and apply for 100 spots at the event. The applications will be reviewed by the companies, and a total of 100 people will be invited out for an all-expenses paid three day trip. Twenty applicants are rotated through each day over a five day period, with dinners and parties each night.

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This sounds like a perfect project for Toronto startups!  Anyone interested in helping to organize something like this please contact: rsmith[at]innovationtoronto.com.  Let’s see if we can’t build some momentum.

(During the first half of 2008, 42 companies were in registration for an IPO, but they never pulled the trigger—versus 70 for the same period in 2007).

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Anyone involved in startups should pay attention . . . - IT

photo credit: spike55151

“We get a ton of pitches at TechCrunch every single day. It is a deluge we can hardly keep up with. Some are amusing, some are horrible, and a select few rise to the level of deserving a post. The large majority, though, never see the light of day. We thought: Why not let startups connect directly with our audience, and let the audience decide which ideas are worthy and which ones are not?

So today we are launching a little video project here at TechCrunch called Elevator Pitches. The premise is pretty simple: Startup founders and CEOs give us a 60-second video pitch about their companies, and our audience (that would be you) votes them up or down. You can think of it as a YouTube for elevator pitches (and, in fact, we are hosting the videos on YouTube and simply embedding them on the site).”

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Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman wrote a blog post a couple of days ago comparing Silicon Valley unfavorably to the Seattle tech scene.

I spend a lot of time in both places, and I think some of his observations are correct (people here compete to the death, people there go hiking). But even though I occasionally criticize Silicon Valley myself, I think there are some things that are dead wrong in his analysis. If you want a well balanced life, Silicon Valley is not for you. But if you want to change the world and are willing to do absolutely anything to achieve your dreams, there is no better place to be than here.

1. Starting next Wednesday, we will begin holding weekly informal brainstorming sessions exploring innovation, startups (both for profit and not-for-profit), alternative energy, problem solving (if you need help with a particular project) and whatever else the attendees decide is most interesting :-)If you like to get on the invitation list please email event[at] innovationtoronto.com. We will start at 5:30 p.m. and end somewhere around 7:30  

Wishing everyone a very Happy 2008!

We would like to thank everyone who participated in our first forays into the wonderful world of startups. It has been a fascinating time and a vertical learning curve

To those who don’t know some of the background, we were not scheduled to initiate any activities until well into the first quarter of 2008. Then along came the great opportunities offered by the first Toronto Startup Weekend and Facebook Weekend Beta to start to get to know the startup and IT community in the GTA. It has been a great way to make new friends and start to shape the next steps for our an important part of our new Innovation Toronto focus.

After much discussion, it has become quite clear that there are some very interesting and timely things we can do to be of help to the community in general and address specific needs of the youth, startup and alternative energy communities specifically.

We would now like to engage those of you who may be interested in learning about and working together on our general plans to also get specific about what we might be able to do together in this brand new year. Is it an event or series of events that you need flexible space for? Is it finding resources and talent for your new project? Are you looking for a new adventure? Is it finding a new way to engage the community and give back?

Whatever your motivation, we would like to invite you to join in evolving our ongoing discussions and projects. Over the next few days we will be posting the outlines of a number of projects that we are most interested in seeing come to fruition. We would also like to hear about what you are working on and where collaboration might be advantageous.

You are invited . . .

Happy 2008

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Generally speaking, experience counts for something. So you’d expect entrepreneurs who’ve been through the ups and downs of a tech startup to have an advantage over the newcomers. Or at least have an equal chance at success. But in fact the opposite may be true. A number of venture capitalists I’ve spoken with have said that too many “old guard” entrepreneurs are not being bold enough in their business decisions, and it’s hurting their startups.

The first VC to bring this up to me was CRV’s Saar Gur at a recent conference. Since then I’ve brought it up with a number of other VCs. Across the board they agree - many entrepreneurs from the first bubble are overly cautious, and hurting their businesses.

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The following are some of the most important questions that should be resolved as early in the process as possible. In most cases, these issues only get more difficult over time.

Top 10 Critical Startup Co-Founder Questions

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