by Guest Blogger Liam O'Duibhir, Director of SoccerFit (www.soccerfit.com.au)

It's great to be associated with Startup Camp Canberra II (SUCC II). It's such a high energy, stimulating, fun, brilliant weekend. For many it will give them their first taste of entreprenurial endeavour which may blossom into a life-time of innovation and business sucess.

So what should your goals be for Startup Camp? Well the short answer is that, realistically, no-one can tell you how to get the most out of it, and this is doubly so, given that you are blessed (or should that be cursed) with an entrpreneurial streak, and therefore pre-disposed to ignoring convention and established wisdoms anyway. That said, however, there may be benefit in providing some points to consider ahead of time...to get your psyche right, so to speak :-

• Go hard - OK, so you and your group may not shape up to be the next Google, but give it your absolute-all-200%-best-effort nonetheless and feel free to act like you are Australia's answer to Mark Zuckerburg (the Facebook guy) and that your idea is worth billions
• Network feverishly - Startup camp is a great opportunity to practice 'working the room'. Introduce yourself, tell them a little bit about you, listen to their story, smile, crack a joke, be nice...and repeat until such time as the only other people left in the room are the night-time cleaning staff...heck you may as well have a natter with them too...and give them a business card while you're at it.
• Make decisions very quickly - the facilitator will be cracking the whip (in the nicest possible way) throughout proceedings to usher you towards the next milestone, so you and your team-mates will have to nut things out very quickly.
• Multi-skill - whatever the team needs, get stuck in. Just because you're a PHP programmer doesn't mean you shouldn't be the one coming up with a killer marketing slogan. Everyone has a right to an opinion on every decision the group makes, so, time allowing, unashamedly stick your oar in.
• Listen and Learn - the real value of Start-Up Camp is that you can get a real sense of the vast array of challenges and often frantic time pressures that start up companies face, so listen up and absorb as much of it as you can

One other thing you might keep in mind is having your "90-second pitch" ready and armed at all times. This can be for your own business or the business you work on at SUCC II. Remember there will 'real money' in the room, so if you get to speak with a potential investor, always be ready to wow them with a snapshot of your fantastic business idea.

Have a great time at StartUp. I look forward to meeting many of you.

Regards,

Liam