The Atlantic Canadian startup community is about to get its own reality TV show.
Startup Kitchen, the Fredericton group that produces video content on startups in the community, is upping its game with more of a documentary format. The production will appear as before on Bell Community One and now be called #startupeast.
The first production of #startupeast is a three-part series on the latest cohort of the Propel 2.0 accelerator, in which one group of more experienced entrepreneurs is meeting in Moncton while groups of more novice enterprises are meeting in Halifax and Fredericton. The series will cover the selection camp, and then follow a few of the more interesting entrepreneurs along their journey.
“This is something that we wanted to do for a while but we weren’t ready to do it,” said Startup Kitchen Co-Founder Robert Foley in an interview last week. “Now we’re ready, and we’re covering the Propel cohort this year and we could later do more ambitious things.”
Foley and partner Suhaim Abdussamad launched Startup Kitchen about three years ago to showcase Atlantic Canadian startups through online video. The programs, which were mainly in an interview format, were soon being broadcast by Bell Community One, the community broadcasting channel for Bell FibreOp customers.
The production improved and the big turning point came when the pair linked up with Halifax-based videographer Devon Murrins, who added more polish to the product. He allowed them to move beyond interviews and develop a more narrative structure in the broadcasts.
One final problem needed to be addressed: When Abdussamad and Foley went in to renew their contract with Bell this summer, they were told viewers were confusing Startup Kitchen with the channel’s cooking show. They needed a new name.
They figured that the community had come to be known by its Twitter handle hashtag-startupeast. So while www.startupkitchen.ca remains the duo’s website, the show is now #startupeast.
The series, which begins on Oct. 20, will start by chronicling the Propel selection camp, which took place last month. In the second segment, to air Nov. 17, the documentary will examine the development of some of the companies in the accelerator, such as Bitness and Bungalo of Halifax and Simptek of Fredericton.
Abdussamad said the viewer will get to know some of the entrepreneurs, and even their families, to understand the pressures and rewards on the founders and those around them.
The final episode will feature the Propel Demoday, which will take place in December. The episode will be broadcast Jan. 5.
The other projects in the hopper include a documentary on iMagic, the publicly listed video streaming project that Marcel LeBrun – later the CEO of Radian6 – launched in the 1990s.
People can view #startupeast if they subscribe to Alliant FibreOp, or at the websites of Bell or Startup Kitchen. Startup Kitchen will present the first episode at an event at Planet Hatch on Oct. 23.
Disclaimer: Entrevestor receives financial support from government agencies that support startup companies in Atlantic Canada. The sponsoring agencies play no role in determining which companies and individuals are featured in this column, nor do they review columns before they are published.
