I often meet people who say they are interested in startups but don’t know where to start or how to find a co-founder. This is the best way I know.

One of the best investments that we have made at H2 Ventures is a company called Simply Wall St (www.simplywall.st). What many people don’t know is that the founders of Simply Wall St first met at a Startup Weekend.

Next weekend (9-11 Sept) we will be holding a Startup Weekend in Sydney to help more people learn what this startup thing is all about. This is open to anyone who is curious about startups, you don’t need to bring a team with you as we will help you form teams on the Friday night.

Whether you are looking for feedback on an idea, a co-founder, specific skill sets, or a team to help you execute, Startup Weekends are the perfect environment in which to test your idea and take the first steps towards launching your own startup.

The weekend will be 54-hours of high intensity fun and learning-by-doing!

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to work in a startup then this is your opportunity to see what it’s really like. You will experience the highs, lows, fun, and pressure of creating a startup whilst being supported by the best mentors in the industry.

The weekend will begin with Friday night pitches and continue through brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation before culminating with Sunday night demos and presentations with prizes for the winners. All food (breakfasts, lunches and dinners) and drinks will be supplied across the weekend.

At the end of the weekend the winning team will take home a cash prize of $2,500, followed by $1,000 for second and $500 for third, alongside AWS cloud hosting credits and an opportunity to pitch to join the next round of the H2 Ventures Fintech Accelerator, which will kick off in February 2017. There will also be amazing prizes for the most outstanding male and female individuals over the weekend.

While this is officially a fintech Startup Weekend I would encourage anyone interested in starting a startup to come along as the learnings will be the same across industries. I would also strongly encourage any women who are interested in startups to come along as this is a welcoming environment in which to learn more about the startup ecosystem in Sydney and we have some great female mentors and judges involved across the weekend.

This event could not happen without the generous support of Westpac, AMP New Ventures, S&P Global Market Intelligence, Amazon Web Services and Stone & Chalk.

We have a handful of spaces left so sign up now if you are interested. This is a community run event to support the startup ecosystem, the ticket price covers all meals, drinks, t-shirts and other event costs.

Tickets are available at startupweekendsydney.eventbrite.com