The mania surrounding e-commerce appears here to stay as hundreds of entrepreneurs showed up to an Internet startup bootcamp yesterday in downtown Toronto hoping to find the way to launch their own dot-com businesses.
But one speaker warned the crowd the market correction in high-tech stocks over the past few weeks should cause people interested in starting their own Internet businesses to consider their motivations.
"If money is the only reason you're here to get into a dot-com, as opposed to getting into business, then I caution you to think again," said John Ehrlich, cofounder and vice-president of marketing for California-based mobshop.com.
Mr. Ehrlich, a graduate of the Ivey School of business at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont., told the audience that Canadian entrepreneurs have to become more aggressive and move quicker, or risk their ideas being taken to market by someone else.
"Someone; will go and sleep outside the venture capitalist's office.  They'll date his daughter,' Mr. Ehrlich said.  'So if you don't move, someone else will."
The conference, which was held in Toronto and billed as a bootcamp for Internet startups, drew more than 350 people who each paid $500 to attend the two-day event.  Yesterday, they were inundated with information on how to join the Internet revolution, with everything from funding to legal issues being covered.
The bootcamp concept was developed by Nick Jones, founder of Upstart.com and the former general manager of Chapters Online, who said Canadian business people have questions about starting an Internet business and there is currently no place to find answers easily.
"I was moaning and complaining about this problem when one of my friends said that I should set something up;" Mr.  Jones said in an interview.
Sponsors of the event were easy to find, Mr. Jones noted, and the. hope is that it eventually will expanded to include other cities like Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax.
Canadians still trail their U.S. counterparts in electronic commerce, Mr. Jones said, but he hopes that through educating business people on the realities and possibilities of the Internet, more will start to concentrate on the area.
"The first chapter of the Internet is over," Mr. Jones said.  "But that doesn't mean the opportunities are all done.  There are huge opportunities out there and Canada needs to try to capitalize on more of them.'
That message seemed to be received clearly by the audience, which consisted of business professionals and students.
"There are no boundaries to what you can achieve in this area and it offers creative opportunities as well," said Geetica Sharma, a student enrolled in Centennial College's e-commerce program.
Financial Post