What’s so funny about startups? Here’s your chance to standup and say it

If you think your startup life resembles the HBO satire Silicon Valley, and reckon you could write the script, well Ascend ’26, is giving you the chance to take it to the next level with Startup.Standup, a comedy night with you telling the jokes.

The two-day startup festival in Sydney, October 14-15, is after eight brave founders and VCs to step onto the stage beg for laughs instead of money and tell everyone about the funny thing that happened on the way to the investment committee meeting with a five minute original stand-up routine live in front of a room full of the startup community.

The good news is you won’t go in cold, with comedy genius and radio, and TV presenter, Merrick Watts – now discovering the humour in startup life as cofounder of Posca Hydrate will help out with a four-week comedy bootcamp (taking 2-3 hrs weekly) to prepare you.

And just think about how improving your mic drops could lift your next pitch night presentation.

Startup.Standup is the brainchild of Google Cloud’s head of VC & startup ecosystem Mike Langford, supported by Julie Trell from Playful Purpose and Nudge Group’s Steve Grace.

“We will film the whole event through Nudge Productions, give everyone PSOCA, keep all the content in Google Cloud and have the auditions at The Pillars and bring some much needed laughter, light-heartedness and fun to the world,” Steve Grace said.

“This is what our community is about, learning in new ways, trying things others have not done yet here in Australia and have a lot of fun, lets face it, that is what makes the community the best place to be in the world.”

But get your skates on, entries close this Friday, July 17.

Apply for Startup.Standup here.

And register your interest for ascend26 here.