Resources

There are 60 posts filed in Resources (this is page 17 of 20).

Extreme University

extremevpExtreme Venture Partners is hosting a summer program for start-ups called Extreme University. It’s reminiscent of the Trilogy University, which should come as no surprise given Farhan Thawar is ex-Trilogy Software (TU98 to be exact). The Extreme University program is a rapid start 12 week program that aims to bring the rigor and mentoring and connections for start-ups. The program is based in Toronto, but given Extreme’s strong ties to Silicon Valley, New York, and around the globe you can imagine that these companies will gain access to their network.

Applications are due by June 12, 2009. The program runs June 22 to September 4, 2009. And will conclude with a Demo event on September 12, 2009.

What: A summer technology start-up program that focuses on industry networking, technology mentoring and above all delivering a product to potential follow-on funders after only 12 weeks.

Who: We are looking for four smart and fast moving teams to participate. Typically all members of the two-three person team will be deep technically, but at least one of the founders should have a technical background.

How: After you apply and are accepted you will:

  • Get $5,000 (US) per founder in exchange for a 10% ownership stake in your company
  • Move your team to our shared ExtremeU office space at Yonge & King (downtown Toronto)
  • Have weekly mentoring sessions by industry experts in technology, funding, legal, PR, marketing and HR
  • Meet a who’s who of experts at our weekly socials and have an opportunity to practice your pitch and demo your in-progress prototype
  • Have access to local shared resources to accelerate product development (mentors, servers)

When: Applications are due by Friday June 12th, 2009. The program starts Monday June 22nd, 2009 to Friday September 4th, 2009 at the ExtremeU offices in Toronto at Yonge and King. The final demo day will be Tuesday September 15th, 2009 at Demo camp.

It’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and founders to come to Toronto. Work with a group of people at Extreme Venture Partners, gain exposure to a local, national and international network to help you build and grow a new company and product.

Apply Now!

Big Hairy Audacious Goals for Startups

Reid Hoffman talks about LinkedIn’s startup story on CNN. It’s a very interesting story about a successful entrepreneur becomes a serial entrepreneur by focusing on both a vision and a set of success metrics.

We had this initial challenge of, "How do you get a million people?" The first challenge was getting enough people so that functions like searching for people or sharing information had enough people in it to be valuable. The year 2003 was all about tuning and viral growth.

I’m a huge believer in getting a million people, getting them engaged, and then building a business model on top of that.

Why does a million people matter? Is this a good metric for other startups? How will know if you are successful? This requires having both a set of measures and a set of goals.

AARRR! Be Bold. Be Humble.

What should you be measuring? The good news is that others have done a lot of the heavy lifting. Dave McClure has a great presentation on Startup Metrics for Pirates. The

Dave has a quick 5 point plan for understanding how to frame a startup, the business model and the performance of both the marketing and product development efforts.

  • Passion for problem/solution + Hypothesis of Customer Lifecycle
  • 1 page Business Model: Prioritized List of (Users + Conversions + Priorities)
  • Critical, Few, Actionable Metrics + Dashboard of Measured User Behaviour
  • 1 page Marketing Plan: (Channels + Campaigns) * (Volume, Cost, Conversion %)
  • Velocity of (Product Execution + Cycle Time of Testing) * Iteration

This shouldn’t feel like rock science. It’s a way to frame the problems that all startups should be used to answering. What problem do you solve? What is life cycle of your customers? Who are your customers and how are you acquiring them? How do you reach your customers? How do you know if your development process is healthy? How will you know if you’ve been successful? It’s not rocket science.

BHAGs

Startup Metrics provide the baseline set of things a startup should be measuring. You should be building the data collection into your application, and he suggests you should “delegate each metric to someone to own”. This is the what, but it’s missing the Big Hairy Audacious Goal. The metrics are the starting point for measurement, and not they are not the target for an organization. 

What is your “million users” goal?

Introducing the StartupNorth Event Calendar

We get emails just about everyday asking for a calendar of startup events across Canada. And it is a damn shame for entrepreneurs to miss a chance to meet up just because there is no event calendar. So without further ado, head on over and check it out. Right now, we just have Toronto events listed, but we’ll be adding Calendars for all the other great regions across Canada as soon as possible.

We are using Google Calendar so people across the country can collaborate on this project. If you already use Google Calendar and would like to occasionally contribute by posting events, contact us and we?ll provide you with this super power.

Updates: Edmonton is now onboard (thanks to Cam)! Montreal coming soon (thanks to Heri)! And Waterloo too (thanks to Thom)! Note: If you also live in these cities and are interested in contributing, please contact us as well!

___________________________

Mea Culpa. I pulled the image that originally accompanied this post. Why? Well first off, I wasn’t particularly satisfied with it to begin with. While this Calendar Project is something we?ve been thinking about for a while now, the image to accompany the announcement was just something I rushed out this morning. Yes, of course it was just a joke. No, this was not my finest work with Photoshop. For those of you curious what all the hoopla is about, you can find the image posted here.

My hope is for this Calendar Project to help get more people (men AND women) out to events and as a result working together building great companies. I?d hate for anyone to feel left out. Two of the many things I love about Canada are its inclusiveness and that people call things how they see them. I wouldn?t change either of these things for the world.

I hope you find the calendar useful. See you at an upcoming event.

Jonas