Category Archives: Startups

The Unicorn Awards

The Unicorn Awards 2013

Canada, Marketing, News, Startups, ,

Our friends over at TechVibes have posted a call for nominations for 2013 Canadian Startup Awards. This just screams that we also need an Ig Nobels/Darwin Awards equivalent.

  • Zombie Startup of the Year Award – Recognizing a Canadian startup that continues to live on the brains of its’ founders, but not customers.
  • The Snapchat Award – Recognizing a Canadian startup that won’t sell to Facebook, even if the offer was for more than $4B.
  • Stop the Gravy Train Award – Recognizing sketchiest use of tax payer money in our burgeoning startup ecosystem.
  • The Twerk It Award – Recognizing the media accomplishments of an exemplanary Canadian entrepreneur, who is getting as much coverage  as Miley Cyrus in 2013.
  • Keeping up with the Kanadians Award – Recognizing the startup that has watched previous episodes of startup reality TV but failed to comprehend the complex plot lines.

We’ll be announcing the awards before Christmas…And we need your help. Send us a tweet, leave a comment, or just drop us an email with a suggestion for the awards. Or just leave an anonymous nomination.

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Where’s Waldo?

Events, Ontario, Startups, Toronto, , , , ,

I’ve written about CIX Top 20 Follow @CIXCommunity in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. To follow my pattern here is my post for 2013. Full disclosure: I sit on the Advisory Board for CIX. 

There are 3 core events in the Canadian startup calendar:

There are other happenings and gatherings ranging from NxNE to HPX Digital to Mesh to the C100 events. If you need a reminder about the state of the Toronto startup ecosystem, make sure you check out my now 14 month old but still relevant post, Don’t Panic.

Each of the above events is optimized for different audience needs. CIX brings the  viewpoint of Canadian investors (if you care). The advisory board is primarily venture capitalists (a few lawyers, a couple of CEOs and  one evangelist):

  • Roger Chabra, Rho Ventures
  • Boris Wertz, Version One Ventures
  • Mark MacLeod, Freshbooks (recovering VC)
  • Barry Gekiere, IAF
  • Joe Catalfamo, Summerhill VP
  • Justin LaFayette, Georgian Partners

The advisory board is 44 people big. And approximately 30 are doing some form of investment. It’s almost 70% are actively making investments in technology companies. There is very strong Canadian VC and investor representation in the group that advise and plan the conference content.

And it shows in the content, of the 67 scheduled speakers (as of Nov 14), 19 of the speakers are from the advisory board – that’s 28% of the content. (It’s even higher if you include partners and others from firms of advisory board members). If you want to know what Canadian VCs and investors are thinking, this is the best way to see what is important. They define this conference. They provide the content and the voices at the conference.

So why go?

CIX gives you insight in to the types of companies, IP and traction that Canadian investors are currently looking for. It is the barometer of the “high potential growth technology companies” in Canada. It will be interesting to see what everyone thinks are the hot companies and trends. The panels and policy discussions are the things that Canadian investors are grasping and struggling with. It will be interesting to hear the conversations.

You might argue that as an entrepreneur you don’t care about these conversations. They don’t help you grow your business, build your product, or acquire customers. But they do provide you insight into the mind set of the people you are trying to raise money from. That might be the thing that gives you an unfair advantage in understanding their decision making process this year.

I love that 2 of my personal investments Upverter and OpenCare made the Top 20. Full disclosure: My employer, OMERS Ventures, is an investor in 360 incentives. I’m also excited to check in on Breather, Bionym, Axonify, Hubba and others. The CIX Top 20 has turned out some of the best companies in the past 5 years.

It is possible to make your luck at CIX (just remember the preferred method of connecting).

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The Odds are You’re Going to Fail

Investors, Launch, Startups
Now now chief, I'm in the zone

Stay focused! We have this on the wall at GoInstant. Source Mike Mitchell

I mean that in the most constructive way possible!

You’re unlikely to recruit founders, raise money, gain traction, earn revenue, get acquired or go public. You’re very likely to fail.

Here’s How Bad Your Odds Of Success Are

To beat these odds, you need to be doing everything you can to find an edge, especially pre-funding or pre-revenue.

Here are 3 of the most common questions I disappointingly ask early stage startups:

1. You’re not full-time?

It’s insulting to ask an investor for money if you’re not full-time on your startup.

You need to be way beyond the one-foot-in stage before raising a round. If you don’t believe in the idea enough to go all-in, why should investors, customers or your team believe it?

Full-time is the bare minimum. Large companies are working 40 hours a week, with way more resources. How can you accomplish more each day than them? You need to work longer. You can’t expect balance in your life, especially when the team is small. You need complete obsession over work.

Assume there is competition working on the exact same idea. Even if you don’t know about them, imagine them. They are small startups, medium sized companies, and large enterprises. They are working relentlessly. They could launch faster. They could launch bigger. Let the threat drive you forward.

Work weekends, work evenings, pull all nighters. Obsess over it.

2. Where’s your demo?

You need a demo, and it needs to be amazing.

If you get feedback on that demo, consider it then implement it right away. Stay up all night and work on it. There should be at least two of you; the CEO demoing during the day and the CTO working all night to implement. Iterate, iterate, iterate, as fast as possible.

The important thing here is momentum. You need serious momentum. You need an unstoppable train. Your momentum will attract your team, investors, and customers.

3. You have side projects?

Side projects will distract and kill your startup.

You should be working with obsessive focus on one idea and one idea only. Facebook was almost killed by Zuckerberg’s side project.

Side-projects are great for creativity. Many developers have side projects that they use to keep their skills sharp. Many companies have R&D labs or a percentage of hack time. Early stage startups are not the place for side projects.

Write all your ideas down, then get back to focus. Constantly consider priority. What is the most important thing you could be doing right now to move customer or investor relationships forward? Your entire company should be thinking this way.

You need every edge you can get

Your only edge is to find an edge everywhere. Long hours, momentum, focus.

It’s not sustainable, and that’s a good thing. If you can’t make it work then you fail fast. Pivot or fold and try again! If you CAN make it work you can hire enough people to bring back a healthy work-life balance.

Set goals for your team in short intervals. We will achieve X by Y date or we will [pivot, fold, etc].

Remember, beating the odds isn’t easy, but there are many ways to find an edge.