If you don’t have your train ticket yet, grab one now as we will sell out again this year. Our early ticket purchasers get dibs on spots for our on-train mentoring with the likes of Jim Estill, Zak Homuth, Brian Kobus and many more.

You remember the roadtrips of your youth, some with your parents, some with just friends. For our greatest roadtrips, we remember the journey the rest of our lives but often pause and think “where were we headed?”

“Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive”, ZAMM, Robert Pirsig

Last year we organized a roadtrip for startup founders and funders. We reserved our own car on a Via train and packed it full of entrepreneurs. Our destination was The International Startup Festival in Montreal for three full days of meeting, conversing, learning and working with a truly international audience of startup people.

This July, we’re aiming to have three cars, two passenger cars along with a bar car that we’ll use for our on-train events.

Startup conferences are very different beasts compared to their corporate cousins. People aren’t attending “because my boss sent me”. Instead the majority have spent what little pocket change they have to get there. The result is a conference filled with hustlers motivated to get a ton of value out of being there. We hope to help.

Instead of wasting your travel time, join us on the Ontario Startup Train and let’s get organized before we’re even registered for the conference. Our hope is to get you thinking and sharing what you need to get out of attending this conference before hand. Sharing that with other people on the train means it won’t be just you hunting for an introduction to Dave McClure or speaking to that potential partner you want to invite into your new project.

The post Ontario Startup Train Meetup appeared first on StartupNorth.

Are you waiting impatiently for Dreamforce? Why Dreamforce? Where else could you have seen: Red Hot Chilli Peppers (2012), Metallica (2011), Stevie Wonder (2010), Black Crowes (2009), Foo Fighters (2008), Inxs (2007), Train (2006), etc. It’s an amazing list of bands but you have to head all the way to San Francisco to find out who’s headlining 2013. Why not try something a little more local and a little sooner.

Ok, it’s not Dreamforce, but the folks at KPMG have put together  the KPMG GTA Tech Leaders Concert Series – AmaTour (password: KPMG). The event is Thursday, May 30, 2013 at Sound Academy on Polson Pier. It features bands from Ceridian (formerly Dayforce), KPMG, Smithson Martin, Intelex and others. Rumor is there might be a big name or two that take the stage. Alan Smithson Follow @alan_smithson is MCing/DJing. If you aren’t familiar with Alan, his Emulator is used by Linkin Park and Infected Mushroom and others. It’s going to be fun.

The goal of the event is to raise money in support of the Ride to Conquer Cancer. Tickets are $40 each with 100% of the proceeds going to Ride to Conquer Cancer.

The Toronto startup community lost a good friend in Michael O’Connor Clarke to cancer on October 14, 2012. And we will not forget, and we continue to support fundraising efforts. This is a great opportunity to get out of the office for a social evening with some tunes and make some connections.

Join us Thursday, May 30 (password: KPMG) for a social event.

Disclosure: KPMG is a sponsor of StartupNorth.

The post GTA Tech Leaders Concert – May 30 2013 @ Sound Academy appeared first on StartupNorth.

Wall art on the Build Ventures/Volta wall

Patrick Keefe is announcing his new fund today called Build Ventures, a $50m early and mid stage fund based in Halifax.

The guy is a Harvard MBA, an Oxford grad, former Atlas Ventures principal, Boston Consulting Group executive and he built over a dozen Starbucks coffee franchises which he then sold back to Starbucks corporate. When you meet Patrick and dig in to his background you start wonder where the hell this guy came from.

What’s even better is that Build is the in-house fund at Volta, a new startup crash pad in Halifax that currently houses 10 startups. The fund has taken up residence at Volta and has been a key part of getting it started.

The fund has just launched so it hasn’t announced any investments yet, but we are excited to see which deals they do first.

Volta and Build are two big leaps for the startup community in Atlantic Canada and when you consider it alongside what has been happening in New Brunswick with Launch36 and Startup Week, as well as a recent string of big exits, it seems like things are accelerating incredibly quickly.

The next major event is the Atlantic Venture Forum in June which is being keynoted by Paul Singh.

The post Build launches in Atlantic Canada appeared first on StartupNorth.

It’s the time of the year where we either make you a hero or we make you hate me a little more. As stated in the previous comments, this could very well be The List of People That David Crow Wants to Be Associated With (but I think I established that is a different list). Either way, the commenter is correct, the list is something and it is highly suspect and by no means complete. If you don’t like the list, leave a comment. If you think I left genuinely left someone off, leave a comment (ps suggesting yourself, either demonstrates your overly inflated ego or you might not realize that your suggestion by itself if a reason to be left of the list). I’m open to being corrected and having the list added to.

Past issues of the list include 2011 and 2012.

For 2013, the list is divided between those we expect to break out (Breaking Glass). And those that are taking it to the next level (Going Big). Basically, you will be hearing from or about these people over the next 12 months. So everyone get in a circle, it’s time for the 2013 instalment of the Hot Shit List.

Hot Sh!t List 2013

Breaking Glass

• Steve Lake , Thalmic Labs , Aaron Grant and Matthew Bailey , Thalmic Labs
• Heather Payne , Ladies Learning Code/HackerYou
• Zak Homuth , Upverter
• Wojciech Gryc , Canopy Labs
• Janice Diner , Catalysta
• Karl Martin and Foteini Agrafioti , Bionym
• Ben Zifkin , Hubba
• Mark Ury , Storybird
• Matthew Harris and Brad Van Vugt , Send With Us
• David Alston , IntroHive
• John Boxall , Mobify
• Katherine Hague , ShopLocket
• Rob Ellis and Brock Whittens , Harp.io
• Ozge Yeloglu ,Toplog
• Trevor Orsztynowicz , Caliper.io
• Ariel Garten , InteraXon
• Frank Falcone , TriggerFox
• Andrew Sider , Bunch
• Sreejata Chatterjee , Leadsift
• Dan Holowack , CrowdRiff
• Adrian Bentley , AnalyzeRE
• Lisa Zhang , PolyChart
• Sam Pasupalak , Maluuba
• Malgosia Green , Top Hat Monocle
• Narayan Sainaney , Moj.io
• Matt Rendall , Clearpath Robotics
• Jacqui Murphy , Fongo
• David Quail , Zenlike
• Dan Robichaud , PasswordBox
• Josh Sookman , Guardly
• Vlad Berteanu , Octav Druta and Andrei Soare , TalentBuddy
• Carl Mercier , HipYard

Going Big

• Tobi Lutke and Harley Finkelstein , Shopify
• Ryan Holmes , Hootsuite
• Ethan Song and Hicham Ratnani , Frank and Oak
• Wilkins Chung , Kenshi Akashi and Eric Diep , A Thinking Ape
• Ted Livingston , Kik
• Amar Varma , Xtreme Labs
• John Baker , Desire2Learn
• Rick Segal , Fixmo
• Mike Silagadze , Top Hat Monocle
• Chris Sukornyk , Chango
• Carol Leaman , Axonify
• Dax Dasilva , LightSpeed
• Kyle Vucko , Indochino
• Mark Organ , Influitive
• Oleg Gustol , 500px
• Mike McDerment and Mark MacLeod , Freshbooks
• Ben Baldwin , ClearFit
• Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen , Wattpad
• Kirk Simpson and James Lochrie , Wave Accounting
• Noah Godfrey and Pema Hagen , Checkout51
• Mike Litt and Devon Galloway , Vidyard
• Dan Martell , Clarity Inc.
• Joseph Fung , TribeHR
• Jamie Shulman and Jamie McDonald , HubDoc
• Jason Bailey , East Side Games
• Albert Lai , Big Viking Games
• Derek Ting , Enflick
• Chris Ye , Uken Games
• Ken Seto , and Garry Seto , , Massive Damage
• Rick Perreault , Unbounce
• Jeff Shiner and Roustem Karimov , AgileBits
• Yona Shtern , Beyond The Rack
• Jack Newton and Rian Gauvreau , Clio

The icons are courtesy of Anil Zaimi, though I haven’t spent the necessary time to make this work with our stylesheet and theme in WordPress.

The post Hot Shit List 2013 appeared first on StartupNorth.

Is it me, or does it feel like there are 2 distinct seasons of activity in the startup community?

• Post Christmas Pre-Summer (aka golf season) Holiday
• Post First of School and Pre American Thanksgiving

Whether it is reality or bad cliche, it feels like there are 3-4 months of the year where nothing gets done. But no more!

Thanks to events like Startup Festival and Grow Conf, the summer season for Canadian startups is getting stronger and more important. There are localized opportunities to connect with investors, strategic partners, and potential customers at events like the aforementioned Startup Festival and Grow Conf plus Jolt Demo Fest, Atlantic Venture Forum, Metabridge and others. (You could go to CVCA in Banff, and golf with the Canadian VC landscape, that might up your chances of raising funding).

Things for Startups To Do

1. Apply to pitch at StartupFest. Startups get access to press, investors, and a chance at a $50k investment prize from the organizing committee.
   Deadline: Friday, May 10, 2013 5pm EDT.
2. Apply to be one of the 45 Canadian startups at the Metabridge retreat. You’ll get access to investors, advisors and a great cultural event.
   Deadline: Friday, May 10, 2013 5pm PDT.
3. Apply to throwdown at the Smackdown at GrowConf. Winners will get access to press and investors. Plus more Debbie Landa.
   Deadline: Tuesday, August 13, 2013

There are a lot of opportunities for Canadian startups to get access to both local and foreign capital, corporate development folks and press by participating in these events. Take a bit of time, and figure out which ones you benefit from attending. Plus it’s a great excuse to get out of the office and hustle.

The post A Startup for All Seasons appeared first on StartupNorth.

The moments we choose to celebrate say a lot about what we consider important. They’re a proxy for the metrics we value, because we’re signalling to others by their very celebration. And yet, I’ve always been of the belief that startups tend to celebrate the wrong things.

If that’s true, what signals are we sending? We celebrate product launches, government grant acceptance, fundraising, winning pitch contests, and so on. Too often, these are the vanity metrics of our startup ecosystem.

Of course, some of these events are worthy of celebration. A grant lets us live to fight another day; a winning pitch might drive sales or help us to hire a key employee. But they would be way down on my list, personally, if my goal was to build a real business. Let’s stop concentrating on celebrating events like taking on debt or winning what is often little more than a beauty contest—and focus instead on what we should celebrate but rarely do.

At ThreeFortyNine, we celebrate the achievements that matter to the business model. Consider, for example, the first time you sell something to a complete stranger. That’s worth celebrating because it’s the first sign your business might have legs of its own. In our Founder’s Club events, we celebrate selling our first train tickets to strangers; Foldigo celebrated its first-ever sale to a stranger. Our plan is to build up this list and move it into our monthly socials.

We’re building our Startupify.Me program around the concept that talented developers stepping into startup life need options. Incubators, accelerators and government grant programs funnel them into a single, traditional path thereby discouraging experimentation. We want our cohort to have the option to create a lifestyle business or a even a small, local business—if they choose. Of course, any of them can still try and swing for the fences, but they have all options in front of them.

“We didn’t get to where we are today thanks to policy makers – but thanks to the appetite for risks and errors of a certain class of people we need to encourage, protect, and respect” – Nassim Taleb

Only in recent years have books like Lean Analytics begun to draw out the real risks of obsessing over feel-good data that does little for the business—so-called “vanity metrics”. There’s a very real danger if a young entrepreneur believes that success comes in the form of taking on debt, winning a pitch contest and launching a product. Those may be required for some businesses but they shouldn’t be misconstrued as success.

Part of the challenge here is the proliferation of what I call success turnstiles in our ecosystem. These are entities whose prime motivation is to funnel as many businesses as possible through their turnstile. It’s a pure numbers game for them as they chase their success metrics. These entities tend to be government funded and these success metrics are defined by bureaucrats and can be tracked up the organizational hierarchy to a speech-writer’s desk.

We need to lead real conversations about what success is because it comes in many shapes and forms. Advocates of this more mindful form of celebration include Jason Cohen imploring founders to get 150 customers instead of 1000 fans and Rob Walling helping startups to start, and stay, small.

Here’s an initial list of milestones and accomplishments worth celebrating to get you started.

• Performed 30 interviews with real potential users.
• First customer acquired.
• First customer acquired and you have no idea where they came from.
• Covering your monthly personal costs.
• Identifying the first product feature a potential customer will pay cash for.

Which vanity metrics need to stop being celebrated? What do we need to celebrate more?

The post Vanity Celebrations appeared first on StartupNorth.

“You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen.

And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there are tremendous tradeoffs that you have to make. There are just certain things you can’t make electrons do. There are certain things you can’t make plastic do. Or glass do. Or factories do. Or robots do….

And it’s that process that is the magic.” – Steve Jobs quote as quoted by Travis Jeffery of 37 Signals

The lifecycle of consumer hardware startups is undergoing a rapid transformation (see Chris Dixon’s Hardware Startups). Consider the well known Pebble Smartwatch; the first example of a company that perhaps unintentionally used crowdfunding to demonstrate demand for their concept long before they had the ability to produce it at scale. The $10.7M raised significantly decreased the upfront risk for the company, allowed them to avoid dilution by avoiding traditional financing methods, and decreased their inventory risk due to this ability to accurately forecast demand before production.

This change in the stage of demand generation represents a new paradigm for hardware startups. Whereas before they likely had to build and scale manufacturing prior to generating demand for their product, they can now accurately forecast this simply by gauging reactions to a proof of concept video.

However, the purpose of this post is not to highlight all the good stuff surrounding this method of funding for hardware startups; I think those are largely well known and accepted. Instead, I’d like to address what other impacts this change has on the lifecycle and trajectory of a company.

Exploring the Impacts

Firstly, with large surges of excitement and accompanying pre-orders surrounding these campaigns, a company has to jump from a conceptual and iterative stage to become an operational company thereby skipping a lot of crucial steps in between. Perhaps one of the most important steps they must skip is the pricing strategy for each unit. Without sufficient vision into QA, returns, defective products and COGS, they can’t accurately work these costs into the price of the product. Furthermore, if we look solely at the numbers, the outlook for the company is bleak as they’ve already locked into a certain price with their pre-orders, as well as a specific timeline, and this can end up costing the company huge amounts of money down the road.

See below to visualize this change:

Old World:

Team → Concept → Seed → Prototype → Financing → Design/Manufacture/QA → Iteration → Pricing of product → Pre orders → Distribute

New World:

Team → Concept → Seed → Prototype → Pricing of product /Timeline commitment → Video launch → Pre orders → Financing (maybe) → Design/manufacture/QA → Distribute → Iteration

In the new world, companies price their product very early on, and jump from video launch to production. This places them on a trajectory that perhaps they aren’t ready for.

Let’s consider other impacts of this change:

• Risk is transferred from the company to the consumer
  • In the old world, consumers saw a pre-order to launch time of 2-3 weeks. In this model it changes to around 9 months to 1 year.
  • The increase in time from demand generation to product in market is far longer in the new world. No Kickstarter hardware campaign has brought their product to market in less than 9 months from the close of their pre-orders – meaning consumers have to wait far longer than they’re use to for the product.
  • The 9 months to 1 year is long in terms of time from pre-order to time of distribution, but actually very short when we put this in the context of the stage of the company and the typical time between conception of a product to larger scale distribution.
  • Effectively what this means is the risk is transferred from the company to the consumer. In the old world, companies would have to take shots in the dark and validate their concept after an upfront investment in manufacturing. Today even if the product is a flop consumers will have to pay.
• Less appetite from consumers for second chances
  • Whereas in the past consumers may have given hardware products second chances (see Jawbone UP V1 vs. V2), by the time these products are in the consumers hands there may be less interest and far less enthusiasm to give the product a second chance.
  • The amount of time from showing intent to gratifying their demand is so long in this case, that they may have even written it off even by the time they receive it. All this means is you better strike some resonance with the consumer on this first push.
• Feedback Cycle Lengthened
  • The cycle between launch and iterations to the product is far harder to manage in this model. By the time you’ve scaled operations feedback is just beginning to roll in – and you may lack the resources to implement the needed changes to the product.
  • Perhaps the more important feedback cycle in the new world has become the software iteration cycle that sits on top of the hardware. Often this takes a backseat as scaling manufacturing is a massive task unto itself, but in today’s world, this is where the real value stems from.
• Shipping incomplete products
  • As mentioned, much of the value stems from the SDK attached to the hardware and providing the infrastructure to allow developers to build applications on top of the platform.
  • With an underestimation of the time required to scale manufacturing, SDK’s often take a back seat and the products ship with limited functionality – far more limited than demonstrated in the concept videos.
  • Furthermore by accelerating the demand, companies often miss out on the experimentation/iterative phase of prototype development. They commit to a timeline and have to choose a solution before they may be ready.
  • With the demand to scale operations so quickly, the QA process inevitably takes a hit as well and can result in higher costs down the road.
• Discovery and experimentation phase cut
  • In the new world, the video launch occurs before scaling of production happens. This process can teach a company a tremendous amount, but because they have often committed to a timeline and promised a certain product, they’ve locked themselves into something that is great conceptually, but may not be feasible in reality.
  • This discovery and experimentation phase is shortened greatly, and as Steve Jobs mentioned, this is the process that is magic.
• Inaccurate Timelines
  • 84% of kickstarter/pre-order projects will miss their deadlines.
• Threat From Incumbents to Pick Off Technology
  • Proven demand with an inability to act allows bigger competitors to jump in and launch competitive products really quickly – seeing this now with Apple/Sony and Pebble

One of the classic problems that lead to startup’s demise that we hear of all the time is pre-scaling. Companies start building out the core features of their business without truly knowing what they are. As they increase their burn rate to high levels, their margin for error becomes extremely low by the time they reach market. If that initial product doesn’t hit a nice trajectory, they’d better find it fast because the cash in the bank will only last them so long before they have to raise again, and if they haven’t proven anything by that time, it likely won’t be an attractive prospect for investors resulting in a down round, or worse.

This is not to say that this new process is a negative shock to the ecosystem, quite the opposite actually. I think crowdfunding and proof of concept similar to that of concept cars spurs innovation and creativity, and encourages new entrants to shoot for the stars; something we always need more of.

However, the risks of the new world have not yet been explored in depth, nor have they actualized as many of the relevant companies are still very young. Many processes like QA and iterative industrial design inevitably decrease in quality and leads to lower quality products shipped, higher cost of returns, and inaccurate pricing of the product; a dangerous game to play.

Crowdfunding and pre-orders is definitely a good thing, but perhaps we need to recognize where along the lifecycle of a company this process exists, and what exactly it proves. It does not mean the company is successful, but merely represents one proof point out of many needed along the journey to building a great company.

The post Hardware and Startups appeared first on StartupNorth.

My next 2 trip are very different. The first is another workshop with Toon. The second is to attend Atlantic Venture Forum (still working on travel plans).

We are looking for startups that are “at the point where you have to push your business or business idea to the next level”.

The Workshop

The workshops with Toon are interesting. You can read Peter Moreira’s piece on the workshops. The workshop is a Thursday to Sunday ordeal. It’s called an Investor Readiness Workshop. The goal is to put companies through an artificially intense meat grinder and focus on building a stronger investment presentation. The goal is to walk through your business plan, your assumptions, and your traction. Toon provides his guidance from his experience funding companies in Europe and North America. I provide my experiences as an entrepreneur and what I’ve learned living for a short period of time on the other side of the table.

The goal is to provide Atlantic Canadian founders practical advice about refining their business plan. It revolves around Toon’s PhaseMap methodology and software tools.

The PhaseMap methodology helps define and articulate a business case around 4 questions:

• Do customers need and want my product? = Value Proposition
• Is there a market, big enough and ready to pay now? = Market
• Do customers wan to buy from me? = Positioning
• Can I deliver? = Execution

Why?

• Learn how focusing on your customers pain is the key to defining your value proposition, market and position. Practical real world, in the trenches advice about raising financing from both sides of the table
• To provide the team with methods and tools they can use to learn more about customers and product/market fit.
• Provide individual feedback to startup teams throughout the session, both to guide the iteration and strengthening of their startups and to provide strong group learning

Who?

Ideally, founders either written a business plan, started the investment circuit, and/or generated a few business models or a Lean Canvas or two. The target audience is companies that are actively raising investment capital. The focus is on how to make the case for your business. How good is your business case and how well you are able to present it? These are the crucial factors founders will learn in how to convince others of the quality of your plans.

How much?

Update: I’ve been informed that if companies are willing to cover their own travel expenses, the good folks at ACOA are willing to make exceptions for companies from across Canada.

The workshop is sponsored by ACOA. If you are a founder based in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, PEI or New Brunswick you are eligible for ACOA sponsorship. The ACOA team has informed me that the workshop is open to any Canadian startup willing to cover their own travel expenses to the region. The fees are divided between the founders and ACOA. Fees for founders are $750 for up to 2 founders to attend. This covers hotel and food costs. The remaining fees are covered by ACOA.

When?

The next workshop is June 6-9, 2013 in Halifax.

Attend

It’s a fun, intense weekend that is designed to help startups and founders.

The post Making the business case appeared first on StartupNorth.

David is the co-founder of StartupNorth, founder of DemoCamp, co-founder of Nakama (ask him about this one… a wee bit ahead of its time), co-founder of Influitive and is currently in residence at OMERS Ventures. He has a better pulse on the Canadian Venture and Startup community than anyone else. He’s also a father to two of the sweetest little girls you will ever meet.

This Democamp is going to be kept small and 100% focused on great demos from high potential startups. It will be a lot of fun. Think of it less as a conference and more like a chance to hang out with some friends. We are calling it Mini because we are getting rid of the frills but I promise the startups and their demos will be as BIG as ever.

The event is free for Entrepreneurs and Students. We could use a few sponsors to cover costs, so please get in touch with Milan if you can help out. These sponsorships are a great value because they are just meant to keep the event out of the red.

You can register on Eventbrite.

The post DemoCamp Halifax 3 – David Crow edition appeared first on StartupNorth.

Toronto is a center of gravity for financial services. There aren’t a lot of financial technology startups in Toronto. There is a new Toronto FinTech Meetup. FIrst meeting is Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at the MaRS Commons (Suite 230, 101 College St.) hosted by Blair Livingston of Quantify Labs.

Bay Street and Natural Resources

[Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Blair Livingston LinkedIn Follow @blairlivingston, founder of Quantify Labs. Full disclosure: I'm an investor in Quantify Labs. Blair and I share a view that given the technology and talent available on Bay Street there should be a strong financial tech and startup community in Toronto. It is sad that my typing "toronto fintech" into Google results in a Montreal conference as the first result. ]

Great cities prosper and thrive, in part, because of their proximity to valuable resources. Arguably, the nearby resources were likely the main reason the city or village was situated in that location to begin with. However, it’s not enough to simply be near resources – gold still has to be mined – and we need to put those resources to work. Indeed, Canada is a country rich in resources; we have diamonds, gold, lumber, oil, gas and everything in-between. Canada’s strong economy is fuelled in part by this abundance of resources.

However, over the last hundred years (or so) new types of resources have emerged – communities, technologies, groups, industries and people. Many of these resources don’t take the familiar form of something tangible and malleable, and for that reason can go unnoticed for a long time.

One Hub to Rule Them All

When we talk about finance, we invariably talk about New York City. We talk about Wall Street, the 1%, and a concentration of capital, services, people and technology that makes NYC one of the financial industry capitals (if not THE capital). It is the density of entrepreneurs, emerging companies and people that are one of NYC’s greatest resources. Consider the effects on start-ups built to service financial companies – this industry has supported, nurtured and allowed some of the biggest financial technology companies in the world to grow and flourish in its ecosystem.

Bloomberg LP, with estimated yearly top line revenues of $10 billion, was started in New York. The city is host to a number of trading venues, back office technology providers, data aggregators and other interesting and innovative companies built on the resource of this community concentration. They even have an accelerator dedicated solely to financial services technology (appropriately named the FinTech Innovation Lab).

In New York, FinTech flourishes by connecting the community and building an ecosystem that leverage existing resources. Financial institutions play a role in supporting the new ecosystem by acting as customers, acquirers of startups and hiring talent that develops in each of the early stage companies. Demonstrated by the support, both financial and at very high management levels, that FinTech Innovation Lab receives. It’s no wonder a large portion of all leading financial technology, especially institutional tech, is coming out of New York.

Where is FinTech in Toronto?

Toronto has a booming financial industry. Our banks are in excellent shape. The combined market capitalization of Canada’s six leading banks is more than $323 billion. And with that kind of market capitalization comes new problems, new opportunities and potentially new tech. The difficulty lies in the regulation, legislation, risk standards and software/hardware requirements. This poses challenges for developers and entrepreneurs in selling to financial services firms. It doesn’t matter if the solution is aimed at the retail (bank branches or individuals), corporate (the mother ship) or institutional (sales & trading, investment banking). Selling to financial institutions is not an easy process. It requires assistance in process, guidance (legal, technical, financial), support, experience and a depth of knowledge that is greater than just hustling.

It is because of the complexity in the go-to-market and technical requirements, why very little innovation happens in financial services technology (aka fintech). It’s like the shadow cast on a wall – it looks menacing, like a panther or some dangerous beast – but in reality it’s only a little kitten. If you understand how to deal with the issues, and properly approach them, they aren’t all that scary (and a little help never hurts).

But, with little innovation comes massive opportunity – there is so much opportunity in financial technology that it’s hard to decide where to begin.
What Toronto needs is to start taking advantage of these resources – a thriving financial services industry. It’s already happening in pockets around the city, but it’s about time we started getting aligned to make a consolidated push together. I have had the opportunity of meeting with/hearing about/noticing some interesting financial tech companies in the city, who include:

• D+H (payment/lending solutions)
• Market IQ (data/social sentiment analysis)
• FINMAVEN (data/social sentiment analysis)
• eDYNAMICS (salesforce integration and consulting/cloud computing)
• OANDA (FX trading platform)
• Quantify Labs (institutional content/CRM platform)

Who else should be on this list? Who are the startups, developers, investors and entrepreneurs that are interested in FinTech in Toronto? If the community is the framework, let’s get the community going. Let’s share stories and guidance on selling, building and launching financial technology. Let’s offer insight and experience into usage and problems. Let’s discuss. Let’s take advantage of one of this city’s most abundant resources. That’s what we want to do, and if you have any interest in financial technology, I would encourage you to sign up for the Toronto Fintech Meetup. We’re having our first ever meeting next Wednesday, April 10th, at the MaRS Commons, just a ‘get to know you’ – no speakers, no schedule, just an introduction to the financial tech community in Toronto.

When I started in finance ask a desk analyst, I was repeatedly told – “it’s too bad, the low hanging fruit is gone” – well I took a walk out of that orchard, down the lane, and stumbled into another called Financial Technology. The fruit just isn’t low hanging, it’s on the ground – we just need a few more people to come help us pick it up.

• Toronto Fintech Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Fintech-Meetup/
• Sign Up for April 10, 2013 event: http://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Fintech-Meetup/events/111126842/

The post Bay Street & Natural Resources – FinTech in Toronto appeared first on StartupNorth.