extremestartups

There are 5 posts tagged extremestartups (this is page 1 of 2).

The Boulder Thesis – A Sketchbook

The folks at the Kauffman foundation have put together a Sketchbook video of Brad Feld talking about the Boulder Thesis. We’re hosting a conversation with Brad Feld on October 30, 2012. We hope that you will join us. Tickets are $25 and include a copy of Brad’s book. My recommendation before attending is that everyone watch the sketchbook, it provides an effective overview of the book, and the basis to participate in the conversation.

I love this book. It captures many of my thoughts and philosophies, that I have not been able to articulate as succinctly or clearly as Brad. I have worked in high potential growth software since I joined Trilogy Software back in 1997. This was 15 years ago. I hope that I will still be working in high growth software in 15 years (that’s 2027 for those keeping track). I love the opportunities that I have had in Toronto. I am very happy to see new world-class startups that are scaling and growing in this city and across the country (go read my post on the Toronto Startup Ecosystem). I’m excited to see many entrepreneurs trying to build massive companies and stay in Canada.

We have both leaders and feeders participating in the conversation. We hope that you will join us to learn more about what Feld says sustainable entrepreneurial communities MUST HAVE:

  • Two types of people: leaders (entrepreneurs) and feeders (people who support startups, such as government agencies, funders, service providers). While the “feeders” are the very fabric of the community, the entrepreneurs must be in the lead.
  • A long-term view and commitment to building this community
  • A philosophy of inclusiveness that welcomes everyone with an interest, not just entrepreneurs
  • Substantive activities that engage the entire community to help startups move forward

Join us on October 30, 2012. I was speaking with Katherine Roos at Enterprise Toronto and we were talking about who should participate? Who do you think should attend?

A Conversation with Brad Feld – Oct 30, 2012 in Toronto

A Conversation with Brad Feld on Startup Communities - Oct 30, 2012 in Toronto

On October 30, 2012 we are hosting an event with Brad. The event starts at 6:00pm. It is at the Toronto Reference Library. Tickets start at $25/ticket and include a copy of the book (either hardcopy or a DRM protected PDF). We will have a few cocktails, some networking, and a discussion about how we make Toronto a better place for startups. We’re just working out the details for the event.

Great list of sponsors and supporters:

We’re excited to hear more about the Boulder method and the efforts of Brad Feld , . We’re huge fans of this book, check out William Mougayar’s review. The Don’t Panic: A Guide to the Toronto Startup Ecosystem post was inspired inspired by the desire to (see Brad’s comments on StartupRev).

The first step is joining in the conversation.

Buy a ticket

How to get the most out of AngelList: As a VC and as an Entrepreneur

I love AngelList.  I truly believe it is disrupting the way early stage deals are being discovered and funded.

When I was with BlackBerry Partners Fund (now Relay Ventures), I used AngelList to virtually meet and screen tons of companies.  I set up Super Fridays for myself, filling my mornings and/or afternoons with back-to-back 30 minute calls with 10-12 companies.  I really recommend this to any young VC looking for both dealflow and honing their game.  The velocity and juxtaposition of all these entrepreneurs, pitches, and companies really taught me how to evaluate deals along the VC spectrum:

  • (NO) polite and immediate no thank you
  • (NOT YET) check back with traction
  • (NOT SURE) send me your pitch deck so I can another set of eyes on this
  • (POTENTIALLY) let me bring this up at the next Monday partner meeting and see if someone bites
  • (YES) holy moly let me get John Albright right now

All told, I probably screened 150-200 companies every three months on AngelList alone.  Ultimately, after all those Super Fridays, the firm funded two great companies: PubNub and ClearFit.

Now as I sit somewhat on the other side, running Extreme Startups, I am spending time trying to get VCs to view our companies’ AngelList profiles.  To help figure out what companies should be doing on AngelList to help maximize their exposure, we at Extreme Startups recently had a session with Ash Fontana from AngelList to get his advixe.  Ash shared some best practices that I’d like to share with our community.  His advice included a lot of great tips and some common sense details that time-crunched entrepreneurs might glance over.

Company Profiles

  1. Fill it out completely.  All the sections and tabs.  Comprehensive profiles are definitely the best so that there is both pertinent and substantive information.  One good tip is for the Founder Bios – include university info as well as some investors search for key schools.
  2. Be open / generous with information.  Specifically for the Fundraising tab, the Deal Terms should be filled out.  You don’t need to put valuation, but some indication helps investors looking for certain price ranges or structures (convertible note vs. equity).
  3. Use graphics – slides, screenshots, graphs, and videos to make a static page pop.

Key tips to stand out

  • State the most original thing or function your product and company does.
  • Information about the market size is key.
  • Name something extraordinary about your company or founders.
  • State the hardest problem you solve.

How do you get featured?

For those lucky four startups on the feature page on the front page of AngelList, what is the process to get there?  It’s curated by Ash, who uses a number of different tools to track interest and traction.  Note that there are now over 80,000 startups on AngelList, with ~100 getting added every day.  Only five get featured per week – so only top 0.5% have the chance to be featured.  We are lucky to have our alumnus Granify on the feature page!  ShopLocket, SimplyUs, and Verelo all have great profiles as well (shameless plug).

So what should you do after your profile is up?

  1. Be active.  It’s a social network.  Start and engage in conversations.  Follow interesting companies, entrepreneurs, and investors.  Comment on people’s status updates.  Refer interesting deals to other people.
  2. Be proactive.  Reach out to investors and advisors.  Ask for referrals and recommendations!
  3. Match your offline activity to your online profile.  Add an advisor or investor?  Make sure you AL profile reflects that.  Have your network post and share your traction and successes online!

Other AngelList resources recently launched

  • AngelList Docs is in beta, but only for US incorporated companies for now.  It’s a great resource to close your deal online, industry standard docs and no legal fees.
  • AngelListTalent recently launched and helps startups recruit, and talent identify great jobs.  It uses a double opt-in structure, so you only get shown the jobs of the companies you follow.  It’s a great resource for recruiting.

Hacking AngelList articles

Lastly, Ash mentioned he loved and supported the hacking AngelList posts.  Somewhat analogous to the black art of gaming the iTunes stores, there are ways to succeed on AngelList outside of what is included in this post.  I just googled and found a couple of hits.  There are the most useful imho.

Final thoughts

I really hope more Canadian companies use and publish on AngelList, Gust, and others.  It’s a great way to get your profile out to Canadian, US, and international investors.  Not to mention its a great way to help entire cities and regions get noticed for great deal flow.  Maybe some young VC down south will start arranging their own Canadian Super Fridays…

Please follow me on AngelList! (and Twitter).