Congratulations to the 10 Winners of the StartupEmpire Contest

Thank you to everyone who submitted entries to the StartupEmpire giveaway. The quality of the writing and thinking was excellent and it was inspirational hearing so many people wanting to further their entrepreneurial careers. Our hats off to all of you.

While our selection criteria was by no means perfect, we did consider things like the quality of the writing, the uniqueness of the product, whether the person was applying based on need or because they forgot to buy tickets in advance :) and whether they met the submission deadline.

We only had 10 tickets to giveaway unfortunately so Raymond Luk and I had to make some tough choices. The good news for anyone who wasn’t selected is that there have never been more entrepreneurial events happening across Canada. We hope to meet all of the companies at one of these events at some point in the future.

So here is the list of winners (in alphabetical order):

Congratulations everyone. We’ll see you all at the conference in a few days.

I would like to thank Raymond Luk & Flow Ventures for helping me organize and sponsor this contest.  Flow Ventures is active in the Canadian Startup scene and participating in the Canadian angel investing community.  Both my companies Akoha and Standout Jobs do work with Raymond and his firm.  They are great partners for startups.

We also want to thank Angelsoft for the contribution of a number of OpenDeal coupons to allow companies to submit their fundraising needs to their network of angel investors.   We will be announcing the winners of the AngelSoft packages at the conference.   I’m now using Angelsoft at three of the venture funds/angel networks I’m a member of.  They have over 400 angel & VC funds using the software with almost 14,000 investors.  This is a great resource for entrepreneurs looking to raise funding and we are thankfull for their support of this contest.

10 Free Entrepreneur Packages for Startup Empire – A Contest

Guest post by Austin Hill, CEO of Akoha & Founder of Brudder Ventures.

I’m really pleased to be speaking at Startup Empire on November 13th in Toronto.   I’m going to be running a hands on workshop for entrepreneurs entitled “Slow down &  Speed Up – Managing A Startup in Turbulent Times”.

In my workshop I’ll be sharing some strategies & tools for the following aspects of your business,

  • Avoiding the wall – Raising Cash and Extending Runways in a Economic Downturn .
  • Risk Reduction Roadmap Planning, linking financing, scenario planning & risk reduction.
  • Performing Honest Assessments of your Market, Team & Capabilities to Win.
  • Who is investing now in Canada?

Jevon McDonald & David Crow have put together a great line up of speakers and sponsors.

The organizers have recently dropped the price to a very affordable price of $69 for the entire day conference.

At the same time I know many entrepreneurs who watching budgets & may not feel they can afford to attend (travel & conference fees) so we are announcing a quick contest for entrepreneurs interested in joining us at the conference.

FlowVentures, AngelSoft and Brudder Ventures StartupEmpire Contest

In the spirit of creating great opportunities for entrepreneurs I have partnered with my friend Raymond Luk from FlowVentures and the team from AngelSoft to sponsor 10 entrepreneurs to get the following packages.

  • A free pass to StartupEmpire.
  • A copy of Guy Kawasaki’s brand new book Reality Check which I recently read and is a great collection of essays & practical advice on many of the aspects of running a startup.
  • A copy of Randy Komisar’s “The Monk and the Riddle” one of my favourite startup books which is a quick read about startups & finding meaning as an entrepreneur written during the last tech collapse.
  • A $100 credit towards any travel costs you incur to attend (To help out of town attendees get to Toronto.  If you win & are in Toronto we’ll ask you to donate your travel subsidy to one of the other winners who are travelling farther)
  • Angelsoft has donated a number of discounted and free applications to their OpenDeals program where you can submit your company to be viewed by over 10,000 angel groups.  These will be given to startups that apply and qualify as companies looking for funding ($100-$250 in value).

The contest is open to any entrepreneur, startup or aspiring entrepreneur who working building a technology startup.

To enter the contest all you need to do is send an email to startupempire [@] brudderventures.com answering the following 3 questions.   Submissions must include your contact information, URL & Company contact details (if applicable) and should not exceed 1 page per answer.

  1. If you are a startup tell us about your company, size, market, product and what stage you are at in your growth. (If you are not part of a formed startup but) If you are an entrepreneur, programmer or aspiring entrepreneur tell us about your background, your plans as an entrepreneur.  Tell us what you’ve done to advance your entrepreneurial aspirations.
  2. Why do you want to attend Startup Empire – what do you want to accomplish there?
  3. What are the 3 questions that you would want answered by any of the speakers @ StartupEmpire?

All entries should be received by this Saturday November 8th.

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StartupEmpire – Student & Startup Tickets

startupempireIt’s time for startups to buckle down and really understand their expenses. We thought we’d make it a little easier for startups and students to participate in StartupEmpire.

One thing about a downturn is that it’s not about eliminating spending, it’s about managing cash flows and making every dollar go as far as possible. We are working on putting together the best hands on workshops that will help entrepreneurs go from idea through to customer acquisition and sales – from legal issues to merger and acquisition issues. The goal is to provide valuable and pragmatic advice from real entrepreneurs, funders and service providers. Advice and examples that can help inspire you and hopefully save you the time and effort later.

Students and startups are the reason we are hosting StartupEmpire. We want to encourage your participation. To help we’ve created a Student Volunteer program. Twenty students will get a complimentary ticket to StartupEmpire in exchange for volunteering and helping with the tasks that make  a conference run smoothly.

We understand that students and startups are cash strapped. Our goal is been to provide an event that facilitates an opportunity to learn about the mechanics of starting up in Canada; and to facilitate connections between a community of entrepreneurs and funders.

To this end and with the help of our sponsors, we’ve also created a limited number of Student & Startup Tickets. These tickets are priced at $199/person. They are full tickets, i.e., there are no limitations. From Day 1, this has been about helping entrepreneurs and startups in Canada.

Student Tickets

Are you registered full-time in an academic program? High-school, college or university? Then come on down. You might want to consider the student volunteer program. However, if you want to guarrantee your spot at StartupEmpire, purchase a Student Ticket. If you’re selected as a Student Volunteer we’ll obviously refund your fee.

Startup Tickets

Who is a startup? We tried to describe a bunch of parameters: privately held; incorporated less than 5 years; less than $5M/year in revenue; less than 5 employees. We just couldn’t figure out a good set of objective criteria to describe startups.

So, the definition of a startup is kind of like pornography, I’m not sure I could describe it, but I know it when I see it.

We will let you self-select, although, we hold the ultimate decision on whether you qualify for the startup ticket discount. We are looking for entrepreneurs and startups. You’ve got an idea. You’re building a product.  We’ll let you determine if you think you are a startup.

If you’ve already purchased a ticket, and you think you qualify as a student or a startup, don’t worry. I’ll be going through the list of participants this weekend and contacting you individually.


I would like to thank our Leadership sponsors, Microsoft and HighRoad Communications.

We are also pleased to announce our champion sponsors,

PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Ontario Centers of Excellence, Gowlings
and JLA Ventures.

Visit www.startupempire.ca for more information on the conference and to register.