StartupNorth

Author: briansharwood

  • Entrepreneurs can achieve anything

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Chris Arsenault, Managing Partner, iNovia Capital.

    3 hours - trioomph - driving your successWhat would happen if you decided to take action by putting 100% of your focus on achieving your goals, or better yet, start with a specific goal? Is that a scary thought? Well if you haven’t seen the video below of my good friend and great entrepreneur – Francois-Charles Sirois, then you are missing out on the number one most important success factor for any entrepreneur – the willingness to take action.

    I think there are many critical factors that make an entrepreneur become successful: knowledge, creativity, self-confidence, attention to detail, experience, intelligence, patience, perseverance, team building, risk management, customer centricity, connections, timing and luck. But the number one and most important factor is by far, the Willingness to take action. When combining willingness to take action with focus, only then, can one succeed, because every other factor doesn’t have any importance unless action is taken.

    Yes, I’m an optimist. I don’t disregard what isn’t working, how hard it is, how little chance I have in succeeding each time I take on the creation of a new Fund, the backing of a new startup or the planning of a new ambitious project. Instead I focus my attention at looking at the bright side of every situation and I then pull all my energy to make it happen. Positive energy attracts positive energy, and it is also right the other way around. It’s not easy, mostly because too many people tend to, purposely or not, pull you down, discourage you by highlighting every possible reason why it “just won’t work”. It is no different when setting out to build a new VC fund, a local business or an international tech company, it requires the same set of criteria for an entrepreneur to succeed, and when you willingly decide to take action, there actually is nothing stopping you. So when I can share concrete examples of what it means to set your mind to something, I share it with my friends and hope they will share it with there friends, helping getting the message out. So this is the most recent Willingness to take action example I want to share with you:

    In early January, I met Francois-Charles for dinner and he tells me that he wants to learn how to play the guitar. No, he rectified, his dream is not to learn how to play the guitar, it’s actually to learn and play the best guitar solo in history! “Why just learn guitar, when you can do so much more, and I want to do this before summer” he said.

    So the below video, is of Francois-Charles, on his mission tagged: 3 hours a day to succeed. He is playing the guitar solo: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” with extreme perfection. Driven, focused and enjoying his moment like any successful entrepreneur should be when they take action and achieve their goals.

    I hope some of you will be, not impressed but rather, motivated to go out a take action with the same amount of focus and determination. Or at the least, share this video link with a friend.

    3 hours a day to succeed

    François-Charles Sirois
    President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesystem
    Founder, TRIOOMPH Foundation
    Dream:
    For many years, he wanted to learn how to play a great guitar solo: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”
    Coach:
    When you’re working toward your dream, it helps to have an experienced mentor to guide you along the way. His “guitar hero” was François Lamoureux.
    The three-hour-a-day rule
    It takes time and hard work to make a dream come true. In his case, he practiced three hours a day, three days a week; two hours a day, two days a week; and one hour a day, two days a week. A minimum of one hour every day is essential to making steady progress.
    Official video: April 27, 2012
    http://www.trioomph.com/0-3h-per-day.html3 hours a day to succeed

    3 heures par jour vers le succès

    François-Charles Sirois
    Président et chef de la direction, Telesystem
    Fondateur, Fondation TRIOOMPH
    Rêve:
    Depuis plusieurs années , il souhaite jouer un des meilleurs solos de guitare ; « Free Bird » de Lynyrd Skynyrd.
    Coach:
    Pour réaliser un rêve, on doit trouver quelqu’un qui s’y connaît pour nous aider. Dans son cas, il a trouvé un super coach; François Lamoureux qui a accepté le défi.
    La règle du 3 heures par jour:
    Pour réaliser un rêve, il faut investir du temps. Pour le sien, il a pratiqué 3 heures par jour, 3 jours par semaine; 2 heures par jour, 2 fois par semaine et 1 heure par jour, 2 fois par semaine. Un minimum d’une heure par jour est essentiel pour s’améliorer et continuer à progresser.
    Vidéo officielle: 27 avril 2012
    http://www.trioomph.com/0-3h-par-jour.html

  • When a Massive Opportunity Knocks!

    Editors Note: This is a guest post by Chris Arsenault (LinkedIn, @chrisarsenault) a tech entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. Chris is the Co-Chair of the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX), a board member at the Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA), a Supporter of the C100, among other things. Follow Chris at chrisarsenault.wordpress.com or on Twitter @chrisarsenault.

    CC-BY-20 Some rights reserved by antmoose
    Attribution Some rights reserved by antmoose

    The last few weeks have certainly proven to be extremely promising for Canadian Tech Entrepreneurs. Almost $80M of equity financing has recently been secured from some of the top investors in the world to help build our next generation of massive tech companies. It’s even more exciting when you realize that these funds are going to three especially young, dynamic and opportunistic companies, all of which are in our backyard!

    Beyond the Rack

    Beyond the RackYona Shtern, Robert Gold and the team over at Montreal-based Beyond the Rack (“BTR”) lead the way with a whooping $37M financing round that should propel the company to new heights yet unseen on the Canadian eCommerce front. BTR has quickly established itself as an eCommerce leader by showing the market that Canadian companies really do know what a “hockey stick” revenue growth chart looks like. The teams’ ability to build such a big company in such a short time frame has earned them our utmost respect. We initially met the team and reviewed their business plan in late 2008; by 2011, they were already ranked as one of the fastest-growing online retailers in the entire world. Yona was also wise in choosing his investors, be it industry specific angels or great VCs such as Panorama Capital, iNovia Capital, Rho Canada, Tandem Expansion, BDC Venture Capital, Highland Capital Partners, EDC and Montreal Start Up. If you aren’t a Beyond the Rack member, don’t wait – register now, and you’ll be impressed!

    Shopify

    Shopify - LogoJust down the road from Montreal is another world class eCommerce team. Ottawa-based Shopify recently closed a $15M second round of financing. Tobias Lutke, Cody Fauser, Daniel Weinand & Harley Finkelstein have developed an industry leading eCommerce platform that is already being used by thousands of leading online retailers around the world. The team, their vision and commitment to execution all combine to make Shopify one of Canada’s tech leaders in an extremely high growth global market. Unfortunately, we missed the boat on the opportunity to work with them, but our friends over at Bessemer Ventures, Firstmark Capital, Felicis Ventures and Georgian Partners were more than happy to come aboard. I’m expecting to see Shopify rise above the tide over the coming years and establish itself as a global leader in its space.

    Fixmo

    FixmoThe most recent team to announce a substantial equity-financing round is Toronto-based Fixmo. Led by its founders Rick Segal, Shyam Sheth and Joyce Janczyn, Fixmo just announced a $23M round. This investment round included both existing investors (iNovia Capital, Panorama Capital, Rho Canada and Extreme Venture Partners) and an impressive syndicate of new lead investors: Silicon Valley-based Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Washington-based Paladin Capital Group and Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures. While the company’s core vision has not changed over the last two years, the product development road map has evolved at a rapid pace. Within an extremely short time frame, Fixmo launched a series of Government and Enterprise products, acquired two companies (Conceivium Business Solutions and Chocolate Chunk Apps), established a series of key partnerships and practically jumped ahead of every other Mobile Risk Management solution provider in the market. Obviously, the founders didn’t do it alone, but the sheer fact that Rick was successful in attracting some of the best talent out there (Bruce Gilley, Jonas Gyllensvaan, Tyler Lessard, Lee Cocking, John Yuen and others) speaks to the long term execution ability and potential of Fixmo.

    Ambition coupled with Execution

    The average tech financing round in Canada is under $4M. Therefore, the aforementioned three companies basically raised as much cash as 20 average Canadian tech startups combined. Obviously, I get nervous when I see a company (portfolio or not) raise such a large chunk of cash. Why? It’s not because I like the small size of the average Canadian financing rounds. Rather, it’s because I think that too much money for a young business can be as bad as or worse than not having enough. $15M-$40M rounds for Canadian tech companies are amongst the largest we have seen this side of the border in over 10 years. That being said, I do also think that Canadian Tech Entrepreneurs are now entering a phase of Ambition coupled with Execution. We have lived through too many years of “lack of ambition”, quickly followed by “lack of execution”, not to mention the much lamented “lack of capital”. However, we are now seeing deals done where massive amounts of ambition and execution converge, and capital is becoming available to build large tech companies right here in our own backyard. With more companies able to raise the amount of funding they truly need to generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, not only we will stop selling our companies short, they won’t need to move down south. Hopefully other investors will note the phenomenon, and future startups won’t have as much trouble raising the capital both from Canada and into Canada. And that’s good for all of us.

    At iNovia, when a massive opportunity knocks, we answer! I’m expecting to be sharing a lot more stories about successful Canadian entrepreneurs, and how they’ve built hugely successful companies here as they compete globally for resources, capital and market share. There isn’t much stopping the entrepreneurs driving Canada’s next generation of large tech companies, and for the likes of Beyond the Rack, Shopify, Fixmo and many others, this is just the beginning.

    Congratulations to all the teams mentioned in taking important steps on their paths to success!

    Below some article worth reading with regards the above companies:

    Editors Note: This is a guest post by Chris Arsenault (LinkedIn, @chrisarsenault) a tech entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. Chris is the Co-Chair of the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX), a board member at the Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA), a Supporter of the C100, among other things. Follow Chris at chrisarsenault.wordpress.com or on Twitter @chrisarsenault.