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:
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.
I’m really looking forward to Maker Faire Toronto. It is happening Saturday and Sunday, September 21-22, 2013 at the Wychwood Barns. This is an amazing opportunity to celebrate the Maker Movement. I’m excited to see the inventions, the creativity, the resourcefulness of people to solve problems, to inspire. To be proud of the things they’ve built.
“That is, no matter what the thing is you’re building, it’s deeply gratifying and incredibly educational to perform the act of creating something, anything.” — Christopher O’Brien
I am really excited about the opportunity to bring my kids. I’m excited to teach them about entrepreneurship. But even more importantly, I’m excited to provide them access to learn and to explore technology. My friends Tara Brown and Sean Bonner opened LA Makerspace focused on providing a kid-friendly space. My kids have asked me about building robots, making candy and taking apart their toys. The eldest is now 6 years old, and her problem solving skills and attention are developing where this will be a transformational experience.
“We are making the tools for passion. When I look around, I don’t see any apathy here.” — Nolan Bushnell
Much of the DIY culture emerged out of the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley. And while not directly responsible for the success of many of the companies that emerged, it seeded a culture and the connections between folks that started Apple Computer, Osbourne Computer and others. This is the ground floor, the Mechatronics department at UWaterloo accepted their first class in 2003. Bufferbox was started in 2011 and sold to Google in 2012. This is a very interesting space if you look at the emergence of other area startups like InteraXon, Thalmic Labs , Upverter, Matterform, Bionym and others.
Bring your kids. These are very interesting times indeed.
To fast prototype and create brand new music apps (web, mobile or physical) in just 24hrs.
To bring together the music industry and the developer community.
To highlight and showcase the platforms and API’s of companies working in and around music tech.
To foster cross-platform and cross-device innovation.
Looks like a great event for local startups and developers to get access to APIs and hopefully distribution.
Music Hack Day Toronto will be held on August 10th-11th, 2013 at the The Glass Factory, 99 Sudbury St.
If you are interested in participating in the fast prototyping and creation of brand new and innovative music apps, be sure to register (tickets are free) for Music Hack Day Toronto today.
We’re on the official Grow Conference schedule. Together with Communitech, we are hosting a party. You can decide for yourself if these conferences are right for you or your business (need help, check out Kevin Swan’s piece for insight). But we’re going to be there. We are going to be highlighting Ontario startups (and investors). Who is coming so far?
We’re looking for startups to highlight, stories to tell, and connections to make. We need startups. We need sponsors. We need volunteers. If you’re coming to Grow Conference please feel free to join us on August 14 at The Portside Pub.
We’re heading to Grow Conference in Vancouver. You should join us at the Portside Pub on August 14, 2013.
With our friends at Communitech, we are hosting Ontario Startup House during Grow Conference. The goals is to build a “house party” that highlights the amazing things that are going on in Ontario.
The details are starting to shape up, but here is the plan as it stands. We’re aiming to bring all things that are amazing and Ontario with us to Vancouver. We’ll be brining amazing startups, amazing founders, and amazing investors with us. We’ve managed to secure an amazing venue, The Portside PubFollow @ThePortsidePubGoogle+, in Gastown.
“On August 14, we’re taking over the hottest bars and restaurants in the historic Gastown area, home to Vancouver’s tech scene, and inviting you to host your very own “House Party” to show off the very best your technology community has to offer. All Houses will be within walking distance so attendees can easily move from House-to-House. Who doesn’t love a good house party?”
We are looking for startups and sponsors. We have great partners in Communitech, OMERS Ventures and we are actively looking for others that want to participate.We have the biggest and best venue for startups and founders to congregate during GrowConf. We’re aiming to bring the best startups, the best founders, the best beer, the best band, the best crowd to celebrate in Vancouver.
The event is open. We’ll have amazing startups, founders and investors hanging out – guarranteed. We’re planning a few surprises that should make for an exciting night.
Details
When: August 14, 2013
Where: Portside Pub, 7 Alexander Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 1E9
What: House party featuring the best startups in Ontario at GrowConf
I keep seeing entrepreneurs that complain to me after the fact that they took an investment with bum terms. It comes in many different ways, usually something like, “here’s my cap table what do you think?” or “I have this term sheet what do you think of the terms?”. The terms are usually appalling. But the entrepreneurs asking don’t know this until it is too late, they signed the documents, they spent the money, and now they want advice raising the next round.
https://twitter.com/rhh/status/344232460533518337
It looks like I’m not alone. If you can’t figure out this is war. This is information warfare. I forget that I work with a lot of great investors. They look for deals that work for them, their portfolio, for their investments and the potential investments. But I long ago realized that my interests and the interests of existing investors or potential investors were not always in my interest, particularly when things start to go bad. I wish all investors were as honest as Brad Feld with their desired investment rights. But there are bad investors out there. They look to use an information asymmetry to gain greater advantage over uninformed entrepreneurs. It allows them to buy large ownership percentages at reduced rates with additional rights that are not always in the favor of entrepreneurs. They tell entrepreneurs that it is ok, their capital brings additional non-dilutive government capital and the entrepreneur will have the cash to grow. They are trying to maximize their returns by exploiting the information asymmetry.
And I don’t like seeing people being exploited.
It is not the first time that someone has used both simple and sophisticated tactics to take advantage of people. Part of the creation of the Securities Exchange Commission to allow, in this case, the US government to bring civil actions ” against individuals or companies alleged to have committed accounting fraud, provided false information, or engaged in insider trading or other violations of the securities law.” Before the enactment of the commission, consumers were protected by “blue sky” laws, but Investment Bankers Association told its members as early as 1915 that they could “ignore” blue sky laws by making securities offerings across state lines through the mail. Many investors are money grubbing capitalists and that’s the way I like it. But as an entrepreneur the only person looking out for you is you. So rather than leave yourself ignorant and uninformed it is your responsibility to reduce the information asymmetry. After all, it is your company and…
Knowing is half the battle
The person that is responsible for your success and the success of your company is YOU!
So stop blaming bad investors. Stop blaming lawyers. Stop blaming others. You need to take proactive steps to reduce the information asymmetry
Get educated
Due diligence on your investors
Participate and share
1. Get educated
Fifteen years ago, this information was very difficult to access. The first book that I read about venture capital was High-tech Ventures: The Guide For Entrepreneurial Success that was written in 1991. Part way in to my second venture (I was employee number 6 for the record) John Nesheim released High Tech Start Up, Revised And Updated: The Complete Handbook For Creating Successful New High Tech Companies in 2000. This was my early education about venture capital, high potential growth companies. But most of the lessons came from the school of hard knocks. But things have changed. There are a tonne of resources available to entrepreneurs. Here is a short list:
This is your business. You are taking outside funding. You need to understand what is happening in the process and why.
2. Due diligence on investors
The investor is doing diligence on you and your company. They are going to talk to your previous investors, your employees, your customers and maybe your prospects. They will take to people in their circle of trust to learn about the market, expected performance metrics, and your reputation. It is incredibly important theyunderstand the risks and accretive milestones before presenting you to their investment committee.
You must do your own due diligence on the investor before taking any money. This is going to be a partner in your company. It has often been described as a work marriage. You should need/want to understand more about this person, the firm they work for, and how they treat their existing companies and CEOs. Go for dinner, have a glass of wine, talk about your company, and figure out if you can work with this person for the next few years. Talk to other CEOs that they’ve invested at a similar stage as your company. Talk to the ones that succeeded, to the ones that failed. Talk to the people that the investor sends to you to do diligence. There are so many tools to expose social relationships that didn’t exist: LinkedIn will allow you to send InMails to past CEOs; Clarity allows you to connect with a lot of entrepreneurs and mentors that have a connection with the investor; AngelList is a great tool for discovery but it is also becoming a great way to see investments and help you in your diligence.
“the diligence factor was that I knew them, but had never taken money from them. It’s hard to know how people are going to react when they are at risk of losing money because of something you are directly responsible for until you are actually at that point.” – Brandon Watson
The above resources are amazing. However, I often learn best from the examples of others. I learned a lot from Mark Organ at Influitive. Mark shared stories about the good and the bad decisions he made in the early days at Eloqua. You learn a lot when you share a hotel room on the road as grown ups.
There are formal meetups like Founders & Funders. But seriously in order to have the trust, you need to get out of the office and the formalities of these events. The conversations come over a poker game. But you’ve got to put yourself out there, be vulnerable, and find people that can teach you something.
I believe so much in this that I’m renovating my house. I want a big kitchen for family dinner. All of my startups will be getting an invitation to Sunday night dinner. Why? Because I’m betting my family’s future on them, and I want them to be a part of the family. This includes the ones that I’ve invested in already and any of the companies that I’m looking at investing. I want them to hang out. I want them to help each other. Share metrics and tactics. I want them to tell you that I’m slow to invest. I’m slow even after I’ve said yes (but I hope they understand that it is because sometimes I have to do some consulting work to have investment dollars). (Now I just need the renovations to finish).
Feeling screwed?
I’m starting to think about publishing shitty term sheets, depending on the risks our lawyer identifies, with investor names. I’m not sure public shaming is right model, and my lawyer might tell me it is not. But I think that we need to elevate the conversation we as entrepreneurs are having with each other and our investors.
I’ll be publishing prospective term sheets in the next few days.
We can all gripe about why founders and startups should not attend events, and they should get down to figuring out if there is quantified market demand for their product.
"Traction is your story of momentum told through quantified evidence of market demand for your product" @brendanbaker@hnshah#awesome
But lets face it, summer feels like it is here in Toronto (it’s hot). And we all need to blow off some steam. So why not take some 2-3 days and connect in Montreal (or Vancouver more on that soon). Startup Festival early bird tickets sales end tomorrow (June 1, 2013). There is an amazing lineup full of local, national and international recognizable talent. Come to Montreal. Be prepared to listen to amazing stories from real founders and investors about how they figured out traction for their companies.
Folks I’m looking forward to hearing stories from:
I’m going for the opportunity to learn from other people’s experiences. I’m going to connect with folks I’d otherwise have to travel to multiple places to connect with. And probably most importantly, I’m looking forward to strengthening the connections I have with folks I already know.
Our friends at Microsoft are looking to Toronto as a hot bed of startup activity. Don’t take my work for it, the Startup Compass folks ranked Toronto number 8 on their Startup Genome report for startup activity. The study is being conducted by our friend Sam Ladner (LinkedIn), a Senior User Researcher in Microsoft’s Office Envisioning team. Sam is ex-Toronto, she joined Microsoft six months ago in Redmond. She researches trends in the future of work, and helps builds prototype productivity technology based on that research.
She is looking for participants for this study to help Microsoft learn more about how startups organize themselves, choose technology tools, and their organizational culture. The data will be used to build technology for the next generation of Microsoft products.
About the Study
Participants would need to sit down with a researcher and possibly a note-taker for a 1-hour interview, but for observation they would go about their work day as normal. The researcher and note-taker would stay out of the way and simply observe and take notes.
The researcher would take handwritten notes and some audio recording. With participants’ permission, the researcher would also record video and take still photographs.
All data collected during the research would be used internally at Microsoft. The data would be held on a secure server that sits behind Microsoft’s firewall. This server is only accessible with valid Microsoft employee credentials. Raw data such as photographs, fieldnotes, audio recordings and unedited video will only be accessible to the immediate research team. Edited video and/or photo slideshows will be shared with other Microsoft employees. The research report will not be published publicly, though the researchers may refer to the aggregated and anonymous findings in professional conferences or symposia. Participants may opt to have video of their offices and themselves to be included in these conferences or symposia, but by default their identities will only be known to internal Microsoft employees.
We will build prototype technologies, based on these findings. We hope to build the next generation of tools that startups themselves need.
Participate in the Study
Microsoft is currently recruiting for an ethnographic study of startups and freelancers. The belief is the number of these workers will continue to grow, and Microsoft wants to know more about how self-employed information workers use technology. If you are a startup founder, Microsoft wants to meet you. The study involves face-to-face interviewing and some job shadowing. Microsoft offer a cash or software incentive in appreciation of your participation.
Fieldwork will take place in early July.
If you want to participate or would like additional information, please complete the form below:
It’s almost time to shave off yer playoff beards. Summer time is upon us. And summer’s in Canada mean cottages and startup events.
Our friends at the C100, who are continually helping to build the Maple Syrup Mafia across the globe, are hosting a series of events in Alberta, Ottawa and Montreal (invite only). The C100 does a great job making sure that connected Canadians from the Silicon Valley attend these events. It’s a great way to meet and connect socially with Canadians who are transplanted in the Valley or who are doing a stint there, but who still have strong interests in seeing a stronger set of Canadian companies. These local events are great low social capital ways to begin building your social network of people that might care (if you aren’t a douche).
Our other friends (and Hot Shit List 2013 awardees) Tobi and Harley at Shopify have put together an amazing event in Ottawa. As you are driving back to town with working on your mind. Take a side trip from Bobcaygeon, and see the constellations. There is an amazing group of speakers including:
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 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.
that was written in 1991. Part way in to my second venture (I was employee number 6 for the record) John Nesheim released 
Dulcie Madden
Joe Chernov
Jen van der Meer
Michael Baum
