StartupNorth

Author: David Crow

  • Growing successful companies

    Mark Evans (LinkedIn) wrote a blog post about my tweet. The blog post captures much of my sentiment and frustration around entrepreneurs. I commented about entrepreneurs learning about how to build a successful, high growth emerging technology companies. And there are lots of ways to learn what is considered a successful company. And a great way to learn is to learn from others that have been in the trenches. Debbie Landa (LinkedIn) and her team at Dealmaker Media have done most of the hard work for you.

    GROWtalks

    They have brought together a great event. Attending the event won’t bring you investment. It won’t make you a successful company. But it might increase the odds. They are bringing together an amazing set of entrepreneurs. And they are bringing them to Toronto and Montreal to share their experiences, stories about what worked and didn’t work for their companies.

    Local Events Matter

    You can and should get your ass on plane and head to New York City and San Francisco to attend events. But you don’t always have to. There are advantages to attending these events locally.

    1. Local connections can help you see The First Rule of Real Estate – you can find and connect with local talent. Whether that is for funding, moral support, hiring, etc. There will be people you do not know yet. Easy way to find them out.
    2. Travel costs are less for regional travel. If you live in Ottawa or Montreal or Halifax, you can make it to Toronto or Montreal by plane, train or automobile for a lot less than travelling elsewhere.
    3. Travel time is lessened. You can spend a day.

    This all assumes that the event is providing amazing content that you would travel to consume.

    World Class Content

    The content that Debbie and team have assembled is unbelievable. If you don’t know who these people are, my advice is take a little bit of time and use the GOOG. These are entrepreneurs that have seen the ups and downs, the ins and outs of successful businesses.

    Every single person is worthy of a keynote presentation at a larger conference. This is not a vanity presentation. They are on stage sharing information about their specific expertises in building successful businesses. It’s not Mark Organ talking about random things, which is fun, but Mark Organ talking about leveraging disruptive technology in fund raising. Holy crap! You want to learn how Mark used AngelList, LinkedIn and other tools to raise 2 of the most impressive rounds of capital in Canada…quickly.

    Every single person speaking, every one, will be providing expertise about what they did to build a successful company.  Here is the list of presenters in Toronto:

    You want more details, check out my first post. Do your homework. But this is an amazing opportunity.  The lineup is different in Montreal. It includes 2 of my close friends, but they are 2 of the best people in helping startups become successful. Mark MacLeod and Alistair Croll . Unbelievably kind and intelligent people, who beyond that know WTF it is startups need to do to become successful. They like the others are the best of the best.

    Our Commitment to Successful Companies

    There are initiatives like Startup Visa Canada and the Upside Foundation that we strongly support. And we’re committed to helping provide education to entrepreneurs to help them to build successful companies.

    We’ve committed to provide a limited number of $100 discounts. I am not going to tell you how many. If you are building a successful startup, and you want to hear the tactics and advice of other entrepreneurs that have been massively successful in building their startups, sign up now and save $100 before the discount expires.

    • GrowTalks Montreal – February 19, 2013 – Register use promo code: startupnorth
    • GrowTalks Toronto – February 21, 2013 – Register use promo code: startupnorth

     

  • Mission Accomplished – StartupVisa Canada

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    Remember back in 2011 when I was xenophobic and wasn’t supporting Startup Visa? To the credit fo the incredible StartupVisa Canada Initiativea team, which I was lucky enough to join and support, the Federal Government is launching a new class of immigration visa with the participation of CVCA and NACO. Check out Christine Dobby’s summary from the press conference (it’s where all my statistics and data are from). Go read Boris Wertz’s story about Summify founders and the impetus for Startup Visa Canada.

    “We believe startups to be the driving force behind job creation and prosperity,” says executive director Richard Rémillard. “We need to be pro-active in attracting foreign entrepreneurs.”

    The new visa is replacing the old “entrepreneur class” visa, which required the applicant/immigrant to hire one person for one year. In 2011, the federal government issued approximately 700 of the old entrepreneur class visa. The government is making 2,750 visas, issued to immigrants based on selection and funding by venture capital investors. Immigrants receive immediate permanent resident status. Looks like a pilot program with a 5 year lifespan, with the opportunity to make permanent depending on uptake.

    Thinking by Zach Aysan (zachaysan)) on 500px.com
    Thinking by Zach Aysan

    My issues back in 2011 and previously, were not with the intent of the program. But in the proposed implementation details. One of the biggest assets, in my not so humble opinion, is the population diversity, with 46% of Toronto’s pouplation being foreign born. It is the creative tension between differing viewpoints that makes Canada an amazing place. The implementation of startup visa makes Canada an even more attractive place to recruit foreign born scientists, engineers and now entrepreneurs. I love it!

  • The first rule of real estate

    Before you read this, go read Mark MacLeod’s post on Who not to take money from…. It’s not related to this post, but a great post for entrepreneurs to read when talking about investors.

    RT @Cmdr_Hadfield Chris Hadfield 19 Jan With a long tradition of hockey on the shore of Lake Ontario, introducing Toronto - Go Leafs Go! @MapleLeafs pic.twitter.com/iZdN2yZb

    If geography doesn’t matter, than why do plane tickets cost so much?

    “When it comes to raising funds, I just don’t think the geography matters that much. Good solid product that solves an actual pain can find it’s way to investors any where in the world thanks to the internet.” – Adeel vanthaliwala

    I read a lot of comments like Adeel’s. And I agree that geography might not be the most meaningful filter, it still impacts startups in raising capital. It is far easier to raise money from a broader range of sources today, than it was 10 years ago. Changes to Canadian Tax Act (Section 116) have helped open the border to outside capital. There has also been a rise of new Canadian funds that have all closed in the past 2-3 years including: OMERS Ventures, Relay Ventures, Rho Canada, BDC Venture Capital, Real Ventures, Version One Ventures, Golden Venture Partners, Tandem Expansion Fund , Georgian Partners, etc. I worry that comments don’t take into consideration the complexity and challenges of raising capital. The impact of geography on raising capital has been reduced, but geography does still affect startups raising money.

    Fugetaboutit!

    The best advice on geography is from Brad Feld in 2007:

    1. Don’t worry about it
    2. Be realistic about the available resources
    3. Find the local entrepreneurial ecosystem – now!
    4. Don’t try to get investors to do unnatural acts
    5. Don’t play the “we can be virtual” game

    From the point of the investor, geography probably doesn’t matter that much. Unless of course there is a limitation in the partnership agreement that limits the geography where the capital can be invested. There are other more practical concerns about having remote startups including legal and or taxation concerns (see Section 116). Or the ability for a startup to leverage personal/professional networks for hiring, business development, etc. And none of this describes the challenges of having to spend 6 hours flying each direction to attend a board meeting. But beyond that, proximity is not a requirement from the investor side. Good startups can be located anywhere.

    “Local brewers = geography matters. As macrobrew VCs are increasingly spending time in multiple geographies (separate from their HQs) there is real potential to differentiate along knowing that you can actually sit down and see your VC face to face. For some that’s important, but for some that’s a negative. Just as some people here in Boston prefer drinking Cambridge Brewing Company ale; others could care less it was brewed locally.” – David Beisel

    I like David Beisel’s   model of the VC industry starting to become more similar to the beer industry. There are larger funds, local funds, specialized funds, and individual partners. They all matter differently to entrepreneurs depending on the company, stage of development, location, etc. Understanding the available resources and your ability to access them are key.

    Traction trumps geography

    Non Linear Growth

    There is going to be the inevitable argument about companies raising money from foreign VCs. The great news is since the changes to the Tax Act and the fall of Section 116, we have a lot of examples:

    Not to belabour the point, it is possible to raise capital from foreign investors in Canada. But the level of traction demonstrated by most of these companies was very high. For example:

    “Since HootSuite’s Series A financing, we’ve grown from 200,000 users to almost 2.5 million! We’re proud of our progress and are looking forward to the future with more success on the roadmap.” – Andy Au, Hootsuite

    According to my calculation that’s a 431,690% CAGR of the registered users between when they announced their Series A and Series B financing. Go big or stay home. Traction and growth trump geography. Paying customers, a scaleable business. Being able to demonstrate that for every dollar that goes into the business you understand how many (more) dollars come out. You need to be able to demonstrate appropriate milestones to mitigate risk.

    Avoiding Unnatural Acts

    “Don’t try to get investors to do unnatural acts: Assuming you are looking for capital, focus your energy on two categories: (1) local investors – either angel or VCs and (2) VCs that are interested in the specific business you are creating. In category #2, “software” is not a specific business – you need to be a lot more granular than that. Your chance of #2 is enhanced by a relationship / investment with someone in category #1, so make sure you focus enough energy on that early on.” – Brad Feld

    The secret here is that social proof that VCs are doing deals north of the border is not enough on its own. You need to focus your efforts, and assuming that you’re doing everything you can to hit accretive milestones you still need or want to try to avoid doing unnatural things. A local investor is not required, but it can be a signalling risk about the team, market, product, or other, i.e., what am I missing if local investors are cold? (There are situations where you can imagine an entrepreneur choosing to avoid local investors, particularly if they have had a deal go sour in the past, but usually the entrepreneur discloses this very early).

    What to do about location?

    1. Fugetaboutit!
    2. Start nailing concrete milestones that demonstrate traction and mitigate the risk associated with your business.
    3. Get connected to your local community. Look for events like Founders & Funders, Elevator Tour or GrowTalks to have initiate low risk conversations with both local investors and entrepreneurs that have raised capital.
    4. Do your research! Use AngelList, Google, Bing, LinkedIn, portfolio pages, etc.  to find partners following and investing in companies in your very specific vertical.
    5. Figure out who locally is investing locally and figure out how to get a warm introduction and find 30 minutes to meet.
    6. Listen, ask questions, try to figure out what is missing, what is the biggest risk factor and how you might mitigate the risk.
    7. Rinse and repeat with non-local investors aka get your ass on a plane and keep hustlin’ (go re-read Mark Suster’s Never ask a Busy Person to Lunch).

  • GROWtalks in Toronto Feb 21

    GROWtalks

    Debbie Landa, Clare Ryan and the Dealmaker Media team are part of the reason that I love GROWConf and GROWtalks. They put on amazing events by putting entrepreneurs first, foremost, and front and centre. They are bringing GROWtalks to Toronto (Feb 21) and Montreal (Feb 19). And we have a discount code at the end of the post.

    “A hands-on playbook for creating startup success”

    I like learning by example. It’s a mixture of seeing what worked for someone else, and then trying the appropriate tactics customized for my situation. The challenge is trying to do with more efficiently than 9 or 10 coffee meetings. GROWtalks brings together the best entrepreneurs, who are killing it, and has them present what is working for them. THis is what GROWtalks is, an event for entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs sharing their strategy, tactics, metrics and successes, even the failures. (Full disclosure: I am MCing the GROWtalks event, however, I am not being compensated for this, but I do get the opportunity to participate and learn).

    Check out photos from the 2012 GROWtalks event in Vancouver:

    It’s rare we get this many awesome startup founders all talking about the hard part of their business. I know that all of these folks will be around throughout the day, they’ll be hanging out, answering questions. It’s going to be a fantastic day. Check out the line up:

    I might be biased. My employer is an investor in some of the presenters. My cofounder is one of the presenters. But I’m honestly stoked about the speakers. I’m really looking forward to hearing Beltzner, Rutter, Fitton and Morrill. The mix of product, early customer acquisition and understanding lifetime value are converations I have with almost every founder. I’m very curious to hear the opinons, experiences and thoughts of this group.

    Part of my MCing was to request StartupNorth logo tattoos for all the speakers (we’ll see if that happens), and a discount code. Register before Februrary 1, 2013 and get 10% off (use promotional code: startupnorth). It reduces the ticket price from $195 to $175.50.

    GROWtalks Toronto

    February 21, 2013, 10am-4pm

    Size: 200-300 people
    Speakers: 9 Industry leaders
    Time: 10am-4pm
    Website: www.growtalks.com
    Toronto: http://www.growtalks.com/events/toronto/

    GROWtalks is a one day conference focused on how to create simple, actionable metrics, and use them to make better product and marketing decisions for startup success. Industry experts will share actionable advice to startup teams on how to improve design, product and customer development, acquisition, retention, and more.

    Topics Covered:

    • Customer Development
    • UX/UI Design
    • Growth Hacking
    • Customer Retention
    • Fundraising
    • Customer Engagement
    • Product Development

  • Fundraising, Valuation and Accretive Milestones

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    I keep having a similar conversation with early stage entrepreneurs about fundraising and valuation. “Do you think a $1.5MM valuation is good?” “How much should I be raising?’ Well, it depends.

    I’m finding more and more, the conversation about valuation is one that resembles not being able to see the forest because of the trees. Early stage entrepreneurs tend to fixate on valuation and assume product is the biggest risk at the seed stage thus defining product launch metrics as key metrics. Often, valuation and risk mitigation are tied together. And the milestones or traction metrics required to mitigate risk can help establish valuation. 

    Valuation

    Fortunately, valuation is a topic that others have covered. Nivi and Naval, on VentureHacks, have provided incredible insight into early stage fundraising over the past 5 or 6 years. The advice is often summarized, “as much as possible is especially wise for founders who aren’t experienced at developing and executing operating plans”. The translation means that founders see rounds of seed stage companies raising $4.2MM at what must be a huge valuation.

     “‘As much as possible while keeping your dilution under 20%, preferably under 15%, and, even better, under 10%.’ ” – Nivi

    You can make some basic assumptions about the valuation. Most seed stage companies should be looking keep dilution in the 15-20% range. The specifics will be determined in fundraising but you can start to do some back of the napkin estimates:

    You start to see a range for how much a company will raise at what valuation. The numbers aren’t set in stone but they provide a framework for estimating the amount valuation. As Nivi points out the difference between a seed round and “a Series A which might have 30%-55% dilution. (20%-40% of the dilution goes to investors and 10%-15% goes to the option pool)”. The more you raise early, the more dilution you can expect. The goal becomes managing the different risks associated with startup. You also see why raising debt early, which allows companies and entrepreneurs to delay valuation until certain accretive milestones, is attractive.

    “The worst thing a seed-stage company can do is raise too little money and only reach part way to a milestone.” – Chris Dixon

    So given the back of the napkin dilution terms, what are the milestones that you will need to hit in order to raise the next round.

    Raising the next round

    So you’ve raised a round, how much should you raise at the next round?

    I like the rule of thumb that Chris Dixon uses. “I would say a successful Series A is one where good VCs invest at a pre-money that is at least twice the post-money of the seed round.” The expectation is that companies are roughly going to double their valuation at each raise. This isn’t to say that a 2x increase in value is your target, it’s the minimum, the floor. The art of raising a round it to raise enough money to get to a significant milestone, and not too much money taking too much dilution too soon. So how do you define the milestones. The milestones

    “partly determined by market conditions and partly by the nature of your startup. Knowing market conditions means knowing which VCs are currently aggressively investing, at what valuations, in what sectors, and how various milestones are being perceived.” – Chris Dixon

    So part of the market conditions, i.e., raising money in Canada is different than raising money than in Silicon Valley, New York , Tel Aviv. You are measured against your peers, and this might be defined by geography of the company or the VC. Being connected with other companies, advisors and investors can help provide insight in to the fundraising environment. The second part is determined by the nature of your startup, but generally expressed as measures of traction. We’ve talked a lot about getting traction and what traction looks like to a VC.

    “The biggest mistake founders make is thinking that building a product by itself will be perceived as an accretive milestone. Building a product is only accretive in cases where there is significant technical risk – e.g. you are building a new search engine or semiconductor.” Chris Dixon

    Entrepreneurs tend to focus on the product early. This is usually because the product is something that entrepreneurs can directly affect. But the product risk, is may not be the  biggest risk that entrepreneurs need to mitigate early. The trick is figuring out which risk you need to eliminate to satisfy potential investors. And you can try to figure this out yourself, but I like to see entrepreneurs engage investors and other founders to get their opinion. The discussion usually is a combination of what other startups are seeing in the market place as milestones from investors (yay, market place data). Then you can work backwards the necessary resources and burn rate to reach those milestones.

    Thoughts?

    Additional Reading

  • Good companions can ease the journey

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    Q: “How do you know when an entrepreneur is dead?”
    A: They stop pitching.

    Ba, dum, dum. It might be cliche, a tad kitschy. But it will be an amazing event. And it will help connect entrepreneurs with others.

    Charlie Crystle (LinkedIn, ) is an entrepreneur based in Lancaster, PA. He is also behind Startup Lancaster. Startup Lancaster is a bit smaller than StartupNorth, (the group has 46 members) but they come together monthly to:

    “swap war stories and advice and to gain inspiration for the next stage of their efforts”

    It is events like the one hosted by Philippe Telio (LinkedIn, ) and the Startup Festival team, that continue to help connect local entrepreneurs. On the surface it might seem a bit cliche, startups doing elevator pitches in the elevator at the CN Tower. It’s a little glib. But it is an amazing opportunity to spend an evening with other entrepreneurs and those that contribute to high growth, emerging technology companies. It is a chance to experience the CN Tower and connect socially with other entrepreneurs in Toronto. And “having some good companions can ease the journey” is exactly why these events happen.

    If you are an entrepreneur, consider pitching. You might do it for practice, you might do it for the chance to win “free passes and paid travel to attend the International Startup Festival in Montréal”, you might just do it for a free trip up the CN Tower (it will save you approximately $30). Use this as a way to find others and connect socially. It doesn’t matter why you do it. But in the words of a sporting brand, just do it!

  • It’s indescribably beautiful!

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    On the surface this might not seem like a Canadian success story, Eloqua was acquired by Oracle for $871MM. Eloqua by all appearances is a publicly traded company with headquarters in Vienna, VA. But they are probably the best kept secret in the Toronto technology community. Eloqua was founded in Toronto in 1999 by my friend and co-founder, Mark Organ (LinkedIn,) along with Abe Wagner (LinkedIn) and Steve Woods (LinkedIn, ). This is nearly a $1B dollar deal that was born and breed in Toronto (yes, I can do basic math it’s $129MM short but that’s pocket change and unlike when Siebel acquired Janna in 2000 for $975MM at the time of the deal the price changing with the Siebel’s stock price, this is an all cash deal). I had started figuring that it would be Salesforce that acquired Eloqua, so I am surprised that it is Oracle, and so soon after their IPO. Here is a great analysis of the marketing automation industry and the assessment for Marketo, Act-On, ExactTarget, etc.

    Congratulations to all of the Eloqua employees. I continue to hear stories about an amazing group of people including:

    It’s an amazing story that still has a big chunk of the product development team based in Toronto. Congrats to the entire Eloqua team and alumni.

  • Rebooting DemoCamp

     

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    DemoCamp was conceived in 2005. I have hosted approximately 30 events (I only missed one and that resulted in 2 companies that eventually exited: Bumptop and Sysomos). It has been 7 years. But the world has changed. There were no accelerators or cyclotrons. There was no iPhone or Android. And while Demo and DemoCamp continue to work (see mHealthDemoCamp, Hamilton, Guelph, Edmonton, Eclipse and others). The format is simple (DIY instructions here).  But I’m feeling like it is time to open a broader discussion about the role events like DemoCamp should play.

    mHealth DemoCamp

    Craig Netterfield (LinkedIn, @cnetterfield) described DemoCamp as “DemoDay for companies that aren’t in an incubator”.  It was an interesting observation about the role DemoCamp played as a structured social process for entrepreneurs, funders and the community. My challenge is that DemoCamp in Toronto can not continue in the same incarnation. I am hoping to have an open conversation and gather feedback from students, founders, employees, funders about how we make it better. There are lots of events in Toronto. I don’t want to do an event for the sake of an event. I want to build something better, something that solves a need that is a catalyst for success of entrepreneurs.

    Sources of Event Inspiration

    I keep wondering about what is the role of an event like DemoCamp. Is it one of the following?

    • PR and Awareness
    • Recruiting
    • Inspiration
    • Education
    • Social

    Does an event like DemoCamap need to exist?

    “Good things happen to you at events” – Nivi

    Events are great. They allow individuals an opportunity and to interact in social norms, we are inherently social animals. And events “are the place to meet people who won’t meet with you. People who aren’t available over email or one-on-one go to events to make themselves available”. But it is the social norms or the event dynamics that can make for meaningful experiences. There is an assumption that we should continue hosting events like DemoCamp and Founders & Funders. The assumption is that these events are valuable to entrepreneurs, developers, designers, marketers and others.

    The thing about events is that someone has to organize and pay for them. What are the costs? Facilities, audio/visual, ticketing, insurance, bar staff, liquor license, etc. While we strive for $0 or low cost to attendees, there are still hard costs that have to be covered. (And this doesn’t include lost opportunity costs of not working on other things). The Brad Feld book tour event for example had costs of approximately $17000. These costs included books, space rental, food, and staff. The books were the offset/proxy for the travel expenses for bringing a guest speaker. We had basically 2 revenue streams: sponsorship and ticket sales. But the goal was to host an amazing event with a great speaker that derived real value for entrepreneurs and policy makers.

    What would you do to completely reboot DemoCamp? How would you change the event? What do you find valuable? Is it worth rebooting? What changes would you like to see?

    Please fill out the survey and leave a comment!

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  • Hiring a Growth Hacker on StartupNorth.ca

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    Did you know that we run a job board for startups? It does allow companies to reach an audience that is interested in startups.

    “Amar joined us 3 weeks ago after a long trial of hunting down and applying for the “Growth Hacker” position we posted on StartupNorth. We couldn’t be happier with his progress, hunger and efficiency. Over to you Amar!” – Michael Litt, Vidyard

    There are great stories of people find companies and roles like Amar Chahal (LinkedIn) and the Growth Hacker role at Vidyard. If your a looking for a new gig, go read about how Amar was hired at Vidyard. It will blow your mind how much he committed to the process. I’m actually shocked that no one has socially hacked our job board as a candidate, i.e., it’s not that expensive but you could pay to highlight your resume or portfolio, because it will only work once.

    Post Your Job

    Postings are only $25 for 60 days. Postings are embedded on StartupNorth.ca and all postings are shared on our Twitter account. For example:

    It’s a quick, relatively inexpensive way to post jobs to a targeted audience. Get a little bit of distribution and hopefully find candidates like Amar.

    We are open to discussion about how we can improve the Jobs Board for both candidates and companies. Got a suggestion for how we improve things? We are all ears.

  • The Pending Talent Wars

     

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    Did you know that accelerators are heading for a shake out? We’ve talked a lot incubators, accelerators and cyclotrons. And the proliferation of the accelerator model is generally positive, it started me thinking about a possibility for slightly different model. One that Kevin Swan posted an insightful comment on the talent shortage for Canadian startups. I don’t think I’m the first to propose this, but it starts to make sense. Incubators/accelerators don’t need to only hasten the formation, creation and ideation of companies. They are fertile grounds to accelerate people. And it’s not just incubators and accelerators, companies participate in HackDays to find talent.

    Need proof?

    Vuru acquired by Wave Accounting

    Vuru founders Cameron Howieson and Yoseph West reached out to the Wave Accounting team for advice on building a free, web-based financial services tool. Over time, the two companies traded notes as Wave took on a an informal advisory role, and that led to a sense that Vuru’s talent and direction were something that would be well suited to the Wave Accounting mission. — Darrell Ethrington, Aug 21, 2012 in BetaKit

    Vuru was a 2 cofounder team in the FounderFuel (full disclosure: I am mentor in FounderFuel and I now employed by Wave Accounting investor OMERS Ventures). They were building a “investment tracking tools aimed at managing personal finance, which is not something Wave currently offer[ed]”. It was a great fit, a team that had the entrepreneurial culture to make a difference at Wave and a product that filled a known product roadmap gap.

    Algo Anyhere acquired by 500px

    Ok, before Zach Aysan slaps me for being totally incorrect. AlgoAnywhere was not in an incubator or accelerator program. But they had raised a seed round and were building very interesting technology.

    The 500px founders met Algo Anywhere at their Pixel Hack Day last year, and were impressed by what the team brought to the table. Algo Anywhere’s tech was originally intended to be sold on an SaaS basis, providing companies with the data crunching power of sophisticated recommendation algorithms, without the need for those to be developed in-house or hosted on a company’s own servers – Darrell Ethrington, July 9, 2012 in BetaKit

    The interesting point here isn’t about incubators or accelerators. It’s about founders of early-stage companies looking for relationships and gaps in the market left by other players.

    Pulpfingers acquired by 500px

    It seems that 500px has been strategically acquiring companies. It looks like both Pulpfingers and Algo Anywhere were part of the PixelHackDay (see photo from TechCrunch). Which gives 500px access to see designers, developers working in their domain space. It’s a great way to round out the product roadmap, Pulpfingers was a iOS discovery application. And they aren’t alone. Hootsuite acquired Seesmic and Swift.

    Built to Last versus Built to Flip

    I’m not arguing that founders should be looking to build companies to flip. There is lots of conversation about building lasting value. I’m arguing that companies that have raised capital to scale are looking for alternative methods to acquire talent. Get access to the API, build a meaningful service, acquire shared customers and go forward, it’s Biz Dev 2.0 (as Caterina described back in 2006). What’s new to the game for Canada (well Canadian startups) is that for the first time since RIM we are starting to have web startups that are reaching scale and are able to acquire talent, teams and companies. The goal isn’t to look for a acqui-hire or a manquisition, but to look at where working with an existing company or API gives you immediate access to distribution or monetization that you might have to work harder to build on your own.

    I’m betting that companies like Wave Accounting, 500px, Influitive, Hootsuite, Shopify,Freshbooks, Top Hat Monocle, Wattpad, Upverter, Chango, Fixmo, Desire2Learn, Lightspeed are all actively looking for teams that are building on their APIs or filling product gaps (it becomes a buy versus build decision).

    If I was a developer or looking to get into an incubator program, I’d start looking at the hackathons and APIs that are aligned with my vision where I could accelerate customer adoption.

    Events

    APIs and Developer Starting Points

    Find an API (be it local or otherwise) that aligns with your vertical, figure out if you can solve one of your immediate challenges (like distribution and customer acquisition). Maybe strike up a conversation with the product teams at shop. But build something that delights customers and users! Go! Now!

    Who has something built on one of the above APIs?