StartupNorth

Category: Canada

  • Event – Mint Chip Challenge & David Wolman #mustattend

    Interested in changing financial services, identity and the changing role of currency. The folks at the Mint Chip Challenge are hosting their awards ceremony this week. I was fortunate to be a judge for the submissions. And the awards are happening in Toronto this week. The event is open to everyone. There is a chance to talk with submission developers, the judges, and the folks at the Royal Canadian Mint. The group of attendees is unbelievable!

    It is going to be a very interesting night. The invited guest speaker is David Wolman who is a Contributing Editor at Wired and author of The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers–and the Coming Cashless Society. It is going to be an awesome night talking about the future of currency, digital technology, and identity.

    Guest Speaker – David Wolman

    David Wolman

    David Wolman is a nonfiction author and a contributing editor at Wired magazine. He has also written for publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Nature, Outside, Time, Newsweek, and Discover, and his work has been anthologized in the Best American Science Writing series. His long-form feature about revolutionaries in Egypt, “The Instigators,” was nominated for a 2012 National Magazine Award for reporting. Wolman’s latest book, The End of Money, is a globetrotting exploration of a topic that many readers have always taken for granted: the cash in their pockets. His previous books are A Left-Hand Turn Around the World and Righting the Mother Tongue. He is a graduate of Stanford University’s journalism program and a former Fulbright journalism fellow in Japan.

    BTW how did I end up on this panel of judges:

    The group will be in Toronto at this event. It is a small intimate event. If you are interested in commerce, currency or mobile tech, I’d attend just to get access to these people.

    Reserve your spot!

  • GrowConf’s Entrepreneurs: Breakdowns & Breakthroughs

    This video is part of an ongoing project where Debbie Landa and the folks at Dealmaker Media ask entrepreneurs and founders about their greatest fears, failures, and the lessons learned.

    It’s a great watch.

  • 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).

  • CIX Top 20 – 2012

    CIX Top 20 Canada's Hottest Innovative Companies

    We’ve written about CIX Top 20 Follow @CIXCommunity in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. So you’ll be shocked to find that I’m writing about it again in 2012.

    What is CIX?

    “The CIX Top 20 is an elite index of the most forward-looking companies in the Canadian innovation ecosystem, and connects the key players driving technology-based business both in Canada and beyond.”

    Who should apply?

    “The CIX Top 20 is open to any Canadian company working in Digital Media or Information and Communication Technology with annual revenues under $10 million.”

    Why do you care?

    These are some of the leading companies in Canada. Don’t believe me, past participants include:

    Alright, there probably is a correlation between the success of these companies and their CIX submission and attendance. But CIX is an amazing opportunity for Canadian startups to generate attention, drive awareness with investors and media, get input and feedback in a safe environment and start to build connections.

    “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Wayne Gretzky

    Nothing is foregone conclusion, as in past performance is not an indicator of future success. But you can’t win if you don’t apply (follow the directions on the bottom of the page).

  • We want you! – Looking for contributors

    Finish Line, CopperDog 150, Calumet, Michigan by Lina Blair (linainyoop) on 500px.com
    Finish Line, CopperDog 150, Calumet, Michigan by Lina Blair

    I was talking to April Dunford . It’s was a private message, so I am hoping April will forgive me for sharing, but it indicated how Jonas , Jevon and I have felt about our role and the role of StartupNorth.

    “We’re all making this shit up on our own when we should be sharing best practices.” April Dunford

    We can talk about how Toronto is broken, as long as “this is not a complaints department, but a solutions playground” (great quote from Mark Kuznicki at the first TransitCamp in 2007). When we started StartupNorth in 2007 because there were not a lot of people talking about high potential growth, emerging technology companies and emerging business models (if it is easier, you can think venture backable technology startups). There was a lot of great technology companies being built in Canada. We wanted an easier way to bring together people who were interested in the new companies and the ecosystem to support them.

    “We launched TechStars NYC with the goal of enriching the New York City entrepreneurial ecosystem; tapping into the rich resources and energy of NYC and galvanizing the community through mentorship.” David Tisch

    We launched StartupNorth in 2007 after 2 years of a completely unorganized effort (that supposes that this effort approximates organized vs the anarchy that it is) of hosting events like BarCampToronto, DemoCamp, a public Skype chat, and a Google Group. We didn’t have a fund. This wasn’t our full time jobs. We’ve never thought of StartupNorth as a high potential growth technology business. We thought of it as a way to help other entrepreneurs like ourselves. We tried to build what we thought was missing.

    • Funding in Canada
    • Getting access to foreign markets
    • The amazing talent in Toronto and across Canada
    • Events that bring together others interested in the same space to enable collisions (finding cofounders, hiring employees, business relationships, potential mentors, etc.)
    • Events like StartupEmpire, DemoCamp and StartupCamp

    We are contributors to both the solutions and the problems that exist. But that doesn’t mean we can’t contribute.

    We are Canadian entrepreneurs.

    Back in 2008, Jevon told us about “how startups will save venture capital in Canada“. You can look at the recent acquisitions (including Jevon’s GoInstant) are providing liquidity and bigger better investment opportunity. (OMERS Ventures has participated in rounds totalling >$112MM in the past 2 weeks alone: $80MM Desire2Learn, $20MM Vision Critical, $12MM Hopper Travel). Canadian entrepreneurs

    We want you!

    We are looking for new contributors to StartupNorth. We don’t want puff pieces. We don’t want press releases. We want to highlight Canadian startups, founders and technology. We want interesting stories. Let me help all y’all, launching is not an interesting story. I’d like to see posts on:

    • Cost effective solutions to common back office problems, tell us about how your financials, payroll, A/R works.
    • Look at the Upverter Under-the-Hood article and tell me about your infrastructure, personally I’d love to hear about Hopper’s Hadoop or Wave Accounting, etc.
    • Marketing automation and optimizing customer engagements. What tools are you using?
    • We’ve heard about Facebook’s Growth Team and their decision making, what about Freshbooks? Or Dayforce?
    • The impact that CRTC and Competition Bureau rules have on Canadian startups? I’d love to get Michael Garrity to tell the Community Lend/FinanceIT story. But there are more.
    • Examples of effective use of Facebook, mobile or other early customer marketing

    This list is no way comprehensive. There are lots of interesting stories. Got an insight, tip, cobbling together of tools that can help startups save money, grow faster, go further. We want to share. As April said, “We’re all making this shit up on our own when we should be sharing best practices.” and we want to help share.

    Just send me an email (davidcrow at gmail ) with a draft of your post. I will read, provide initial feedback, socialize with Jonas and Jevon and then we will set up an posting schedule.

     

  • Book Review – Startup Communities: It’s About the Entrepreneur

    Brad Feld, managing director of Foundry Group, is no stranger to the Canadian tech startup scene – he was a speaker at the C100’s AccelerateMTL event in 2011.

    Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to get to know him and he has been a source of inspiration and support to me professionally. Brad is one of those rare VCs, his contributions don’t stop with the money. He is very generous with his advice and has been on a passionate mission in the past year to crack the code on how to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem in any city, hence the title of his new book: Startup Communities
    .

    Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City
     (pre-order available) isn’t a book you that you will put down easily, but is one you will pick-up often. In fourteen chapters and one fell scoop; Brad makes us smarter and wiser about what it takes to nurture a vibrant startup ecosystem in any community.

    Startups are Everything

    Feld sets the tone early in the book by stating that “Startups are at the core of everything we do.” Feld implies that it’s easier today to create and evolve startup communities “as a result of our networked society”, and he tosses away long-drawn old-school frameworks and previous theories that were primarily based on macro-economics, socio-demographics or geographical parameters. His thinking is framed around what he labels as “The Boulder Thesis”, a fresh framework that is based on pragmatism and lower barriers of entry. It’s all about on-the-ground reality as a lever to making things happen.

    The Boulder Thesis

    “The key to every successful startup community is startups. If you do nothing else, make sure all the founders and founding teams are visible and connected to each other.” That’s a golden statement to be reminded of. Remember, his message is aimed at the entire community.

    Feld doesn’t mince words when he places the role of the entrepreneurs as the most critical component. “Lots of different people are involved in the startup community and many non-entrepreneurs play key roles. But unless the entrepreneurs lead, the startup community will not be sustainable over time.” Amen.

    The Boulder Thesis is grounded in four key components: a) entrepreneurs that lead, b) leaders that commit, c) an all-inclusive mentality, and d) activities up and down the entrepreneurial stack. The book details them.

    A 17-year resident of Boulder, Brad observed that while Boulder didn’t have a lot of local VC’s, it did have a large number of VCs that viewed companies in Boulder as attractive to invest in. This fact alone means that any city cannot complain about not having a lot of local VC’s. Rather, they should focus on making themselves attractive to VC’s wherever these VC’s may be.

    Rightfully so, Brad advocates that activities such as “hackathons, New Tech Meetups, Open Coffee Clubs, Startup Weekends, and accelerators” are more important than “entrepreneurial award events, periodic cocktail parties, monthly networking events, panel discussions, and open houses” because they engage deeper into the entrepreneurial stack. To each city that’s listening, take inventory and assess your gaps.

    Leaders and Feeders

    Then comes a key tenet of the book: there are Leaders and there are Feeders to any ecosystem. If you’re in a startup community, know who you are, and what your role is, but don’t confuse the two. So, who is a Leader and who is a Feeder? “Leaders of startup communities have to be entrepreneurs. Everyone else is a feeder into the startup community. This includes government, universities, investors, mentors, service providers, and large companies.” Entrepreneurs, rejoice.

    Driving the Leaders vs. Feeders point hard, Brad asserts that “the absence of entrepreneurs as leaders, or the overwhelming leadership by feeders, will doom a startup community.” Message aimed at the Feeders mostly.

    Classical Problems

    Chapter Six gets at the crux of the community build-out, and something that every city wants to know: What are we doing wrong? Brad nails the classical problems:

    1. The Patriarch Problem, when those who made their money many years ago are still running the show.
    2. Complaining about capital, because there will always be an imbalance between supply of capital and demand for capital.
    3. Being too reliant on Government. This is self-explanatory, but there’s a whole chapter on it entitled: “Contrasts between entrepreneurs and government.”
    4. Making short-term commitments. Well, it takes a long time to build a startup community. Twenty years to be exact.
    5. Having a bias against newcomers. Instead, swarm the newcomers.
    6. Attempt by a feeder to control the community. Why? Feeders retard the actual growth of the startup community.
    7. Creating artificial geographic boundaries. They don’t matter much at all at the state and city level. Waterloo-Toronto: are you listening?
    8. Playing a zero-sum game. This means stop thinking that “Our community is better than yours”.
    9. Having a culture of risk aversion. Make sure you learn something from what didn’t work.
    10. Avoiding people because of past failures. Rather, embrace the failed entrepreneur because it encourages more entrepreneurs to take more risks.

    Brad goes on to list in great details the many activities that make-up Boulder’s community what it is. My advice: when you get the book, use it a checklist and see what your city is missing.

    Accelerators and Universities

    In Chapter Eight, Brad takes us on the case study of TechStars, and in it he rubs in the fact that there is a distinction to be made between Accelerators and Incubators because they are formed differently and have different objectives.

    Chapter Nine focuses on the role of Universities and it ends with this advice for the entrepreneur: “The relationship between a startup community and a university can be a powerful one, but is often complicated. By focusing on specific activities and remembering that the university is a feeder to the startup community, great things can happen.”

    Myths of Community Building

    Aided by Canadian Paul Kedrosky, one of the ending chapters lists the common myths about startup communities. I’ll highlight two of them:

    1. We need to be like Silicon Valley. “If that’s really your goal, save yourself a lot of heartache and simply move to Silicon Valley.”
    2. We need more local venture capital. “Venture capital is a service function, not materially different from accounting, law, or insurance. It is a type of organization that services existing businesses, not one that causes such companies to exist in the first place. While businesses need capital, it is not the capital that creates the business. Pretending otherwise is reversing the causality in a dangerous way.” That fits well within the Leaders vs. Feeders theory.

    Startup Communities is a call for introspection aimed at any city, community, entrepreneur, developer, funder, leader or feeder. The book makes you think about whether you’re doing the right thing. It should prompt every city or ecosystem to answer the tough questions: Do we have enough leaders as entrepreneurs? Are we going to stop making excuses? Can we work better together?

    If you’re involved in technology startups, this book will not just touch a nerve. It will run through your spine.

    How do you think Canada is doing in regards to building entrepreneurial ecosystems in the major cities?

    Editor’s Note: The author, William Mougayar is CEO of Engagio, a universal Inbox and Discovery Network for social conversations. You can pre-order Brad’s book on Amazon and ensure delivery as soon as it’s published in September.

  • Win a Ticket to GrowConf 2012

    We at StartupNorth are huge Grow Conference fans. We’ve been lucky to be involved since it’s inception in 2010. There are great industry events around the globe (think Mesh in Toronto, ad:tech in SF and NYC, OSCON in Portland, Dreamforce in SF, SxSW in Austin, etc.) there are only a few events aimed at enabling Canadian emerging technology companies (Grow, StartupFest, CIX). It’s not to say there aren’t events focused on emerging technology entrepreneurs: Under the Radar, Launch, Disrupt, Demo. It is the focus on empowering and enabling Canadian entrepreneurs that make Grow special.

    As part of this we’re working with Debbie, Clare and the Dealmaker team to give away a ticket to Grow Conference and a Nokia 800 phone.

    If you want a shot at winning the phone and a free ticket to GROW2012 on August 23rd, all you have to do is the following:

    1. on Twitter
    2.  on Twitter
    3. this post (including the hashtag #GROWNokia)

    This contest starts now and ends August 13th at 3pm PT.

    Winners will be notified via Twitter on August 13th at 5pm PT.  Your ticket and Nokia 800 will be waiting for you when you arrive at the registration table at GROW 2012. Good luck! (*You must be in attendance to get the phone, will not ship).

    The GROW Conference is one of North America’s leading technology conferences and is the place to meet your future business partners, investors, and mentors. This year’s speakers include Cheezburger Network, Box.net, Modcloth, Zendesk, and more speaking about how they’re keeping up and staying relevant in a new era.

    If you don’t win, we have a $100 discount using the promo code: SN when registering for Grow.

  • Atoms are the new bits

    Today seems to be an Upverter kind of day, don’t believe me. Check out Zak’s post on the Toronto startup ecosystem.

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

    Hardware startups are back with a vengeance. Thomas Tunguz (LinkedIn, @ttunguz) of Redpoint Ventures talks about his investments in hardware startups Sonos and Electric Imp. There are new set top boxes, watches, game controllers and entire communities around making and sharing. The rise of the Internet of things, sensors, and open hardware platforms like Raspberry Pi, Arduino and BugLabs are making it easier for activists, hackers and organizations to design, build, distribute and monetize hardware projects.

    We are lucky in Toronto to have HackLab.TO, Upverter, Media Lab Toronto, Site3 and others working on cool hardware based projects. Are you interested in learning about building hardware projects? Curious at designing, testing and building a hardware project?

    Hardware Hackathon by Upverter, Aug 10-12, 2012 in Toronto

    The Upverter team and a bunch of other from around the GTA are hosting a hardware hackathon August 10-12, 2012 at the Mozilla Opensource Space. All you need is an interest in physical prototyping and a laptop (go crazy if you want to try to do circuit board layout on a mobile phone or tablet).

    Should be an awesome time.