StartupNorth

Category: Events

  • Bay Street & Natural Resources – FinTech in Toronto

    TL;DR

    Toronto is a center of gravity for financial services. There aren’t a lot of financial technology startups in Toronto. There is a new Toronto FinTech Meetup. FIrst meeting is Wednesday, April 10, 2013 at the MaRS Commons (Suite 230, 101 College St.) hosted by Blair Livingston of Quantify Labs.

    Bay Street and Natural Resources

    [Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Blair Livingston LinkedIn , founder of Quantify Labs. Full disclosure: I’m an investor in Quantify Labs. Blair and I share a view that given the technology and talent available on Bay Street there should be a strong financial tech and startup community in Toronto. It is sad that my typing “toronto fintech” into Google results in a Montreal conference as the first result. ]

    Google Search for Toronto FinTech

    Great cities prosper and thrive, in part, because of their proximity to valuable resources. Arguably, the nearby resources were likely the main reason the city or village was situated in that location to begin with. However, it’s not enough to simply be near resources – gold still has to be mined – and we need to put those resources to work. Indeed, Canada is a country rich in resources; we have diamonds, gold, lumber, oil, gas and everything in-between. Canada’s strong economy is fuelled in part by this abundance of resources.

    However, over the last hundred years (or so) new types of resources have emerged – communities, technologies, groups, industries and people. Many of these resources don’t take the familiar form of something tangible and malleable, and for that reason can go unnoticed for a long time.

    One Hub to Rule Them All

    When we talk about finance, we invariably talk about New York City. We talk about Wall Street, the 1%, and a concentration of capital, services, people and technology that makes NYC one of the financial industry capitals (if not THE capital). It is the density of entrepreneurs, emerging companies and people that are one of NYC’s greatest resources. Consider the effects on start-ups built to service financial companies – this industry has supported, nurtured and allowed some of the biggest financial technology companies in the world to grow and flourish in its ecosystem.

    Bloomberg LP, with estimated yearly top line revenues of $10 billion, was started in New York. The city is host to a number of trading venues, back office technology providers, data aggregators and other interesting and innovative companies built on the resource of this community concentration. They even have an accelerator dedicated solely to financial services technology (appropriately named the FinTech Innovation Lab).

    In New York, FinTech flourishes by connecting the community and building an ecosystem that leverage existing resources. Financial institutions play a role in supporting the new ecosystem by acting as customers, acquirers of startups and hiring talent that develops in each of the early stage companies. Demonstrated by the support, both financial and at very high management levels, that FinTech Innovation Lab receives. It’s no wonder a large portion of all leading financial technology, especially institutional tech, is coming out of New York.

    Where is FinTech in Toronto?

    Toronto has a booming financial industry. Our banks are in excellent shape. The combined market capitalization of Canada’s six leading banks is more than $323 billion. And with that kind of market capitalization comes new problems, new opportunities and potentially new tech. The difficulty lies in the regulation, legislation, risk standards and software/hardware requirements. This poses challenges for developers and entrepreneurs in selling to financial services firms. It doesn’t matter if the solution is aimed at the retail (bank branches or individuals), corporate (the mother ship) or institutional (sales & trading, investment banking). Selling to financial institutions is not an easy process. It requires assistance in process, guidance (legal, technical, financial), support, experience and a depth of knowledge that is greater than just hustling.

    It is because of the complexity in the go-to-market and technical requirements, why very little innovation happens in financial services technology (aka fintech). It’s like the shadow cast on a wall – it looks menacing, like a panther or some dangerous beast – but in reality it’s only a little kitten. If you understand how to deal with the issues, and properly approach them, they aren’t all that scary (and a little help never hurts).

    But, with little innovation comes massive opportunity – there is so much opportunity in financial technology that it’s hard to decide where to begin.
    What Toronto needs is to start taking advantage of these resources – a thriving financial services industry. It’s already happening in pockets around the city, but it’s about time we started getting aligned to make a consolidated push together. I have had the opportunity of meeting with/hearing about/noticing some interesting financial tech companies in the city, who include:

    • D+H (payment/lending solutions)
    • Market IQ (data/social sentiment analysis)
    • FINMAVEN (data/social sentiment analysis)
    • eDYNAMICS (salesforce integration and consulting/cloud computing)
    • OANDA (FX trading platform)
    • Quantify Labs (institutional content/CRM platform)

    Who else should be on this list? Who are the startups, developers, investors and entrepreneurs that are interested in FinTech in Toronto? If the community is the framework, let’s get the community going. Let’s share stories and guidance on selling, building and launching financial technology. Let’s offer insight and experience into usage and problems. Let’s discuss. Let’s take advantage of one of this city’s most abundant resources. That’s what we want to do, and if you have any interest in financial technology, I would encourage you to sign up for the Toronto Fintech Meetup. We’re having our first ever meeting next Wednesday, April 10th, at the MaRS Commons, just a ‘get to know you’ – no speakers, no schedule, just an introduction to the financial tech community in Toronto.

    When I started in finance ask a desk analyst, I was repeatedly told – “it’s too bad, the low hanging fruit is gone” – well I took a walk out of that orchard, down the lane, and stumbled into another called Financial Technology. The fruit just isn’t low hanging, it’s on the ground – we just need a few more people to come help us pick it up.

     

  • It’s not like it’s rocket science

    All rights reserved by Cmdr Hadfield

    Toronto Space Apps Challenge, April 19-21, 2013

    Oh wait, it is!

    NASA and the European Space Agency are hosting a hackathon in 75 cities around the world. It includes Canadian events in Toronto and Winnipeg.

    “The International Space Apps Challenge is a technology development event during which citizens from around the world work together to solve challenges relevant to improving life on Earth and life in space.”

    The Toronto event is focusing on 24 of the challenges provided by NASA (the full list of challenges is 50 large). The challenges provide a diverse set of skills and participation. Skills include software, hardware, strategy, and design. There are a number of challenges that include the interpretation of economic data and others that involve air traffic control.

    With the amazing photos that Commander Hadfield is publishing on Twitter. Hopefully there is a renewed interest in the Canadian space industry. (We did build the Canadarm…) And the commericalization of space exploration with the X PRIZE and SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. It’s an amazing chance to participate in a grassroots exploration of space technologies and data.

    List of Challenges in Toronto Space Apps Challenge

    ESA 3D Printing Contest
    Create an open source 3D model of space hardware that can be generated by a 3D printer.
    My Space Cal
    Combine the past and future time schedules of satellites into a common calendar that the world can easily access.
    Wish You Were Here
    Develop a compelling representation of weather on Mars.
    Tour of the Moon
    Enable humans worldwide to take an interactive tour of the Moon.
    The Blue Marble
    Rethink space-based Earth imagery and make it more accessible to a broad audience of space enthusiasts.
    Solar Flare
    Visualize invisible (to the human eye) phenomena that can affect so many vital terrestrial activities.
    Seeing Water From Space
    Create a visualization of Chile water resources, showing how they have changed over time relative to changes in climate.
    SCISTARTER Citizen Science
    Help humans understand and analyze microbial communities and compare with microbes on the International Space Station.
    Renewable Energy Explorer
    Create an app that integrates wind, solar, and geothermal energy data to show where combining them would have the greatest potential.
    Incentives Tied to Utility Rates
    Help consumers find relevant incentives, tax rebates, and savings for their energy efficiency and renewable energy efforts.
    Earth Day Challenge
    Explore the history of Earth Day using environmental data since 1970.
    Aligning the Stars
    Match and align the stars in Aurora imagery taken by Astronauts on the International Space Station.
    “Catch a Meteor” Tracker
    Create an app that would allow observers of a meteor shower to trace the location, color and size of the shooting star.
    Database of Near Earth Objects
    Create a platform to enables citizen astronomers to register, submit findings, and help rank the findings of other citizen astronomers.
    CubeSats for Asteroid Exploration
    Create a CubeSat design for a mission to astroids near Earth.
    Deployable Greenhouse
    Develop a deployable greenhouse that could be used on a space mission to the Moon or Mars.
    Hitch a Ride to Mars
    Design a CubeSat for an upcoming Mars mission.
    My Virtual Mentor
    Expand the online presence for the NASA GIRLS program to mobile and/or tablet platforms.
    “No Delays” Air Traffic Management
    Create a visualization that increases understanding of the problems of our current air traffic control system.
    Space Station Benefits to Humanity
    Develop a tool to improve the understanding of the incredible benefits that International Space Station is delivering back to Earth.
    Spot the Station
    Extend the functionality of the Spot the Station site that allows you to share your sightings of the International Space Station with others.
    Syncing NASA’s Open Source Projects
    Create an application that mirrors changes to NASA’s github presence.
    NASA’s Impact on the Economy
    Share the story of NASA’s economic impact in a new and compelling way.
    Adopt-a-Spacecraft: Voyager 1
    Humanize the Voyager mission through the creation of a data visualization, app, or even a physical object.

    It’s an amazing time to be interested in space exploration. Plan on exploring at the ROM on April 19-21, 2013.

  • Finding next at the University of Toronto

    I’m guilty. I’ve been pandering to my alma mater, the University of Waterloo. I love Waterloo and UWaterloo startups. There is so much to love. There are Vidyard, Thalmic Labs, TribeHR, Desire2Learn, PostRank (acquired by Google), . There is even a Waterloo mafia in Toronto with Upverter, Top Hat Monocle, SocialDeck (acquired by Google), PushLife (acquired by Google), Xtreme Labs (Amar, Sunny, Farhan are all UWaterloo 1998 grads along with Social+Capital‘s Chamath) and others.

    But have you seen the awesomesauce that is originating at the University of Toronto:

    • Bumptop acquired by Google, founded by UofT CS Masters student Anand Agarawala
    • Sysomos acquired by Marketwire, founded by UofT CS prof Nick Koudas and Nilesh Bansal (UofT CS PhD candidate)
    • BackType acquired by Twitter, founded by Christopher Golda and Michael Montano, both UofT Electrical Engineering Grads
    • CognoVision acquired by Intel, founded by Shahzad Malik (UofT CS PhD)
    • ScribbleLive cofounder Jonathan Keebler is a UofT CS grad
    • Rypple acquired by Salesforce, founded by Daniel Debow (JD/MBA UofT) and George Babu (Engineering, MBA and JD)
    • Canopy Labs founded by Wojciech Gryc a UofT grad
    • Wattpad founded by Allen Lau (UofT Engineering) and Ivan Yuen (UofT MBA + UWaterloo Engineering)
    • DNNresearch Inc. acquired by Google was founded by UofT prof Geoffrey Hinton and 2 graduate students

    There are a number of spots on the UofT campus to find high potential growth startups and engineers. You can look at Creative Destruction Lab in the Rotman School of Business. You can look to the Entrepreneurship Hatchery in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

    You can also attend the Computer Science Department’s Research In Action Showcase on April 17, 2013.

    Add your events to our calendar.

    Research In Action 2013

  • 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

     

  • 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

  • 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!

  • 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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  • All roads lead to Toronto

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    Regardless of where we fall in arbitrary rankings, Toronto is an amazing city. And it seems that all roads lead to Toronto. With the amazing teams from both StartupFest and GrowConf arriving in the dead of winter.

    StartupFest Elevator Tour

    Check out the crazy awesome pitches and feedback from StartupFestival in Montreal.

    Just look at it this way. Here is an amazing chance to get to hang out with entrepreneurs, founders, investors and other crazies in our ecosystem at the top of the CN Tower. Let me repeat that, at the top of the CN Tower. Before you do the math about how much fun this is going to be, just realize that a ticket to ride up the tower is $23.99 + HST. For essentially the price of the ride up, you get an event focused on entrepreneurs. I do some basic math, you add a drink and some h’orderves  and your at break even. Great chance to have some fun, make some meaningful connections, and potential generation press and relationships that pay off.

    GrowTalks

    GROWtalksGROWtalks is happening in Toronto and Montreal. I know that Clare, Debbie and team are bringing some amazing entrepreneurs to share and educate. Just like they for GROWtalks at GrowConf 2012 in Vancouer.

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

    I hear that the list of speakers is set to include the likes of Brant Cooper, Dan Martell, Rand Fishkin and other amazing speakers. This is a great one day event at a reasonable price point, I’m hearing $199 for entrepreneurs, so get access to entrepreneurs and experiences.

     

    We’ll have more on both of these events. Get your tickets early!

  • Lean Startup Day @ MaRSDD on Dec 3, 2012

    Lean Startup Day Toronto - Dec 3

    The team at MaRS and JoltCo are providing local access to The Lean Startup Conference Livestream. Sure they’ve been crazy enough to invite me to host the event and a panel, but that shouldn’t keep you from attending. This is a full day event, it starts early (because we’re EST) and continues late (because the conference is PST).

    The event is divided into 2 streams:

    1. Stream 1 – Hands on stories, workshops and discussion with people in the local ecosystem
    2. Stream 2 – Livestream of the conference from California and the program looks outstanding with Matt Brezina, Danny Kim, Jocelyn Wyatt, Stephanie Hay as well as the usual luminaries (Eric Reis, Steve Blank, etc.)

    Great opportunity to connect with other founders and entrepreneurs. Talk about what is working, what hasn’t worked, and what else you can try. The benefit of having a strong community like we do in Toronto, is that we can get together and share. The community is not an end in of itself, it is a means to an end. And while entrepreneurship can be lonely, there is an accessible community of other entrepreneurs, mentors and others that can help.

    First, you need to put yourself in a path for these unexpectedly good things. Second, you have to be able to see these serendipitous events — you have to make the connections. And third, you have to be able to act them. The definition of luck is that you were willing to do something.” Lane Becker

  • Make your own luck at CIX

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    Next week is the Canadian Innovation Exchange. I sit on the Advisory Board and StartupNorth is an Association Partner. We are big fans of the event  and have watched over the past few years as CIX has gone through changes and growth. It continues to evolve both the CIX Top 20 as well as the event. The focus in 2012 is about providing meaningful content and experiences for entrepreneurs. This is a change from the past  where you might argue that the focus was on the investors attending. There is a strong focus on building an amazing event will attract amazing entrepreneurs, which in turn will attract amazing investors. And it the 2012 event looks to be very entrepreneur focused.

    Entrepreneur Pricing

    One of the bitches about this event used to be the pricing. There is a $199 entrepreneur ticket. Seriously, if you can’t justify the cost versus the opportunity to either see an amazing program or for the chance for random collisions with some of the best investors in the game actively deploying capital in the Canadian ecosystem.

    This is your chance to hustle (see my comments about hustling at CVCA). Make your own luck. There will be people that buy products and the people that invest in companies at this event. Make something happen.

    I love seeing Switch Video, an audience of VCs and companies that need video to grow their business. Bingo. Good hustle.

    Buy a $199 ticket and figure out how to make serendity happen!

    Entrepreneur Content

    Where to start? Entrepreneur One-on-One with Jevon MacDonald . Sure he sold his company to Salesforce, but you know he started a blog, this blog. Jevon is a great guy. He has helped me with my thinking about startups in Canada, the role of venture capital, and with corporate development. GoInstant was around for a little less than 24 months, but I know that Jevon will be talking about the >5 years of hustle at Firestoker and Dachis Group before GoInstant. It should be a great conversation for founders looking for an understanding of how an amazing overnight deal.

    The trade off is that if you go see Jevon, you’ll have to skip How Emerging Companies Can Think, Appear and Act Like they are Bigger then They Are which features Daniel Debow , Michael Hyatt , Yona Shtern and Razor Suleman . This is about how to strategically build a reality distortion field. Should be fun to learn the secrets of these 4 crazy entrepreneurs.

    We spend a lot of time focusing on Lean and pre-product/market fit companies. But there are equally difficult questions about culture and growth at scale. There is a panel hosted by Howard Gwin and Derek Smyth with Dan Shimmerman of Varicent and Michael Harris of BlueCat Networks. This should be a good mix for companies that are in the scaling cycle. Given that apparently everything that Howard and Derek touch turns to gold: Varicent, Dayforce, Rypple and they have their hands in others Desire2Learn, Hootsuite, Vision Critical and others.

    And there are US VCs. There is Mike Katz from Battery Ventures and Devdutt Yellurkar of Charles River Ventures (who invested in Influitive and Wave Accounting locally) and Alexander Kolicich of Mithril Capital Managment (and I don’t know the intricacies but Mithril is associated with Peter Thiel is associated with  Valar Ventures who invested in ShopLocket).

    If you can’t find content that can help you, you’re doing it wrong.

    It’s not about the content

    Seriously, it’s not about about content. It’s about the hallway conversations. The random collisions. But you need to be there and you need to participate to have the chance for those things to happen. There will be a lot fo interesting folks in Toronto early next week, you should figure out how to have a collision. And make your own luck!

    Register to attend CIX 2012