StartupNorth

Category: Events

  • Social Intranet Summit Vancouver

    One of my favorite startups in the last few years has been ThoughtFarmer. Every few weeks I check in on them and think “Microsoft hasn’t bought them yet?”. ThoughtFarmer’s social intranet is easily the most polished out-of-the-box experiences in the Social Business Software world right now. They have decided to put on a conference in Vancouver, which is coming up very soon. There are a few spots left and we were able to get a discount code that will give you $100 off, even this close to the event.

    Conference speakers include Dion Hinchcliffe, Enterprise 2.0 blogger for ZDNet and Senior Vice President for my old company Dachis Group; Stewart Mader, noted wiki expert ; Andy Jankowski, Director of Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF) North America; Bert Sandie, Director of Technical Excellence at EA; and Dan Pontefract, Senior Director and Head of Learning at TELUS.

    You can see the full speaker list on the conference website.

    **Receive a $100 discount using STARTUPNORTH as the promo code**

    Oh, and check out this hilarious video to promote their newest addons for ThoughtFarmer. It is an example of low cost but effective product education and marketing by a bootstrapped startup. Steve Ballmer makes an appearance as well.

  • Shoestring budgets & sponsorship

    We continue to run DemoCamp on a shoestring budget. Sure it sucks that it’s during the day. Sure it sucks that it costs $15. But we run these events at cost recovery. Sometimes we lose money (uhm, StartupEmpire anyone).

    Venue, food, Audio/Visual, and special things like a movie. They all cost money. BTW don’t forget the tax. The ticket price reflects the maximum we think people are willing to pay plus the maximum sponsorship amount we think we can cover. Did you know that a theatre + A/V + special feature + lunch is about $30/person+tax, almost $34/person. So we reach out to the community of companies and include the least amount of advertising and sponsorship. Make sure you check out:

    • Anand Agarawala and Bumptop! This is an EPIC sponsorship. You have to be at DemoCamp from 4pm-6pm to find out what it is.
    • Eqentia builds the a semantic publishing platform for knowledge tracking & competitive analysis
    • XtremeLabs is hiring agile engineers and ui designers for the hottest mobile development company on the planet.
    • Microsoft BizSpark jumpstart your startup and speeds up your time to market.
    • FreshBooks is the fastest way to track time and invoice your clients.
    • Mercanix develops tools that enable organizations and their people to do good work.
    • Rob Hyndman is the bee’s knees & the cat’s pajamas. Startups looking for a lawyer: Start here.
    • Rypple builds social software that makes workplace feedback easy and fun.
    • Dayforce is the hottest enterprise software company in Toronto. Hiring dev, qa, ui and sales ninjas.
    • Kontagent is a Facebook Fund funded startup that is hiring rockstar developers in Toronto.
    • OCE is helping commercialize the next generation technologies like Bumptop & Sysomos.
    • KPMG Information, Communications & Entertainment (ICE) practice helps startups to succeed in turbulent markets.

    These are organizations that are looking for funding, PR, and they are hiring. Are you a developer? designer? marketer? pr professional? Are you looking for a job? Make sure you check out each of these companies. They are part of our ecosystem. They support events like DemoCamp. And they make it possible for you to have a great experience. These folks essentially cough up a relatively small amount of money for a logo, a blog post, and the hope that events like DemoCamp make Toronto a great place to find and retain talent.

  • Demos announced for DCT27

    DemoCamp lineup has been announced:

    This is a great set of early stage Toronto and region (Waterloo) based startups. Some of the folks are getting their second shot at a demo. It will be interesting to see how far they’ve come from their launch. I hope that everyone takes the time to understand the need for “wow” in the demo. And remember the goal is not to heckle but to give entrepreneurs a chance to show what they’ve been working on, how they’ve improved and to get feedback.


    DemoCamp Surprises

    Anand Agarawala has stepped up with an EPIC DemoCamp sponsorship as a thank you for all of the support from the Toronto community and DemoCamp for helping promote and inspire Bumptop. We’ll take none of the credit for Anand and the Bumptop team’s hustle in getting acquired by Google, but we’ll enjoy the rewards at the next DemoCamp.

    Sponsors

    I know and appreciate everyone paying for a ticket. We don’t run DemoCamp as a business. We run it as a cost recovery event, that is, our goal is not to generate a profit (often we run at a loss). We couldn’t do this with out the support of our sponsors. There are some great local companies including:

    • Anand Agarawala and Bumptop! You have to be at DemoCamp from 4pm-6pm to find out what it is.
    • Eqentia builds the a semantic publishing platform for knowledge tracking & competitive analysis
    • XtremeLabs is hiring agile engineers and ui designers for the hottest mobile development company on the planet.
    • Microsoft BizSpark jumpstart your startup and speed up your time to market.
    • FreshBooks is the fastest way to track time and invoice your clients.
    • Mercanix develops tools that enable organizations and their people to do good work.
    • Rob Hyndman is the bee’s knees & the cat’s pajama. Startups looking for a lawyer. Start here.
    • Rypple builds social software that makes workplace feedback easy and fun.
    • Dayforce is the an enterprise software company in Toronto. Hiring dev, qa, ui and sales ninjas.
    • Kontagent is a Facebook Fund funded startup that is hiring rockstar developers in Toronto.
    • OCE helping commercialize the next generation technologies like Bumptop & Sysomos.
    • KPMG Information, Communications & Entertainment (ICE) practice helps startups to succeed in turbulent markets.

  • StartupWeekend Toronto recap – 200 people, 13 ideas and 5 winners

    This is a guest post by Chris Eben who, along with Karthik Soravanahalli and Ahmed Badruddin, organized StartupWeekend Toronto.

    Startup Weekend Toronto ended late Sunday night. While I’m still going to need a few days to reflect on the weekend, I thought I’d take a few minutes to jot down some thoughts…

    Given my initial apprehension about taking on the organization of this event, I couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out. What an amazing community of startup and tech professionals and enthusiasts we have in Toronto. Starting with the buzz that began weeks before the event, it was clear that Startup Weekend needed to come to Toronto.

    Friday night was quite something. A capacity crowd of over 200 people gathered at Ryerson’s amazing Atrium. I kicked things off briefly and explained how I got involved and what Startup Weekend is all about, immediately sensing the excitement from the crowd to start pitching and building new startups. But first we heard from Mike McDerment of Freshbooks about truly understanding the benefit you provide with your startup. Mike was followed by a great panel made up of Leila Boujnane, April Dunford and Sarah Prevette, moderated by Dan Martell who came in from San Francisco to help out. Mike sat on the panel as well. Lots of great stuff here – we’ll be posting the videos of the entire weekend when they’re ready.

    And then onto the pitches… We had 38 people come up and give 60-90s pitches. This was amazing. I was so impressed with the level of participation and the great ideas. At this point, I had no doubt the weekend would be a success. Then came what I like to call “organized chaos.” Voting on ideas followed by team formation. After the top 20 ideas were selected teams started forming over the rest of the night and following morning, resulting in 13 great ideas and teams, ready to get working.

    Now the whiteboarding, coding, strategy discussions, business model validations, etc started in full swing with mentors wandering around helping out the teams and some great insights from our Saturday night speakers (Mark Ruddock, Tim Smith and James Lanthier). After many all nighters, lots of food and coffee, and some beers, the teams were ready to start pitching on Sunday at 4pm.

    The pitching is where it all comes together. What a site to see 13 teams come up and show what can really be accomplished in a weekend-  often from ideas barely conceived until the Saturday morning, and with teams made of people who just met. Most teams actually had mockups or working code and even a few live demos. TadWanna even had 2 paying customers. While there were officially 5 winners (the top 3 as voted by the community and the judges, and 2 categories for honourable mention and the startup most likely to change the world) all 13 teams did something special.

    Congratulations to our winners! Task Ave. took 1st place and upwards of $25k in prizes. Schedify took 2nd, winning some great prizes and is already invited to pitch to the Ryerson Angel Network. In 3rd, RateHub is well on its way and has a complete new set of features for an already great web app. In our other 2 categories, Styllist got honourable mention with a really cool and working demonstration and N2O showed us how they will change the world with a Facetime app bringing doctors together from around the world.

    There were so many other great ideas and startups that I truly hope will keep going. This is an amazing time in Toronto – the community is vibrant and something is in the air. We’ve already seen the talent this city and country has to offer and I know that there is so much more to come.

    With such great feedback after the weekend, we’re going to do it again in April 2011. Mark your calendars and come out to build something amazing.

    A special thanks to my co-organizers. Ahmed Badruddin is the founder of Simpleafy, a GreenTech startup helping home owners track and better understand their energy consumption and discover ways to reduce it. He’s passionate about energy efficiency – check out his blog. Karthik Soravanahalli brought together the SIFE Ryerson team to make this event work. He’s killing it for Tim Smith at Gridcentric and finishing off his degree at Ryerson. And of course, thanks to all our amazing SIFE Ryerson volunteers!

    Thanks of course to Marc Nager from Startup Weekend headquarters in Seattle. He’s one of the guys responsible for bringing these awesome events to cities all over the world!

    If you want to talk to me about Startup Weekend Toronto, get in touch. I blog at The Low Post and am on twitter – @ceben and @startupwkndTO.

    Thanks to all our sponsors and to everyone who took part!

  • How to prepare for a C100 Mentoring session

    We gearing up for the next 48 Hrs in the Valley here at C100 global HQ. We’ve learned a lot from previous 48 Hrs events so expect a few surprises, to be announced soon.

    But in the meantime, a few dates for you to be aware of:

    • Sept 29: Drop dead deadline for companies to complete the application form
    • Oct 7: Selected companies will be notified
    • Oct 13: First draft of mentor deck due
    • Oct 27-28: 48 Hrs in the Valley

    I know what you’re saying, “What the heck is this Oct 13 deadline? We gotta hand in drafts of our presentations??”

    Short answer: “Yes!”

    The upcoming 48 Hrs will be the C100’s eighth mentoring event and after each one the mentors always told us the same thing, “We wish the companies were more prepared.”

    That is a strange coincidence, because the companies always tell us, “Damn, I wish we were more prepared.”

    Well, the good thing about the C100 mentoring team is you only have to tell us something seven times before we start to take immediate action.

    To make sure everyone feels they are properly prepared, we are asking… nay, demanding… that all companies complete their mentor decks and submit to us by Oct 8 for feedback by our crack team of mentor experts.

    To help you out, here are some useful tips on how to prepare you 48 Hrs mentor deck:

    • Think of the biggest challenge  facing your company and talk about it. What exactly do you want to get mentoring on? (In C100, we call this the “challenge statement” meaning, what is the biggest challenge  facing your company right now)
    • Don’t get bogged down in technology: Mentors want to talk about business issues, not about speeds-and-feeds
    • Don’t talk history: Mentors want to discuss the here and now, the long road you took to reach your current destination probably isn’t relevant
    • Be specific: generic presentations get generic feedback. Drill down into one aspect of your business, describe what is going on, and ask for specific advice and feedback

    Here is a deck template all companies should follow. Your deck shouldn’t be more than nine slides long:

    1)      Executive Summary: Short bullet points what your company does and what is your “challenge statement”

    2)      The Market: Give mentors background on the market your company addresses

    3)      What do you do?: How do you address your chosen market

    4)      Who are your competitors?

    5)      Short background on the team (emphasis on short)

    6)      Financial snapshot including funding, revenues and expenses

    7)      Challenge statement: This is the most important slide of the deck… what issue do you want mentoring on? Be very clear and specific here

    8)      Context: How did this challenge come about? How have you addressed similar challenges in the past

    9)      Importance: Why is addressing this challenge important? What would happen if this challenge was addressed? What would happen if it wasn’t?

    Trust us, follow this template and your mentoring session will be way more valuable than if you didn’t.

    The goal is always to make the mentoring sessions as useful and impactful as possible. So we at C100 will be asking the companies early and often to provide drafts of their decks so we can help ensure they are prepared for the mentoring session and ready to go.

  • DemoCamp with Fred Wilson

    Mark your calendars.

    Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures will be keynoting DemoCamp Toronto # 27 on October 6, 2010.

    EquentiaHow did we pull this off? Well the big shout out goes to William Mougayar at Eqentia, this would not have happened without the support and efforts of William. In case you haven’t seen Eqentia, they power custom portals for media monitoring, competitive intelligence, knowledge tracking and more. They power two sites that I use daily to track the Canadian emerging technology scene: CVCA and NextMontreal news widget.  We’ll be launching a full Eqentia powered news portal in the next couple of weeks.

    The full details about DCT27 are still being locked down. The venue is still to be determined. The venue is the bulk of the ticket price. The goal with ticketing has always been cost recovery and we’ll aim to keep tickets inexpensive (current model show about $25/person less for students). Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures

    DemoCamp Toronto 27 Details

    • Date: October 6, 2010 [Hold the Date – iCal]
    • Time: 11:30am – 3:30pm
    • Location: To be determined
    • Notify me when tickets are available

    I want to demo! Pick me, pick me!

    We’re also looking for up to 5 local demos that match the investment thesis at Union Square Ventures. If you think your company has the right stuff then you should apply to demo.


  • Startup Weekend Toronto September 24-26

    This is a guest post by Startup Weekend Toronto organizer Chris Eben.

    Let’s build some more startups in Toronto! According to StartupIndex, the GTA has 325 startups – by September 26, we might be able create 10 new startups in Toronto.

    Startup Weekend, a 54 hour event in which teams go from idea to launch to pitch in a weekend, comes to Toronto September 24-26 at Ryerson University through StartMeUp Ryerson. Check it out here and get registered while tickets are still available.

    The only way to determine whether entrepreneurship is for you is by actually going for it, and Startup Weekend gives you that opportunity. Going from idea to pitch requires working on every facet of entrepreneurship – researching a market, articulating the unique value proposition, competitive advantages, user acquisition strategy, business model, building the prototype, and more. You will work on and learn all the critical things you should be thinking about when starting a company and get practical experience.

    After the weekend, you can continue working on your project making it your path to entrepreneurship, or you can take what you learned during the weekend and apply it to your next venture. Over 36% of Startup Weekend companies are still alive after 3 months, and over 10% of companies go on to produce revenue or get seed funding.

    Startup Weekend is a great way to network with other passionate entrepreneurs and find potential co-founders. During Startup Weekend, you will not only meet some talented individuals, you will get to see how they work, helping you evaluate the potential for long term fit. Interaction and exchange of ideas between different teams is common which means your networking opportunities are not limited to your immediate team.

    Every Startup Weekend participant walks away learning a lot about startups and making some valuable connections. There is a great line up of speakers:

    • Mike McDerment, CEO of FreshBooks
    • Mark Ruddock, former CEO of Viigo (bought by RIM)
    • James Lanthier, COO of Mood Media
    • Sarah Prevette, CEO of Sprouter
    • Tim Smith, CEO of GridCentric
    • April Dunford founder of Rocket Launch Marketing
    • Leila Boujnane, founder and CEO of Idee Inc.

    They, along with a growing list of other experienced folks from the local community will be involved as mentors and judges to help teams during their weekend journey and provide constructive feedback. Attendees will take away valuable lessons to be applied to their current projects and anything they do in the future.

    While Startup Weekend is a non-profit organization, there is a cost to the event to cover expenses.  StartupNorth readers may use discount code “StartupNorthSWTO” for a significant discount.

    Follow @startupwkndTO and #swtoronto for news and updates leading up to the event.

  • Lessons from C100 Mentoring in Toronto

    We wrapped up another amazing C100 Mentoring (C1M) session the other week with mentors in San Jose talking live and in-person to a group of great companies in Toronto via Telepresense. As with all of these “TP” meetings, the wonder of the technology quickly melts away and the groups on either side of the video wall were able to really get down to business.

    We were fortunate in this last C1M session to have Rick Spence of the National Post sit in on the session and he shared his main take-aways in a recent article headlined:  Startups get face-time with Valley veterans.

    It is always interesting to read what main points a third party to a C1M session zeroes in on. From Spence’s point-of-view (with some of my commentary) the main things that the recent C1M start-ups need to think about are:

    • Keep it quick; or as he put it “sum up the pitch early.” He highlights that companies need to perfect the elevator pitch. Say what you do quickly and simply. Spence says 30 seconds but I would argue that event that is too generous for the real world (we give you some leeway in C1M, so 30 seconds is OK.) Out there, keep it to 15 to 20 seconds and keep it punchy!
    • K.I.S.S me! That’s right, when you’re out there trying to explain what it is you do, keep it short, sure, but please also “keep it simple, supplicant”* If your technology or application or web service or whatever cannot be explained in simple language then what you are doing is either (1) too esoteric for these crude Earthly market or (2) not explaining it right. If the answer is (1), you’ve got bigger problems but more often the answer is (2) and you need to step back, detach yourself from your product/service, and figure out how to articulate your value-proposition in a simple, compelling manner
    • “Focus, Focus, Focus”- I won’t add any commentary here. Just focus on those three words and the point is made
    • Note when I said “K.I.S.S. me!,” specific reference was made to articulating a“value-proposition,” that was on purpose. Sometimes we love to talk tech and how great our little service or gizmo works. If you’re after engineering brownie points, that approach works great. But if you’re after customers, forget the tech and focus on value.
    • Sales is what it is all about. There is only one group of people that can make any business successful, start-up or otherwise. No, it isn’t investors, partners, or event the founders themselves. The only group of people who can make a company a success is customers and securing their support is called selling. Make sure you find someone who knows how to do that.

    These insights are a very good summary of the conversation across all three companies. We touched on each of these points in one way or another with each company we met.

    In addition to the points listed above, the mantra that I was repeating for each company was segment and prioritize.

    I know that a lot of new companies have to throw whatever they can against the wall and see what sticks. That approach has its place, but it can also burn precious resources with little return. I’m a huge fan of looking across your (potential) customer based, segmenting them and then having a laser-focus on the ones that will be most profitable. Too often, I got the sense companies were trying to do everything all at once. Even if a product/service has multiple applications, there needs to be the discipline within a company to figure out which application has the most immediate promise and then going after the relevant customers.

    *I have to admit, I had to look up what “supplicant” means. The Dictionary.com definition was “a person who supplicates”, which wasn’t very helpful.

  • Conspiracy theories and hockey talent

    Photo by Kenny Louie http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/4398396665/
    Photo by kennymatic

    The brain drain. Canadian actors in Hollywood. This was a common thread for a in Canadian media outlets. But there is something new going on in tech north of the border. International corporations have been snapping up Canadian startups and talent. Foreign investors (think US Venture Capitalists) are looking north of the 49th parallel to actively deploy capital in high growth, scalable companies. Just look at the recent track record of activity in the past 9 months.

    Recent Exits

    • Layerboom acquired by Joyent.
    • Plan9 acquired by Apple.
    • Sysomos acquired by MarketWire.
    • SmallThought acquired by Twitter.
    • Opalis acquired by Microsoft.
    • Bumptop acquired by Google.
    • Sitemasher was acquired by Salesforce.
    • CoverItLive was acquired by Demand Media.

    Recent Foreign-led Investments

    • Highland Capital Partners invests in Montreal-based Beyond the Rack.
    • Bridgescale Venture Partners invests in Toronto-based Dayforce.
    • Bridgescale Venture Partners invests in Toronto-based Bluecat Networks.
    • FTV Capital invests $35M in Toronto-based Varicent.
    • Altos Ventures invests $4.5M in Toronto & SF-based Kontagent.
    • Metamorphic Ventures invests $1.5M in Toronto-based Chango.
    • Grandbanks Capital invests in Toronto-based iLoveRewards.
    • Grandbanks Capital invests in Toronto-based xkoto.
    • Panorama Capital invests $8M in Calgary-based Tynt.

    So just what is going on. Why the sudden interest and opportunity?

    1. A History Lower Valuations, Less Capital & More Traction
      When you look at the historical news archive from the Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA) about the state of venture capital in Canada you begin to see a common thread. Canadian companies generally raise less money than their US counterparts at each stage of growth. This leads to lower valuations and more traction from local investors and has created a generation of Canadian entrepreneurs that are used to funding growth from profits. In 2009, the US market saw US$18 billion invested through venture capital. Canada startups only raised approximately US$1 billion representing 5.5% of the US number (source: Wellington Fund blog). The challenge is that the Canadian economy is approximatley 12.5% of the US economy and this leaves a significant gap in the amount of potential capital being deployed to Canadian startups. There is a gap in the level of investment and the overall economic performance in Canada. This leaves a huge opportunity for other funding sources.
    2. Strong Local Communities
      When you look across Canada entrepreneurs are using the web, events and models developed locally and internationally to connect each other, share information and build successful startups. There are examples ranging from government funded initatives like the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo, WavefrontAC in Vancouver, the RIC Centre, MaRS, Lead to Win in Ottawa, and Communitech (there are a ton more). There are grassroots movements like DemoCamp, MontrealNewTech, StartupCamp and LaunchParty happening across the country. There are an emerging set of incubators and early investors like BootupLabs, Extreme Ventures, Montreal StartUp/Founder Fuel, and Mantella VP. These communities provide entrepreneurs opportunities to connect with other entrepreneurs and seed investors to share methods, pursue informed development and find mentorship and funding.
    3. Close Proximity
      As soon as you decide to get on a plane, the game has changed. It’s not about can I drive to a board meeting in less than 45 minutes. It’s about can I make return travel in the same day. Flights to Vancouver from San Francisco are only minutes longer than flights to Seattle. If you’re leaving the comforts of Silicon Valley to travel to Seattle, Boulder, or other destinations than you should consider Vancouver. Toronto and Montreal in the same geographical proximity to Boston, New York and Chicago. The decision for most investors has less to do with travel and more to do with finding great companies whose growth can be accelerated. Having an international border throws a couple of new complications (see the next section Taxation Reforms) into the mix but it should not prevent investment or acquisition. There might be taxation and immigration impact on
    4. Taxation Reforms
      Charley Lax at Grandbanks Capital was a vocal critic of Section 116 of the Canada Tax Act. However, on March 4, 2010 Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced amendments to the Act that excluded shares of Canadian private companies. Basically, this removed a major tax barrier to foreign investment opportunities. A few of the deals listed above where completed before the changes to Section 116, significantly more seed and early-stage deals involving capital from US investors can be seen.

    The times are a changin’

    Grow 2010

    Conspiracy theories of Canadians infiltrating American companies are mostly true. But the brain drain is a thing of the past. Silicon Valley is heading north to find new deals, new talent, and new opportunities. Grow Conference in Vancouver is a prime example of the exploration north of the border. Elite investors like Rob Hayes of First Round Capital, Dave McClure of FoundersFund, Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC are heading across the border to engage with Canadian entrepreneurs and startups. The Canadian Tech Mafia, sorry the C100, continues to show a strong presence with Rob Chaplinsky from Bridgescale, Chris Albinson of Panorama and others.

  • A year in the life

    GuestlistHappy 1st Birthday Guestlist!

    Guestlist has had a couple of weeks. On July 12, 2010 they launched their paid service which finally allows the company to generate fees for the great service they provide. We started using Guestlist for events starting on September 24, 2009 for DemoCamp Toronto # 22 aka An Evening with Yossi Vardi.

    “What began as a dare between three friends to actually finish a software product has turned into full-fledged web service that has helped hundreds of event organizers sell tickets online and keep tabs on their cash flow. Over that period we’ve collected half a million dollars on behalf of our users, a near-majority of which was delivered directly to charities. All powered by word of mouth.” – Ben Vinegar, Guestlistapp

    It’s been a great year for Guestlist enabling over $500,000 in transaction revenue. This is great traction for the small team. Sure it’s only $10,000 using the 2% paid service fee. But this is fantastic traction given that this is a part time project with all 3 team members working other jobs. The demonstrated traction helped the team realize the potential of Guestlist as a business.

    “That’s the story of what our team put together, part time, over one year. We can’t say it was easy; building and maintaining a quality application part-time requires a lot of dedication and free time. That’s why we’re excited to announce that 2/3s of our team has opted to work full-time on Guestlist going forward.”

    If you’re planning an event and you want a great event application, I can highly recommend Guestlist.