StartupNorth

Category: Resources

  • StartupNorth Jobs

    GarageCollageThe hours at a startup might be long and the pay might just cover a six inch sub, but there is nothing more rewarding than being part of a team out to change the world.

    We’ve added a job board on StartupNorth to help Canadian entrepreneurs find great people to bring on.

    Since launching a couple weeks back we’ve had 26 postings, 2667 views, 129 applications, and 16 referrals.

    Companies looking to grow their team include: FreshBooks, Well.ca, Tungle, LearnHub, Fixmo, ThoughtFarmer, iNovia, and Xtreme, obviously some amazing opportunities.

    It is free to search and post, so head on over and check out: StartupNorth Jobs at http://jobs.StartupNorth.ca

  • Rogers Ventures

    rogers-logo So what’s the story with Rogers Ventures?

    Mic Berman announced StartupCampWaterloo(Serious Edition) happening on October 20, 2009 in Waterloo, ON. Jesse Rodgers provided a little more detail about the event on the BarCampWaterloo Google Group:

    “Rogers Ventures has started an early stage/seed round investment group. They are looking to make several investments before the end of this year and they have  a strong commitment to fund and support entrepreneurs or post doc researchers who have great ideas and/or innovative technology.

    If are looking for funding and would like to pitch the Rogers’ team (Mike Lee, Nyla Ahmad or Jason Zan) and a few other local funders such as Tech Capital.”

    We’ve worked with Mike Lee to host DemoCamp Toronto 21 & 22 (an Evening with Yossi Vardi). Rogers Ventures has already demonstrated their ability and willingness to engage with the community. Rogers Ventures continues to reach out and engage with entrepreneurs across the country.

    Press Release

    Rogers Ventures publically launches on October 15, 2009. Here are the details provided by the consultants and public relations individuals helping Rogers Ventures engage the development community. 

    What is Rogers Ventures?

    Rogers Ventures is a new source of early stage seed level investment for technology start-ups. We find great talent with powerful ideas and we invest in their business success. We invest our money, leverage, experience and other strategic contributions to get our portfolio companies on the path of accelerated development and market growth.  Another part of the Rogers Ventures’ mandate is supporting the innovation ecosystem by providing direct funding to community programs that help create innovation momentum in this country. 

    Is Rogers Ventures a venture capital firm?

    We operate a venture-style funding mechanism (we approve investments on a case-by-case basis) but that’s where the similarities end. Our long-term objective is to develop a portfolio of high potential companies that capture the value created through wireline and wireless broadband networks. 

    Why was Rogers Ventures created?

    We’re living at a time when technology innovation, new online services and shifts in consumer behaviour are being adopted faster than any other time in history. We want to be part of this innovation and the opportunity presenting themselves but realize that we cannot achieve success, as effectively, on our own. Rogers Ventures is our way of looking beyond the walls of Rogers for outside talent and ideas to fund. We believe that this will broaden our innovation horizons and keep us closer to the forefront of next-generation technology. 

    How will Rogers Ventures support the high-tech community?

    While we see a significant amount of energy and activity within the Canadian innovation landscape, we feel that there are opportunities for support for the Canadian ecosystem to accelerate momentum. We have been working to identify community-level programs or initiatives that require support – either money, a space large enough to hold events, someone to pay for pizza, participation in mentorship, contribution as a speaker, whatever – and we try to make that support happen. We know that our effort is not the total solution. We are contributing our part to build the necessary momentum and are committed to engage.

    Who runs Rogers Ventures?

    Melinda Rogers, senior vice-president, strategy and development with Rogers Communications, is the executive in charge of Rogers Ventures. On a day-to-day basis, the portfolio is run by Mike Lee, vice-president with Rogers Ventures, and Nyla Ahmad, vice-president, Rogers Ventures Operations.

    What are Rogers Ventures portfolio companies?

    There are currently three companies within the Rogers Ventures portfolio: Zoocasa,  a vertical search product focused on real estate; Thoora, a next generation news discovery service; and GridCentric, a solution for grid computing. We don’t discuss publically investment levels.

    Is Rogers Ventures a part of Rogers Communications?

    Rogers Ventures falls within Rogers’ corporate strategy and development group and it is legally part of Rogers Communications Inc. However, it operates as a separate entity on a day-to-day basis.

    Additional Team Details

    So who are Mike Lee, Nyla Ahmad and Jason Zan and others. We can start to piece together the players from web searches, management profiles of their portfolio companies, and social media tools.

    “Mike Lee, Chief Strategy Officer, Rogers Communications Inc.

    Michael (Mike) Lee is Chief Strategy Officer for Rogers Communications Inc. Mike is responsible for strategy development, new venture development, and strategic partner management for the Rogers Communications’ group of companies which include Rogers Cable, Rogers Wireless and Rogers Media. Previously, he held the role of Vice President, Strategy and Development for Rogers Cable.” Cable Congress 2009

    “Nyla Ahmad, Senior Director, Strategic Partners for Rogers Communications Inc.

    Nyla Ahmad is responsible for overseeing and managing key cross-company relationships. This includes managing the Rogers Yahoo! strategic alliance across the entire Rogers group of companies. Previously within Rogers, Ms. Ahmad held roles within Rogers Cable and the Internet division of Rogers Media. As Senior Director of Electronic Channels for Rogers Cable Communications Inc. she was responsible for the product development, online services strategy and customer experience for Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet. As Vice President of Excite Canada, she oversaw the development of consumer online content and services across broadband, narrowband and wireless platforms.” 3rd Annual C-COR Global IP Summit – Executive Interviews

    “Jason Zan, Co-founder and adviser

    Jason was a Sr. Director of Business Development at Rogers Communications Inc. (NYSE:RG), the largest wireless carrier in Canada. Prior to that Jason was Director of Venture Investments at Rogers where he was responsible for managing the company’s private equity investment portfolio. Jason has a HBA from Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario, Canada.” Tokia > About Management

    The team at Rogers also includes for former PlanetEye CEO Butch Langlois, who announced in Jun3 2009 that he was joining Rogers Ventures. Butch has a strong histo

    ry with Rogers serving as VP, Finance and Corporate Development in the old Rogers New Media group.

    The team has a very strong Rogers flavour. It will be interesting to see if they are able to break free from the corporate culture that tends to lead to “The Innovator’s Dilemma” to identify opportunities. Their current investments in Zoocasa, Thoora and GridCentric show a desire to commercialize research efforts, both Thoora and GridCentric are commercialized out of the University of Toronto projects and teams. Rogers Ventures seems to be making an effort to move beyond their traditional boundaries. 

  • Entrepreneurship 101 starts Sept 30, 2009

    entrepreneurship101 MaRS is continuing it’s Entrepreneurship 101 program for the 2009-2010. Entrepreneurship 101 is an introductory program aimed at providing the “nuts and bolts of building a business”. The program is a 16 week program aimed at providing the basics around starting a company. Topics include:

    • financing
    • defining markets
    • hiring teams
    • protecting intellectual property
    • raising capital

    MaRS has done a great job publishing a Vimeo channel with all of the past content. These build on our Teaching Entrepreneurship with a local opportunity for Toronto entrepreneurs. This is a great way to see the theoretical side of entrepreneurship, but to gain exposure to entrepreneurial thinking and the basics of getting off the ground.

    ent101-vimeo-buildingapitch
    Building a Pitch     from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.

    ent101-vimeo-roleofboards
    The Role of Boards, Advisory Panels and Service Providers     from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.

    ent101-vimeo-marketingbasicpt1
    Basics of Marketing for Entrepreneurs, Pt. 1     from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.

    ent101-vimeo-marketingbasicspt2
    Basics of Marketing for Entrepreneurs, Pt. 2     from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.

  • Founders versus early employees

    Not everyone can be a founder. We talk about the founders of startups and companies. We focus on the founders. The founders get press coverage. They get invited to speak at events. Sometimes they get rich. But for every founder, there is an early employee that takes near equal risks in joining an early-stage company.

    Steve Blank divides the individuals associated with startups as:

    • Founders
    • Early Employees (Employees # 1-25)
    • Later Employees (Employees # 26-125)

    The majority of his division is about the temperament of the individual as related to risk and dealing with chaos and uncertainty. Not every one can be a founder, i.e., can you imagine trying to start a company with 10,000 people? It’s just unfeasible.

    “Being an early hire at a startup gives an individual the ability to make tremendous impact on an organization as it grows – and both the founders and those hires should know it.” David Beisel

    We need to celebrate the employees at startups. We need to make sure that early employees are compensated, incented and rewarded for their decisions to join startups. Early employees have a huge impact on the growth and culture of a company.

    How do you compensate early employees? Paul Graham provides a model for calculating value. As Naval points out that you still need to pay employees market rates, but with all employees you need to ask yourself “whether she [a new hire] is likely to increase the next round’s share price”. This should force companies to think about building value with each early hire, and not just filling a position.

    Title Range (%)
    CEO 5 – 10
    COO 2 – 5
    VP 1 – 2
    Independent Board Member 1
    Director 0.4 – 1.25
    Lead Engineer 0.5 – 1
    5+ years experience Engineer 0.33 – 0.66
    Manager or Junior Engineer 0.2 – 0.33

    Table 1: Options Grants in Silicon Valley for Series A from VentureHacks

    The numbers from VentureHacks are guidelines. They are rough estimates.Any one have sample option grants in Canada? Are the percentages different? I would assume that they are very similar but given the lower valuations and this may change the salary/options mix.

    Remember the goal is to incent early employees to have an emotional ownership of the product and company they are building. Equally said, potential employees need to understand what they are getting into. Darmesh Shah has a great list of insights for employees joining early stage companies. Early employees are critical for startups, and we need to recognize that not everyone can be a founder.

    I would love to hear your thoughts on being a founder or an early employee.

     

    Additional Resources

  • Hire a co-op!

    Looking for ways to get new talent? Hire a co-op! The Ontario Government has a great program to help offset the costs. It’s interesting how all of these programs are located in and around Waterloo. This is one of the benefits of starting a company in Ontario.

    I know that Kontagent, Extreme VP, Bumptop, LearnHub, Sysmos, FreshBooks, Well.ca, Idee and others have hired co-ops in the past. Here is some basic math, pay your students $15/hour for a 40 hour week for 16 weeks. It will cost you $9,600. The program will return you 25% which is $2,400. Cost for you for the 16 weeks is only $7,200. A steal!

    For each co-op student hired, your organization can take advantage of the Co-operative Education Tax Credit.  The Ontario Government recently increased the credit to 25 per cent of salaries or wages and benefits (30 per cent for small businesses) to a maximum of $3,000 per student, per term. For more
    information:

    Anyone know the contact details for UofT, Seneca, or Ryerson’s coop programs?

  • Teaching Entrepreneurship

    The first book I remember reading about starting a new tech venture was High-Tech Ventures: The Guide for Entrepreneurial Success. It is a book that was written about entrepreneurial ventures in the mid to late 1980s. Surprisingly much of the advice and particularly the venture economics remains valid. However, much of the manufacturing and marketing advice doesn’t apply 18 years later. The good news is that there are a ton of online resources that are available to round out the education for entrepreneurs.

    It’s great to see that Velocity, SIFE and Impact are making it easier for students to learn about entrepreneurship as a career path. Maybe I need to put some effort into adding content to StartupSchool.ca to make a valuable resource for entrepreneurs and students.

  • Pitching fastballs

    “Do you have some time for a coffee or beer to chat about my startup?” – Anonymous entrepreneur

    I’m happy to talk to entrepreneurs, learn about your startup and even help you out if I can. Since I have a bad habit of over committing and taking on too many activities. Let’s see there’s DemoCamp, Founders and Funders, StartupEmpire, my job (yes, I work at Microsoft), and a personal life (think 2 kids under the age of 2). Things are chaotic and busy, I’m starting to ask entrepreneurs to help me. So without more information, the answer to the above question is “maybe, help me understand why we should me”.

    This sounds familiar. It’s similar to the problem faced by investors (made more pronounced with time-constrained applications), and journalists, and customers.

    “If we get 1000 applications and have 10 days to read them, we have to read about 100 a day. That means a YC partner who reads your application will on average have already read 50 that day and have 50 more to go.” – YCombinator How To Apply

    We talk about an Elevator Pitch. Except this isn’t a world where you might have forced my focus of attention by being artificially trapped in an elevator. The goal is like a newspaper headline. It’s to make me read the rest of the story. You need to stand out. You have to be able to simply, clearly convey what your startup is going to do. The YCombinator team do a great job describing what they look for in How To Apply. The initial filtering criteria for a YC application are obviously different than the criteria that journalists use to find stories, and different that what I use when determining to take a meeting or how I can help a startup. But the process is the same.

    “What is your company going to make?" This isn’t the question I care most about, but I look at it first because I need something to hang the application on in my mind.

    The best answers are the most matter of fact. It’s a mistake to use marketing-speak to make your idea sound more exciting. We’re immune to marketing-speak; to us it’s just noise.” – YCombinator How To Apply

    This is about stand out from the pack. And helping the reader/journalist/audience member figure out who you matter to and why. Think of this as demand generation. You’re driving awareness and interest in your company, your team, your solution. The number one key is to be empathetic to the person whose attention and imagination you are trying to capture. Put yourself in the shoes of your intended audience, and help them understand what is special about your company, your product, you.

    “Boil down your elevator pitch to one sentence. Tell us what you sell or do in very concrete language. This sets the context for the rest of your presentation.” – David Rose

    Here’s an attempt to write that opening description for a few local startups.

    • FreshBooks is a QuickBooks killer. It is a web-based accounting system allows small businesses to have accurate, professional estimates, time tracking, and invoicing.  
    • Well.ca is Canada’s online drugstore. Strong sales growth over past 3 years, raised $1.1M from angel investors in July 2009, technology focused with strong customer service.
    • Rypple is a web application that gathers anonymous feedback from anyone. Peter Thiel is an investor. Founders have a strong track record at Workbrain.
    • Dayforce is an rich internet application and web service that allows managers to visualize and plan their employees schedules and the employees to enter their timesheets. Founders have strong track record including Workbrain.
    • Kiiro is a social project management application built on SharePoint. It uses the web and Microsoft Project to improve collaboration between the project managers and the team on larger projects.
    • CoverItLive is web application for live blogging events. Companies, conferences, individuals can connect photos, tweets, live video, and rich media during events.

    This is just the beginning. But that is the point. The goal is to entice the reader to want to know more. Ideally I’d love to see a short description of what you’re building. A clear identification about how you think you’re going to make money. What you think your secret sauce is. And a brief summary of key team members. Sound familiar. It’s very similar to the advice that David Rose provides as a Pitch Coach. The goal is to take basic pitch information and digest it into a smaller, customized components for your audience. It means that entrepreneurs are going to have stop being ego-centric and start thinking about others. You need to understand what is important to the individual that you are trying to reach and to shape your message appropriately.

    For me, I want to understand what your company does/builds; the management team; the market opportunity; the business model; the stage of corporate development (pre-funded, funded, pre-revenue, etc.); why you think I care about this; and what your ask is of me. Is that too much to ask?

    Open challenge to local startups to “pitch” for a meeting in a 140 characters or less in the comments (more realistically less than 420 characters – basically 3 tweets).

    Resources

  • One small step for startup kind

    “I believe this Nation should commitment itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." – John F. Kennedy

    Yesterday was the 40th Anniversary of the lunar landing. The Apollo program is an interesting concept for early-stage startups. It was a self-imposed race to beat the Soviets. A lot of startups need to feel the pressure to succeed, and having timelines, constraints and competition often helps amp up the sense of impending doom.

    For the Apollo program there was competition. There were extreme timelines. There were budget constraints. All of these were much bigger and longer than the plans for startups. But there was a clear goal (“landing a man on the moon and returning him safely”), and constraints (“before this decade is out”). And most importantly the money wasn’t the end, it was a necessary means to accomplish the larger goal.

    Clear Goals

    Beating the Soviets. Recovering national pride after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. It was an effect of the Cold War. But there was competition. The historical analysis of the program looked at a variety of success factors including Big Hairy Audacious Goals that included:

    • “a chance of beating the Soviets by putting a laboratory in space”
    • “a sporting chance of sending a 3-man crew around the moon ahead of the Soviets”
    • “an excellent chance of beating the Soviets to the first landing of a crew on the moon (including return capability, of course)”

    The definition of goals included both the engineering constraints but also a prediction of the potential of the competition. Startups need to set big goals. The goal should specify the desired outcome, not the path/method for achievement. 

    Competition

    The goals need to be in context of their operating environment including that of their competitors. I really hate when an entrepreneur tells me they have no competitors. The number of times that this is true is rare. Most companies and products have competition. Stop being afraid to talk about your competition. Understanding where you fit in the competitive landscape can help you figure out your product offering, your time to market, potential marketing events. It makes it a lot easier to know who is the bad guy? Trust me, you should be diligent and honest about who you are competing against. Having a clear competition makes it easier to see where you should spend marketing dollars, what conferences to attend or avoid, and build strategies that either embrace or ignore the competition.

    Constraints

    Money is one of the easiest constraints to understand. Unfortunately, when you’re working part-time out of your basement/garage/spare room, you don’t have the impending sense of doom that money is a constraint. The runway for side projects is a long. I think this leads to thinking that raising money is the end goal.  “We’ve raised a million dollars”. This is meant to be the beginning of the journey. The money is for a purpose, it’s meant to help you grow, build, market, acquire, etc. Raising money enables you to do the real work. It allows you to either increase the rate of acceleration or lengthen the runway. But it’s just the beginning. Equally said, SR&ED is a great benefit to companies, however, when you decide to focus on SR&ED credits to keep the company afloat instead of finding new customers you’re doing the wrong thing.

    Money in the bank/Monthly expenses = How long until we are dead – Phil Morle

    The change over the past 20 years is that the monthly expenses have decreased. It no longer costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for hardware, development environments, net access, etc. The price of servers continues to fall, and with the advent of cloud computing and dynamic loads it is becoming variable with the load on your site or application. Development environments are free. Usually the single biggest cost for a startup is talent. Oh wait, you’re not paying yourself and you don’t have any employees. This has 2 side effects, it reduces the monthly expenses thus lengthening the runway, but it can also have adverse side effects like not forcing entrepreneurs to be self critical of their ideas and their progress. 

    Figure 1: The Startup Runway 
    Figure 1: The Startup Runway from Phil Morle on Pollenizer

    I like Phil Morle’s method for using the runway:

    Pick a date in the future (this is point D on Figure 1). Let’s say 18 months from now because that’s roughly what John Doerr of Kleiner says is good runway. And then begin working backwards, determine the point where you will need raise more money or find a paying customer (this is point C). This point needs to be a few months before the end of the runway to allow you a margin of error and the time necessary to close financing or the deal. Continuing backwards in time, you need to be at feature complete (point B on Figure 1). Yes, there is a long time between points B & C but this is to allow you to drive adoption, build press and momentum and refine your existing product and pricing. It brings us to right now, what is the minimum feature set that you can plan, design, build, test and deploy between now and 6-12 months from now.

    Lessons for Startups

    “Startups fail from a lack of customers, not product development failure” – Steve Blank

    You’re goal is to prove your business before time runs out!

    1. Define the end of the runway
    2. Set clear goals and metrics that will prove your business
    3. Identify the constraints – financial, talent, technological, etc.
    4. Focus on customers and markets from day one

    Additional Reading

  • Extreme University

    extremevpExtreme Venture Partners is hosting a summer program for start-ups called Extreme University. It’s reminiscent of the Trilogy University, which should come as no surprise given Farhan Thawar is ex-Trilogy Software (TU98 to be exact). The Extreme University program is a rapid start 12 week program that aims to bring the rigor and mentoring and connections for start-ups. The program is based in Toronto, but given Extreme’s strong ties to Silicon Valley, New York, and around the globe you can imagine that these companies will gain access to their network.

    Applications are due by June 12, 2009. The program runs June 22 to September 4, 2009. And will conclude with a Demo event on September 12, 2009.

    What: A summer technology start-up program that focuses on industry networking, technology mentoring and above all delivering a product to potential follow-on funders after only 12 weeks.

    Who: We are looking for four smart and fast moving teams to participate. Typically all members of the two-three person team will be deep technically, but at least one of the founders should have a technical background.

    How: After you apply and are accepted you will:

    • Get $5,000 (US) per founder in exchange for a 10% ownership stake in your company
    • Move your team to our shared ExtremeU office space at Yonge & King (downtown Toronto)
    • Have weekly mentoring sessions by industry experts in technology, funding, legal, PR, marketing and HR
    • Meet a who’s who of experts at our weekly socials and have an opportunity to practice your pitch and demo your in-progress prototype
    • Have access to local shared resources to accelerate product development (mentors, servers)

    When: Applications are due by Friday June 12th, 2009. The program starts Monday June 22nd, 2009 to Friday September 4th, 2009 at the ExtremeU offices in Toronto at Yonge and King. The final demo day will be Tuesday September 15th, 2009 at Demo camp.

    It’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and founders to come to Toronto. Work with a group of people at Extreme Venture Partners, gain exposure to a local, national and international network to help you build and grow a new company and product.

    Apply Now!

  • Big Hairy Audacious Goals for Startups

    Reid Hoffman talks about LinkedIn’s startup story on CNN. It’s a very interesting story about a successful entrepreneur becomes a serial entrepreneur by focusing on both a vision and a set of success metrics.

    We had this initial challenge of, "How do you get a million people?" The first challenge was getting enough people so that functions like searching for people or sharing information had enough people in it to be valuable. The year 2003 was all about tuning and viral growth.

    I’m a huge believer in getting a million people, getting them engaged, and then building a business model on top of that.

    Why does a million people matter? Is this a good metric for other startups? How will know if you are successful? This requires having both a set of measures and a set of goals.

    AARRR! Be Bold. Be Humble.

    What should you be measuring? The good news is that others have done a lot of the heavy lifting. Dave McClure has a great presentation on Startup Metrics for Pirates. The

    Dave has a quick 5 point plan for understanding how to frame a startup, the business model and the performance of both the marketing and product development efforts.

    • Passion for problem/solution + Hypothesis of Customer Lifecycle
    • 1 page Business Model: Prioritized List of (Users + Conversions + Priorities)
    • Critical, Few, Actionable Metrics + Dashboard of Measured User Behaviour
    • 1 page Marketing Plan: (Channels + Campaigns) * (Volume, Cost, Conversion %)
    • Velocity of (Product Execution + Cycle Time of Testing) * Iteration

    This shouldn’t feel like rock science. It’s a way to frame the problems that all startups should be used to answering. What problem do you solve? What is life cycle of your customers? Who are your customers and how are you acquiring them? How do you reach your customers? How do you know if your development process is healthy? How will you know if you’ve been successful? It’s not rocket science.

    BHAGs

    Startup Metrics provide the baseline set of things a startup should be measuring. You should be building the data collection into your application, and he suggests you should “delegate each metric to someone to own”. This is the what, but it’s missing the Big Hairy Audacious Goal. The metrics are the starting point for measurement, and not they are not the target for an organization. 

    What is your “million users” goal?