We’re on the official Grow Conference schedule. Together with Communitech, we are hosting a party. You can decide for yourself if these conferences are right for you or your business (need help, check out Kevin Swan’s piece for insight). But we’re going to be there. We are going to be highlighting Ontario startups (and investors). Who is coming so far?
We’re looking for startups to highlight, stories to tell, and connections to make. We need startups. We need sponsors. We need volunteers. If you’re coming to Grow Conference please feel free to join us on August 14 at The Portside Pub.
I keep seeing entrepreneurs that complain to me after the fact that they took an investment with bum terms. It comes in many different ways, usually something like, “here’s my cap table what do you think?” or “I have this term sheet what do you think of the terms?”. The terms are usually appalling. But the entrepreneurs asking don’t know this until it is too late, they signed the documents, they spent the money, and now they want advice raising the next round.
https://twitter.com/rhh/status/344232460533518337
It looks like I’m not alone. If you can’t figure out this is war. This is information warfare. I forget that I work with a lot of great investors. They look for deals that work for them, their portfolio, for their investments and the potential investments. But I long ago realized that my interests and the interests of existing investors or potential investors were not always in my interest, particularly when things start to go bad. I wish all investors were as honest as Brad Feld with their desired investment rights. But there are bad investors out there. They look to use an information asymmetry to gain greater advantage over uninformed entrepreneurs. It allows them to buy large ownership percentages at reduced rates with additional rights that are not always in the favor of entrepreneurs. They tell entrepreneurs that it is ok, their capital brings additional non-dilutive government capital and the entrepreneur will have the cash to grow. They are trying to maximize their returns by exploiting the information asymmetry.
And I don’t like seeing people being exploited.
It is not the first time that someone has used both simple and sophisticated tactics to take advantage of people. Part of the creation of the Securities Exchange Commission to allow, in this case, the US government to bring civil actions ” against individuals or companies alleged to have committed accounting fraud, provided false information, or engaged in insider trading or other violations of the securities law.” Before the enactment of the commission, consumers were protected by “blue sky” laws, but Investment Bankers Association told its members as early as 1915 that they could “ignore” blue sky laws by making securities offerings across state lines through the mail. Many investors are money grubbing capitalists and that’s the way I like it. But as an entrepreneur the only person looking out for you is you. So rather than leave yourself ignorant and uninformed it is your responsibility to reduce the information asymmetry. After all, it is your company and…
Knowing is half the battle
The person that is responsible for your success and the success of your company is YOU!
So stop blaming bad investors. Stop blaming lawyers. Stop blaming others. You need to take proactive steps to reduce the information asymmetry
Get educated
Due diligence on your investors
Participate and share
1. Get educated
Fifteen years ago, this information was very difficult to access. The first book that I read about venture capital was High-tech Ventures: The Guide For Entrepreneurial Success that was written in 1991. Part way in to my second venture (I was employee number 6 for the record) John Nesheim released High Tech Start Up, Revised And Updated: The Complete Handbook For Creating Successful New High Tech Companies in 2000. This was my early education about venture capital, high potential growth companies. But most of the lessons came from the school of hard knocks. But things have changed. There are a tonne of resources available to entrepreneurs. Here is a short list:
This is your business. You are taking outside funding. You need to understand what is happening in the process and why.
2. Due diligence on investors
The investor is doing diligence on you and your company. They are going to talk to your previous investors, your employees, your customers and maybe your prospects. They will take to people in their circle of trust to learn about the market, expected performance metrics, and your reputation. It is incredibly important theyunderstand the risks and accretive milestones before presenting you to their investment committee.
You must do your own due diligence on the investor before taking any money. This is going to be a partner in your company. It has often been described as a work marriage. You should need/want to understand more about this person, the firm they work for, and how they treat their existing companies and CEOs. Go for dinner, have a glass of wine, talk about your company, and figure out if you can work with this person for the next few years. Talk to other CEOs that they’ve invested at a similar stage as your company. Talk to the ones that succeeded, to the ones that failed. Talk to the people that the investor sends to you to do diligence. There are so many tools to expose social relationships that didn’t exist: LinkedIn will allow you to send InMails to past CEOs; Clarity allows you to connect with a lot of entrepreneurs and mentors that have a connection with the investor; AngelList is a great tool for discovery but it is also becoming a great way to see investments and help you in your diligence.
“the diligence factor was that I knew them, but had never taken money from them. It’s hard to know how people are going to react when they are at risk of losing money because of something you are directly responsible for until you are actually at that point.” – Brandon Watson
The above resources are amazing. However, I often learn best from the examples of others. I learned a lot from Mark Organ at Influitive. Mark shared stories about the good and the bad decisions he made in the early days at Eloqua. You learn a lot when you share a hotel room on the road as grown ups.
There are formal meetups like Founders & Funders. But seriously in order to have the trust, you need to get out of the office and the formalities of these events. The conversations come over a poker game. But you’ve got to put yourself out there, be vulnerable, and find people that can teach you something.
I believe so much in this that I’m renovating my house. I want a big kitchen for family dinner. All of my startups will be getting an invitation to Sunday night dinner. Why? Because I’m betting my family’s future on them, and I want them to be a part of the family. This includes the ones that I’ve invested in already and any of the companies that I’m looking at investing. I want them to hang out. I want them to help each other. Share metrics and tactics. I want them to tell you that I’m slow to invest. I’m slow even after I’ve said yes (but I hope they understand that it is because sometimes I have to do some consulting work to have investment dollars). (Now I just need the renovations to finish).
Feeling screwed?
I’m starting to think about publishing shitty term sheets, depending on the risks our lawyer identifies, with investor names. I’m not sure public shaming is right model, and my lawyer might tell me it is not. But I think that we need to elevate the conversation we as entrepreneurs are having with each other and our investors.
I’ll be publishing prospective term sheets in the next few days.
It’s the time of the year where we either make you a hero or we make you hate me a little more. As stated in the previous comments, this could very well be The List of People That David Crow Wants to Be Associated With (but I think I established that is a different list). Either way, the commenter is correct, the list is something and it is highly suspect and by no means complete. If you don’t like the list, leave a comment. If you think I left genuinely left someone off, leave a comment (ps suggesting yourself, either demonstrates your overly inflated ego or you might not realize that your suggestion by itself if a reason to be left of the list). I’m open to being corrected and having the list added to.
For 2013, the list is divided between those we expect to break out (Breaking Glass). And those that are taking it to the next level (Going Big). Basically, you will be hearing from or about these people over the next 12 months. So everyone get in a circle, it’s time for the 2013 instalment of the Hot Shit List.
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.
Rob Go published his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Boston Tech Community, and it got me thinking about how much of the Toronto Tech scene has changed over the years. This is a my view of the players and contributors in the Toronto Startup Ecosystem. It is not a comprehensive list. It’s designed to be an overview. If you want more detail, seek it out.
The first rule of this community is:
” Create more value than you capture.” – Tim O’Reilly
If you can’t figure out how to add value, then you are doing it wrong. It probably means that you’re ruining the experience for someone else.
Monthly/Semi-Regular Events
Mentor Mondays – hosted by Howard Gwin of OMERS Ventures. Probably the best networking event for funded and looking to get funded startups. Includes Howard’s network of CEOs, founders, consultants and other crazies that can provide real world advice. This is the best CEO event in the city if you can get an invite.
Founders & Funders – An invite only event hosted semi-regularly by use here at StartupNorth. It’s designed to bring together the people the start high potential growth companies and the people that fund them. It is invite only, requirements vary if you are a founder or a funder. For funders, we like to see 2 investments of >$100k in the past 12 months, and we try to vette founders to be fundable (and we’re often wrong)
SproutUpTO – Hosted by Jon Spencely and the Sprouter crew. Roughly monthly meetup that follows the startup demos and a big name keynote speaker. Event is approximately $12 to attend. Has hosted big names like: Daniel Burka, Tony Conrad, Matt Meeker, Sean Ellis, and others. Many of the keynote speakers and the startups are “high potential growth technology companies” but I find that the audience and the networking is mixed.
TechTalksTO– Great semi-regular series of talks by technologists for technologists.
StartupGrind TO – Semi-regular access to startup speakers including Paul Singh, Eric Migicovsky, and others
Ladies Learning Code– focused on teaching development skills to newbies (of all genders).
DevTO – monthly developer educational events. Broad focus on industry trends and specific development environments.
Creative Mornings TO – Monthly breakfast series for creative types. Tends to aim more agency side but a great show.
Pecha Kucha TO – Pecha Kucha is the format that started it all. 20 slides x 20 seconds. It’s another event that tends to be aimed more at designers and agency folks. Presentations are always interesting.
Third Tuesday Toronto – Primarily for communications professionals (think PR and media types) with a focus on digital media and emerging best practices.
DemoCamp – I have hosted DemoCamps since 2005. They started as a way for entrepreneurs, developers and designers to get together and share what they’ve been working on. They grew to >500 person networking events. There are currently no plans to host anymore.
Smaller Events & Meetups
Toronto Ruby Brigade– Great learning series primarily aimed at beginners, but becoming more advanced, includes book club series, hack nights at Influitive, and lessons/lectures about specifics of building and craft in Ruby.
Rails Pub Nite– Totally a social event. It’s a great way to figure out who is hiring in the Ruby scene and to meet others using Ruby. Hosted by the Unspace crew at the Rhino on Queen Street West.
Django/Python Toronto– This is a set of crazy Python devs. It is also not for the “recruiters” or bullshit artists. Go if you are using or considering Python on a project and you want to talk to the best. And don’t be a douchebag.
HTML5 Web App Developers – This is an educational event. It is broadly HTML5 and web app technologies. But the sessions are well put together and cover the craft. Good beginner through advanced.
Hacks/Hackers Toronto – The intersection of journalists and technologists. This is a very strong community. But it is really focused on the intersection of journalism and new tech.
StartupDrinks Toronto – A monthly social for entrepreneurs. Most recently hosted at Hotel Ocho on Spadina between Queen & Dundas. It’s noisy. I cofounded the event, though I don’t attend very often anymore. I don’t find that I benefit from the networking. And if I really wanted to drink with friends, well I do that.
NerdLearn – I have never been. It is hosted by The Working Group and Dessy Daskalov Follow @dess_e who I think is amazing. I’m still bummed out that she turned down my job offer.
TiE Toronto – Interesting with Haroon Mirza as part of the organization committee. Great mentoring group with startups like Cognovision and Verold participating the in the recent past.
LeanCoffeeTO – These happen regularly, every Tuesday at 8am. I don’t find a lot of value in the discussions. So maybe I’m doing it wrong. If you are new to the lean methodology, or you just want to talk with other entrepreneurs that are using lean.
Hadoop User Group – Relatively new event. People look awesome. Focused on Hadoop, Map/Reduce and data science. I think it’s going to be good.
GeekGirlsToronto – Great networking group aimed at connected geek girls, tech savvy women in the GTA. Events cover everything from women founders to Arduino.
Annual Events & Conferences
Canadian Innovation eXchange (CIX) – This i An event hosted by Achilles Media, has proved to be a launching ground for some of Toronto’s best acquisitions.
HoHoTO – Annual holiday party. It is a must attend event.
TiE Quest – hosted annually. $50k non-dilutive prize. Hosted at MaRS. Previous winners include Cognovision.
TEDxToronto – Annual event using the TEDx. Great community production.
Mesh – Could be described as the grand daddy of Toronto 2.0 events. Usually happens in the spring. Mesh is a 2 day event that focuses on how the web is evolving and affecting every part of our lives: government, policy, marketing, entertainment, etc. Produced by Mark Evans, Rob Hyndman, Stuart MacDonald, Mathew Ingram and Michael McDermett.
OCE Discovery – Event aimed at government support of local innovation. I have paid for a ticket in the past, particularly when they’ve had keynote speakers I wanted to hear. But generally this is an event for those connected with OCE. Next one will be May 27 & 28, 2013. Strong focus on companies that have been supported by OCE with strong manufacturing, ICT, and healthcare showing.
ThroneOfJS – was the latest in a series on Ruby and Javascript events hosted by the Unspace crew. Prior to Throne of JS, the Unspace crew hosted Future Ruby. These are great local events with world class talent.
AccelerateTO – hosted by the C100. Great social event. Keynote at the last one was from Google Canada, interesting but not stellar.
AndroidTO – hosted by the BNOTIONS crew. 3rd year. Focused on education around mobile development.
Sense Appeal – Great coffee. Lots of folks from Mozilla Toronto, ChickAdvisor, Nascent Digital and others.
Dark Horse on Spadina – It’s downstairs from the Centre for Social Innovation. Lots of
Jimmy’s Coffee – Very likely to run in to Rocketr, Jet Cooper, EndLoop Studios, Guardly or Massive Damage.
HackLab.to – great hacker space in Kennsington Market, and you’ll see something that will blow your mind, guaranteed. More anarchist hacker than startup entrepreneur. But its an amazing collective of people.
Journalists and News
Mathew Ingram Follow @mathewi – Not Toronto focused. But leading journalist in emerging tech based in Toronto.
Mark Evans Follow @markevans – Toronto focused. Social media, marketing and startups.
BNOTIONS has a large space in St. Lawrence Market. They are actively looking for sublet tenants.
Companies are located all around Toronto.
Wave Accounting is near Queen & Carlaw
Wattpad is near Yonge & Sheppard
Top Hat Monocle is near Yonge & College
There is a big cluster near Queen & Spadina: Influitive, Guardly, Extreme Startups, Endloop Studios, Jet Cooper, Rocketr, Unspace, BuzzData, Big Bang Technology, The Working Group, and more.
Entrepreneurs, Thought Leaders, Gadflys and Others
April DunfordFollow @aprildunford – April is probably the best marketer in Canada. If you are a startup and you are marketing, thinking about marketing or just want to learn about marketing go read her stuff. She’s the BEST.
John Philip GreenFollow @johnphilipgreen – John is an EiR at Hedgewood. In the past he was the CTO at CommunityLend/FinanceIt.ca. He was also the founder of LearnHub. His style is second to none.
Joseph Puopolo Follow @jpuopolo – Founder of Printchomp. Previously at StickerYou
Mark McQueen Follow @MarkRMcqueen – President & CEO of Wellington Financial, Chair of the Toronto Port Authority. Great blog focused on Canadian growth captial.
Daniel Debow Follow @ddebow – Founder of Rypple. Part of the Workbrain diaspora.
David Ossip Follow @dossip – Founder of Dayforce, Workbrain and other ventures.
Richard Reiner Follow @richardreiner – Angel investor and operator. Founded security firm Assurent. Sold eNomaly.
Saul Colt Follow @saulcolt – The Smartest Man in the World. A great PR/media hacker. Expert at word of mouth and social media.
Amber MacArthur Follow @ambermac – Entrepreneur, television host, podcaster. Writes for Fast Company.
Leila Boujnane Follow @leilaboujnane – Founder of Idee and TinEye. Often host of DemoCamp, GeekGirlToronto and other events. Wickedly smart.
Jesse Rodgers Follow @jrodgers – Founder of TribeHR, former director of UW Velocity, now running Rotman Venture Lab. Strong insights in to incubator metrics.
Dan Servos – CEO of Locationary. Previously sold SocialDeck to Google.
Rob Hyndman Follow @rhh – Awesome startup lawyer. Founder of Mesh.
Mark Evans Follow @markevans – Former/sometimes current journalist. Consultant focused on startup marketing and media communications. Founder of Mesh
Michael McDerment Follow @MikeMcDerment – CEO and Founder of Freshbooks. Founder of Mesh
Rick Segal Follow @RickSegal – Founder of FixMo. Previously VC at JLA Ventures.
Jennifer Lum Follow @jenniferlum – Cofounder Adelphic Mobile, previously at Quattro Wireless. Extreme Startups mentor.
Estelle Havva – Industrial Technology Advisor at IRAP. Been involved in this community since the beginning. Practical and can help you with IRAP
Ilse Treurnicht Follow @IlseTreurnicht – CEO of MaRS. Big budget, big real estate, big salary and hopefully big impact.
Albert Lai Follow @albertupdates – Working on Big Viking Games, previously Kontagent, Bubbleshare and others. Original cohost of DemoCamp with me.
Ali Asaria Follow @aliasaria – Founder of Well.ca, creator of Brickbreaker. Just awesome.
Tonya Suman Follow @tonyasurman – Centre for Social Innovation. World leading thinker and doer on social innovation and community ecosystem. Based here in Toronto.
Pete Forde – Founder of BuzzData, Unspace and other things. Photog, audiophile, and all round great guy.
Jay Goldman Follow @jaygoldman – Jay has moved on to Klick Health. Jay founded Radiant Core, did the UI for Firefox 2.0, helped build ZeroFootprint. If you can get his time to talk social or product, it is worth it
Jon Arnold Follow @arnoldjon – Big in the telco and smart grid space.
William Mougayar Follow @wmougayar – CEO of Engagio. Previously Equentia. The man and the product allows him to participate in comment conversations across the web. Responsible for helping bring Fred Wilson to Toronto.
Follow @heygosia – CEO and founder of LearnHub. Technical, product, leadership, growth. She’s amazing. Doesn’t get enough credit.
Jim deWildeFollow @jimdewilde – Teaches in B School. Wrote much of the policy on innovation, government fund of funds, key behind the scenes player. Plus he’s awesome.
Zach Aysan Follow @zachaysan – Big data guy. Currently 500px. Previously Algo Anywhere and Rocketr.
Carol Leaman Follow @CarolLeaman – CEO of Axonify. Just won the Forbes Startup Idol. Raised a massive round from Bridgescale Partners and IAF. Previously CEO of PostRank sold to Google.
Desire2Learn – Just raised a massive $80mm round from OMERS & NEA
“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 Follow @remarkk 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 TischFollow @davetisch
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?
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.
I think Jevon and Jonas and Karthik are getting sick of running events with me. Before StartupEmpire back in 2008, I ended up in the Emergency Room at Toronto General for another look at my ticker. This week I ended up in the Emergency Room at Toronto General as we are planning Founders & Funders. I’m ok, I was both times but it does complicate the event planning and invitation process.
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better…stronger…faster.” Wikipedia
So if you feel like you only got your invitation very recently, i.e., today. It’s my fault, I am sorry, I have been out of commission. It’s a reminder that you should do a startup before you need a body replacement.
Here is the update on Founders & Funders. It has been almost 2 years since we ran the last Founders & Funders (thanks for noticing William ;-). We are 7 days from the event and we have 35 remaining spots. Unlike past events, we are over inviting and over selling the event, i.e., first come first served. So if you got an invite but were waiting that might be a bad plan…
We’re looking for “interesting” founders. Often this means people that we’ve met at other events, as Founders & Funders are relatively small social gatherings. That doesn’t mean it is just our friends, as I’ve been often accused. But it is entrepreneurs that we’ve met, that are building interesting companies, that have interesting traction. Get someone that we think is awesome to refer you. It’s a social hack (just like me).
Connect with other founders
We have also decided to include a brief fireside chat with Daniel Debow at this dinner. We rarely do this sort of thing at a Founders and Funders but 2011 was such a great year we thought it would be fun to look back on the ups and downs of Rypple through the years and how they got to their eventual exit, some of which was written about in Forbes this week.
What’s the point?
Jonas, Jevon and I are founders. We are not an event company. We are not a media company. We have been trying to write content on StartupNorth that is relevant to us as founders. Whether we are raising money, connecting with other where we live, finding talent, or growing a business. We generally charge very close to the cost of the ticket, i.e., there are some slight over head costs but we are not collecting salaries or generating revenues. This is an unfortunate hobby. But I know there are world-class founders and companies across Canada and while there are government supported organizations and purported lobby groups, we are just a bunch of founders trying to do the things that we find useful in building our companies.
Founders & Funders is a social event. It is designed to connect with the people writing cheques and making investments on a social level. To talk about startups and technologies and business models without the constraints of a pitch. Will there be pitches, definitely (How do you know when an entrepreneur is dead? They stop pitching). The goal is to have a highly edited dinner party with “interesting founders” and get them out of their usual pitch oriented conversation with VCs.
Whether this works or not is questionable, but it does bring together founders and funders in a social context.
The generous sponsors of the Grow Conference are continuing to offer a few free tickets to some starving startups over the next week. We call this Conference Ticket – Ramen Class.
Today’s tickets comes from ShinyAds.com and Nokia. These are two very different companies. One is the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, the other is a small startup trying to get companies on to their ad serving platform. They see the benefits for startups to attend Grow.
To win these passes tweet the following today:
RT to enter! “Hey @nokia – Please send me to the @growconf #growconf in Vancouver http://www.startupnorth.ca/ .
Tuesday August 9th, Grow Conference organizers will pick the winners who will get a pass for Days 2 and 3 at the 2011 Grow Conference. *Note that travel and accommodations are not included, pay for your own flights and hotels and drinks you cheap and resourceful founders.
The Grow Conference is a unique three-day conference that brings together the top minds in business, entrepreneurship, technology, and capital to inspire and engage the next generation of disruptive entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter if your business is on or offline, the next-gen entrepreneur knows where their customers are and how to engage them. Today’s entrepreneurs are creating new opportunities, disrupting age-old markets, leveraging technology on their path to being tomorrow’s leaders. The Grow Conference is bringing the best minds of Silicon Valley and Canada together to share lessons learned and inspire action. Be part of this entrepreneurial revolution as we work together to drive innovation for the future. GROW is more than a conference, it’s a movement.
We’re big fans of all of the technical community efforts going on across the country. I have the privilege of going to Vancouver next week for GrowConf, but we want to return the favor to local entrepreneurs and students in the GTA. We have 5 tickets for TechTalksTO.
The effort to encourage participation by local students was led by the team at Uken Games.
Uken is planning on sponsoring tickets for 3-4 students to attend http://underground.techtalksto.com/. We’ll also be sponsoring the event in general. I was wondering if we could promote this giveaway through an article on StartUpNorth. We haven’t figured out the criteria for selection but we’re thinking either a short paragraph of why we should choose you and a short code puzzle.
I have purchased my ticket for the event, but I am unable to attend. We will give away one ticket per day starting today until all 5 tickets are gone. Someone else can figure out when that is.
How to win a ticket TechTalksTO?
To win these passes tweet the following until Thursday:
RT to enter! “Hey @startupnorth @ukengames – Please send me to the @techtalksTO Underground ($INSERT_LINK_TO_YOUR_BLOG/COMPANY).”
Along with the team at FreshBooks, StartupNorth is proud to support TechTalksTO. TechTalksTO previous put together a series of speakers at the Gladstone Hotel on West Queen West that feature some great talks about technology for Toronto developer community. We’re very happy to be a Sponsor and Media Sponsor of their upcoming conference event on August 13, 2011. It’s a great group of front-end, back-end and devops focused entrepreneurial technologists.
What a great way to spend a Saturday before flying out to GrowConf later in the week.
The Details
When: Saturday, August 13, 2011
Where: Toronto Underground Cinema, Spadina Avenue.
What: All-day conference + After-Party
Rick Olson (@technoweenie) – GitHub Alchemist and Rails core committer
Aaron Peterson (@metaxis) – Technical Evangelist at OpsCode, the creators of Chef
After Party
One of the best parts about our previous TechTalksTO events were the unofficial gatherings afterward. They were always a great opportunity to network and have some great conversations. We enjoy it so much, we figured for this event, we’d make it an official part of the day so your ticket will include admission, food, and drinks at the exclusive after-party Saturday evening to be held at a nearby establishment.
Tickets
Tickets are available NOW!. Alas, due to the size and scope of this undertaking, we have to charge actual money for tickets for this one but we think you’ll totally get your money’s worth. Tickets will be priced at $150, including admission to the after-party, which will also get you a couple of drinks and some food. We also plan to have some food and drinks available throughout the day at the conference venue.
that was written in 1991. Part way in to my second venture (I was employee number 6 for the record) John Nesheim released 
