Tag: Startups

  • Respect the Game, Love the Grind!

    You have David saying we can’t all be founders, you have Jevon being honest about why he’s a founder, and then you have me ranting about vomiting on your footwear and then there’s Debbie Landa‘s “club of crazy“. Start reading the comment sections on those posts and things get even muddier…..You have to love problems or not, know your role, find your motivation? If you’re considering being an entrepreneur and starting your own business, how do you decide whether to make the leap?

    There is a game to this entrepreneur deal. It’s a thing, you can point at, and you have to respect that game. In my opinion, it is the greatest game out there, period.

    Creating something from nothing is the most difficult thing you can do. In business, I have the utmost respect for anyone who is able to create a viable business out of nothing. A few stories to add some colour….

    In a previous life I rock climbed. It’s likely the coolest sport I’ve ever participated in. Few other sports require the mix of physical requirements, mental fortitude, training, preparation, and ability to deal with plain old fear. I know lot’s of folks who consider themselves climbers. They bought nice gear at MEC and hit the indoor gym every week.

    Those people don’t love climbing, they love the idea of climbing. They love the way it looks in a magazine and on tv but that’s not climbing. There’s a filthy grind to climbing. It’s constant cardio work, training in the indoor gym, stretching. It’s packing up all your camping gear every Thursday night in order to leave town as early as you can Friday to get to the crag and setup camp before it gets dark. It’s getting up with the sun, climbing all day. It’s getting home late Sunday night, dropping your gear on the kitchen floor and crashing. Then Monday night you spend the evening cleaning ropes, gear and tents. And on and on.

    Pick another sport, ice hockey. Yes we all dream about raising the cup, skating in front of massive crowds, making millions but that’s not hockey. Hockey’s being in the gym five days a week, 6 am practices, lost teeth, chipped elbows. Very few people have the raw skill but even less have the determination required to survive the grind.

    What do NHL players say when they retire? Almost universally they say something along the lines of “I still love the game, I love coming to the rink, I love my team, my fans. But I realized I couldn’t put my body through another off season of preparing”.

    Creating something from nothing isn’t about TechCrunch, billion dollar exits, multi-million dollar acquisitions and launch parties. Those may come and when they do, the best will enjoy the moment and then sneak away from the party, head back to the office to return to the grind. If you’re going to do this, remember to respect the game we play and love the grind!

  • Rush Week

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    The next week has a set of crazy awesome events for  startups, founders, marketers, community builders and the like in Toronto. (Check out a fuller list of events at Toronto Startup Fall Event List 2012). Personally it looks like I will be attending JoltCo Demo Day, Royal Canadian Mint Challenge Awards Ceremony and A Conversation with Brad Feld about Startup Communities. If you’re interested in understanding Toronto’s startup landscape and participating, you could consider this rush week without the complete stupidity.

    It feels like a crazy two weeks. I was in Halifax for HPX Digital last week. I skipped Hacking Health this weekend (Thing 1 learned to ride her bike this weekend, so it was totally worth skipping this event). This doesn’t event take into consideration that I’m going to see New Order on Oct 23 and there is a second show on Oct 24 with tickets still available.

    Oct 23 – JoltCo Demo Day
    Looks like an amazing cohort of startups presenting. Includes eProf, GreenGauge Mobile, ShelfLife, SlingRide, tout.it, Venngage. I’m excited to see the pitches/presentations and the progress that each of these teams has made. 
    Oct 25 – Royal Canadian Mint Challenge Awards
    What can I say I’m a judge…But seriously this event has an amazing lineup. David Wolman and some other big thinkers in commerce, currency and the future of money. The Royal Canadian Mint has done a great job.
    Oct 25 – AndroidTO
    This is a great lineup. Boris Chan of XtremeLabs who is on our 2011 Hot Sh!t ListMike Beltzner of Wattpad; Oleg Kosteur of Pair – back after raising $4.3MM, etc. If you are building on Android and in Toronto. Get tickets to this event!
    Oct 25 – Startup Grind Toronto
    A fireside chat with Nikhil Kalghatgi, an NYC-based VC with Softbank Capital, whose portfolio includes Huffington Post, Zynga (back when the model was working), Gilt Groupe and Buddy Media.
    Oct 26 – TEDxToronto
    Always inspiring talks this year includes Steve Page formerly of the Bare Naked Ladies, Dr. Joseph Cafazoo of eHealth Innovation, Sonya JF Barnett and Heather Jarvis of Slut Walk (ok not purely startup but it should be interesting)
    Oct 29 – HackerNest Social
    A fun, laid back social event to connect with developers, designers, marketers, and others. Hosted by ex-Extreme Labs participant Shaharris Beh (LinkedIn) and others.
    Oct 30 – A Conversation with Brad Feld on the Starutp Community in Toronto
    We’re hosting this event. Do you love or hate the Toronto startup community? Lots of people talk crap, but this is an opportunity to participate in a conversation with Brad Feld. Brad wrote the “Boulder Thesis” about growing, building and sustaining an entrepreneurial community in Boulder, CO. Join us and help make Toronto a better place for startups.
    NOv 1 – Startup Ping Pong TO
    Ping Pong, startups, do I need to say any more? Get your tickets! And come out and hustle.

    Community is the platform on which all of our individual actions stand.

    There are a lot of great events happening in the next 7 days. My advice is pick one or two events to attend and participate. A long time ago, Mark Kuznicki quoted me as saying “The Community is the Platform” and others have elaborated. My advice is get out there and participate.

  • The gale of Creative Destruction at University of Toronto

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    University’s play a role in startup communities. Brad Feld’s Boulder Thesis (and I bring it up because he is coming to Toronto on October 30th) says that the people that attend and work at the university are the most important contribution to the startup community a university can make. The institutional components (labs, programs, and technology transfer offices) are less important according to Feld and when they are done wrong they are more damaging than helpful to startups.

    In Toronto you have a number of schools to feed the community; Ryerson, George Brown, York, OCAD, Sheridan, and of course the University of Toronto.

    The University of Toronto is the top ranked school in Canada and around the top 20 mark globally according to various rankings. As one of the oldest institutes of higher learning in Canada where some of the proudest scientific discoveries in the country’s history have been made (Insulin, stem cells, etc) there is a lot to talk about in terms of research. It is 21st globally in engineering and computer science yet it feels like it is hardly part of the conversation with regards to the startup community in Canada. That should be ok, they are a feeder to the community as Brad Feld defines it. I disagree with it being ok. I believe if there is a lack on entrepreneurial activity on campus that campus likely does not feed the community anywhere close to its potential.

    Beyond those that would feed the community there are many potential leaders on the campus from faculty (many have founded companies and had exits) to students that are confined by the silos that naturally occur in large institutions. Outsiders might point to MaRS as the main effort related to the university, it’s not, although it certainly has helped. There are a load of new programs that are working on building entrepreneurial culture on campus. The following is a non-comprehensive list:

    • Hatchery – The Entrepreneurship Hatchery is a hothouse for the best ideas of entrepreneurial undergraduate engineers.
    • UofT Hackers – a community of University of Toronto students who build great products.
    • Techno – “the flagship event of the IOS’s entrepreneurship education program, which also includes year-round programming for physical sciences and engineering students, faculty, and alumni at the University of Toronto.” This program has some amazing science focused companies.
    • Techna – “to shorten the time interval from technology discovery and development to application of such technologies for the benefit of patients and the health care system, and to facilitate the convergence of basic investigation, technology development and translational research”
    • UTEST – recently announcing it’s first cohort, UTEST “provides nascent software companies with start-up funding, work space, mentoring and business strategy support.”
    • Creative Destruction Lab at Rotman – Is focused on helping people build massively scalable companies. Folks like Nigel Stokes, Dan Debow, Dan Shimmerman, Tomi Poutanen, Dennis Bennie, Nick Koudas.

    All of these programs represent a positive focus on entrepreneurship and commercialization that is gaining momentum. The last one, Creative Destruction Lab, is particularly interesting (disclaimer, I am involved there) because it is located in the Rotman School of Management and is being designed to build a bridge across the silos as well as into the Toronto startup community. It also hosted a DemoCamp event at Rotman for the University community that attracted over 300 people (two thirds engineers) and 44 people applied to present in September. More are being planned and applications to be part of the lab program itself are open to all UofT students and Alumni until October 14th.

    As the entrepreneurial momentum builds on the University of Toronto campus I believe it will fill one of the gaps that currently exists in Toronto’s startup community by both educating students that feed the community and attracting faculty (and their spouses) from abroad that could be globally connected leaders in the community.

     

  • How to get the most out of AngelList: As a VC and as an Entrepreneur

    I love AngelList.  I truly believe it is disrupting the way early stage deals are being discovered and funded.

    When I was with BlackBerry Partners Fund (now Relay Ventures), I used AngelList to virtually meet and screen tons of companies.  I set up Super Fridays for myself, filling my mornings and/or afternoons with back-to-back 30 minute calls with 10-12 companies.  I really recommend this to any young VC looking for both dealflow and honing their game.  The velocity and juxtaposition of all these entrepreneurs, pitches, and companies really taught me how to evaluate deals along the VC spectrum:

    • (NO) polite and immediate no thank you
    • (NOT YET) check back with traction
    • (NOT SURE) send me your pitch deck so I can another set of eyes on this
    • (POTENTIALLY) let me bring this up at the next Monday partner meeting and see if someone bites
    • (YES) holy moly let me get John Albright right now

    All told, I probably screened 150-200 companies every three months on AngelList alone.  Ultimately, after all those Super Fridays, the firm funded two great companies: PubNub and ClearFit.

    Now as I sit somewhat on the other side, running Extreme Startups, I am spending time trying to get VCs to view our companies’ AngelList profiles.  To help figure out what companies should be doing on AngelList to help maximize their exposure, we at Extreme Startups recently had a session with Ash Fontana from AngelList to get his advixe.  Ash shared some best practices that I’d like to share with our community.  His advice included a lot of great tips and some common sense details that time-crunched entrepreneurs might glance over.

    Company Profiles

    1. Fill it out completely.  All the sections and tabs.  Comprehensive profiles are definitely the best so that there is both pertinent and substantive information.  One good tip is for the Founder Bios – include university info as well as some investors search for key schools.
    2. Be open / generous with information.  Specifically for the Fundraising tab, the Deal Terms should be filled out.  You don’t need to put valuation, but some indication helps investors looking for certain price ranges or structures (convertible note vs. equity).
    3. Use graphics – slides, screenshots, graphs, and videos to make a static page pop.

    Key tips to stand out

    • State the most original thing or function your product and company does.
    • Information about the market size is key.
    • Name something extraordinary about your company or founders.
    • State the hardest problem you solve.

    How do you get featured?

    For those lucky four startups on the feature page on the front page of AngelList, what is the process to get there?  It’s curated by Ash, who uses a number of different tools to track interest and traction.  Note that there are now over 80,000 startups on AngelList, with ~100 getting added every day.  Only five get featured per week – so only top 0.5% have the chance to be featured.  We are lucky to have our alumnus Granify on the feature page!  ShopLocketSimplyUs, and Verelo all have great profiles as well (shameless plug).

    So what should you do after your profile is up?

    1. Be active.  It’s a social network.  Start and engage in conversations.  Follow interesting companies, entrepreneurs, and investors.  Comment on people’s status updates.  Refer interesting deals to other people.
    2. Be proactive.  Reach out to investors and advisors.  Ask for referrals and recommendations!
    3. Match your offline activity to your online profile.  Add an advisor or investor?  Make sure you AL profile reflects that.  Have your network post and share your traction and successes online!

    Other AngelList resources recently launched

    • AngelList Docs is in beta, but only for US incorporated companies for now.  It’s a great resource to close your deal online, industry standard docs and no legal fees.
    • AngelListTalent recently launched and helps startups recruit, and talent identify great jobs.  It uses a double opt-in structure, so you only get shown the jobs of the companies you follow.  It’s a great resource for recruiting.

    Hacking AngelList articles

    Lastly, Ash mentioned he loved and supported the hacking AngelList posts.  Somewhat analogous to the black art of gaming the iTunes stores, there are ways to succeed on AngelList outside of what is included in this post.  I just googled and found a couple of hits.  There are the most useful imho.

    Final thoughts

    I really hope more Canadian companies use and publish on AngelList, Gust, and others.  It’s a great way to get your profile out to Canadian, US, and international investors.  Not to mention its a great way to help entire cities and regions get noticed for great deal flow.  Maybe some young VC down south will start arranging their own Canadian Super Fridays…

    Please follow me on AngelList! (and Twitter).

  • Don’t Panic: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Toronto Startup Ecosystem

    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 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.
    • MobileStartupsTO
    • 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.

    Online Resources and Newsletters

    Recruiting Resources

    University, Government & Not-for-Profit Resources

    Coworking Spaces and Accelerators

    Entrepreneurial Design & Development Firms

    Canadian Investors

    Places to Hang

    • 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

    Looking for Offices Space?

    • I used Jay Littlejohn at Cushman & Wakefield. He helped Influitive and others.
    • Centre for Social Innovation with 215 Spadina and the Annex has great brick and beam space.
    • 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.
      • Facebook Canada is near Yonge & Eglinton
      • Dayforce is located near Yonge & York Mills
      • Xtreme Labs is near Yonge & King St.

    Scaling Companies to Watch (probably hiring)

    Some to Follow

    Entrepreneurs, Thought Leaders, Gadflys and Others

    • April Dunford  – 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 Green  – 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.
    • Zak Homuth  – Founder of YC alumni Upverter.
    • Farhan Thawar  – VP Engineering at Xtreme Labs. Absolutely amazing. I think he’s Hot Shit.
    • Jonas Brandon  – My friend and cofounder of StartupNorth. He’s been in at least 2 deals I wish I listened to him on.
    • Amar Varma  – Founder of Xtreme Labs, Extreme Venture Partners, hustler extraordinaire.
    • John Ruffolo  – Runs OMERS Ventures, previously at Deloitte & Touche. Connected at all levels.
    • Howard Gwin  – I’ve referred to Howard as the best VC in Canada. He has the midas touch.
    • Matt Golden  – New fund. Making waves. He’s going to go far.
    • Mark Organ  – Founder of Influitive. Just raised a massive round. Previously founder of Eloqua.
    • Mike Beltzner  – Director of Product at Wattpad. Previous ran Firefox at Mozilla.
    • Mark Surman  – Director of Mozilla Foundation. Unbelievably forward thinking in technology, community and family.
    • Scott Pelton  – I think Scott had the best IRR of any Canadian VC. He’s kicking off Round13. Someone to watch once the fund is closed.
    • Sandy Scott – Partner at Tandem Expansion Capital. Time in Boston and Silicon Valley. HBS. Very smart.
    • Sue McGill – Executive Director of JoltCo accelerator at MaRS.
    • Krista Jones – Practice Lead for ICT or ICE at MaRS
    • Andrew Peek – Founder of Rocketr, previously at Freshbooks.
    • Andy Yang  – Andy runs Extreme Startups. They had a small but amazing first class.
    • Satish Kanwar  – Founder at Jet Cooper. Founder at Lean Coffee TO.
    • Chris Eben  – Partner at The Working Group. Organizer of StartupWeekend.
    • Derek Smyth  – Partner at OMERS Ventures. Doing amazing deals. He’s the work horse.
    • Roger Chabra  – Partner at Rho Ventures. Dividing time between Montreal, Toronto, SF, NYC, and other places. New fund. Very stylish.
    • Sunil Sharma – Connector at Extreme Startups. Connected to more people than are in Canada.
    • Allen Lau  – Founder and CEO of Wattpad. Big vision. Just raised from Khosla Ventures, Union Square and GoldenVP.
    • Kirk Simpson  – Founder and CEO of Wave Accounting. Big raise from CRV, Social+Capital, and OMERS.
    • James Lochrie  – Product lead and founder at Wave Accounting.
    • Adam Goucher  – Principal at Element34. Focused on Q&A and testing. Wrote Beautiful Testing.
    • Greg Wilson  – Founder of Software Carpentry. Loves the Python. Former CS prof at UofT. Wrote Beautiful Code.
    • Heather Payne  – Founder of HackerYou and Ladies Learning Code.
    • Kunal Gupta  – Founder of Polar Mobile and Impact at UW.
    • Joseph Puopolo  – Founder of Printchomp. Previously at StickerYou
    • Mark McQueen  – President & CEO of Wellington Financial, Chair of the Toronto Port Authority. Great blog focused on Canadian growth captial.
    • Daniel Debow  – Founder of Rypple. Part of the Workbrain diaspora.
    • David Ossip  – Founder of Dayforce, Workbrain and other ventures.
    • Richard Reiner  – Angel investor and operator. Founded security firm Assurent. Sold eNomaly.
    • Saul Colt  – The Smartest Man in the World. A great PR/media hacker. Expert at word of mouth and social media.
    • Amber MacArthur  – Entrepreneur, television host, podcaster. Writes for Fast Company.
    • Leila Boujnane  – Founder of Idee and TinEye. Often host of DemoCamp, GeekGirlToronto and other events. Wickedly smart.
    • Jesse Rodgers – 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 – Awesome startup lawyer. Founder of Mesh.
    • Mark Evans – Former/sometimes current journalist. Consultant focused on startup marketing and media communications. Founder of Mesh
    • Michael McDerment – CEO and Founder of Freshbooks. Founder of Mesh
    • Rick Segal – Founder of FixMo. Previously VC at JLA Ventures.
    • Ali Ghafour – Founder and CEO of ViaFoura
    • Suresh Bhat – Associate at ExtremeVP
    • Bram Sugarman – Associate at OMERS Ventures. Previously at Uken Games and Extreme Ventures.
    • Damien Steel Senior Associate at OMERS Ventures
    • Jennifer Lum – 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 – CEO of MaRS. Big budget, big real estate, big salary and hopefully big impact.
    • Albert Lai – Working on Big Viking Games, previously Kontagent, Bubbleshare and others. Original cohost of DemoCamp with me.
    • Ali Asaria – Founder of Well.ca, creator of Brickbreaker. Just awesome.
    • Tonya Suman – 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 – 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 – Big in the telco and smart grid space.
    • William Mougayar – 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 deWilde – 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 – Big data guy. Currently 500px. Previously Algo Anywhere and Rocketr.

    Waterloo

  • Creating a Referral Engine for Your Startup

    This post is recap on some of the highlights from a how-to created by Ilya Lichtenstein of mixrank.com. I feature some of the most impressive startup strategies we encounter at StartupPlays and share them free, here at StartupNorth.ca. Enjoy.

    We recently did some work with a brilliant young guy named Ilya Lichtenstein from Mixrank.com, a company which has seen early investments from 500 Startups, Y-Combinator, and Mark Cuban. While in college Ilya was working side jobs with startups and getting deep into the affiliate marketing world. He grew a $300 investment into six figure revenue numbers in his first year. He has applied the behaviours and characteristics of major affiliate programs and adapted them to  smaller scale customer referral programs for startups, this is his “best practice manual for building a customer referral program”:

    Major Affiliate Programs

    Websites like Amazon and Netflix have elaborate affiliate networks anyone can join and receive an affiliated commission from a signup or purchase on their websites. This works because these companies have determined some of their most important baseline metrics, things like:

    • Cost per acquisition of a customer
    • Lifetime value of a customer
    • On page conversion rate
    • Variants between traffic sources
    • Cost of buying traffic within the industry
    They use these metrics to determine what affiliate commissions they can set for the business to turn the channel into a profitable one. If affiliates can purchase traffic at a cheaper price than the payout (typically between $0.50-$4.00 per click) then the program is sustainable. You’ll need to determine what these numbers are for your startup, even if you ball park it, here is an excel template that will help you do it.

    How Building your Referral Engine is Different

    A customer referral engine is a lot like an affiliate program only scaled down and involves much higher participant engagement. Building a referral program is not for the light of heart but has massive payouts for everyone involved. When creating a referral engine you won’t want to label participants “Affiliates”, but instead something like “Partners”. Your “Partners” will be composed of two segments:

    1. Existing Users
    2. Content Producers within your Niche

    Existing users are easy advocates since they’re already familiar with your brand and understand your offering. Incentivizing them to tell others what they may already be telling people is a win-win.

    Content Producers within your niche have clout and often an engaged audience on the web, they may even be looking to monetize their content and this provides them with a non traditional medium that has higher revenue potential and that sucks a lot less than one site ads.

    Compensating your Partners

    As an early stage startup your base metrics probably wont warrant a direct flat fee compensation for a new lead, you’ll be compensating partners in your referral program based on a percentage of or flat fee per paid conversion. Be careful to avoid revenue share in perpetuity, this may hurt you down the road when approaching investors. Major Affiliate programs will payout anywhere from  $30-$40 for a credit card submit on their site (this is what you’re aiming for). If you have the ability to set up coupon codes on your website, give your partners a custom coupon code, this instantly creates a value add for their audience and makes it easier for them to share with people they know. (People LOVE sharing deals)

    1. You’re an e-commerce vendor: Give partners a commission on each sale they drive.
    2. You’re a SaaS vendor: Give partners straight cash per transaction, if your offering is tiered your affiliate commission can be as well.

    When you setup an affiliate program you are effectively sharing the risk and the reward.

    If your sales funnel is: visit page -> email submit -> purchase

    You can compensate affiliates for either the page visit, the email submit, or the purchase. You will need to compensate the affiliate more for actions that are further into the funnel, as you are placing the risk on the affiliate to convert the user. If you compensate them at the start of the funnel, you can pay them less and the risk is on your side to convert them.

    You will need to determine the right risk / reward ratio to determine which action will be most profitable – and attractive – for both you and the affiliate.

    Tracking Referrals

    You need to use a third party to track referrals, this guarantees no foul play on your side ands building confidence in your program into your program. It also helps limit fraudulent activity, you can review partners as they apply, and send payouts once customer payment has been confirmed on your end.

    Here are some third party services you can use to set up a program like this:

    1. Zferral – I prefer Zferral to others because of its ease of use, and support. If you’re having issues with setting up you can use their support centre to screencast your issue and have it resolved within a few hours.
    2. HasOffers – Custom referral programs, easy setup.
    3. LinkTrust – This is a costly alternative, but is the undisputed gold standard within the industry.

    White Glove the Entire Program

    Send your partners a monthly recap, keep them updated on how other partners are doing, and how the program is a smashing success! It will keep them involved and give them a benchmark for how well they can do, and how much money they can make by being part of your program.

    The customer referral engine is a win-win channel for driving online sales generally untouched by most early stage startups. If you have a startup that could benefit from a referral program, talk to us in the comments!

    photo credit – armando cuéllar

  • We want you! – Looking for contributors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    We are Canadian entrepreneurs.

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

    We want you!

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

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

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

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

     

  • Looking for a direct line to Silicon Valley

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mark Silva (LinkedIn, @marksilva), SVP Emerging Platforms at Anthem Worldwide. He was in attendance at GrowConf 2011. 

    CC-BY-20 Some rights reserved by JD Hancock
    Attribution Some rights reserved by JD Hancock

    There’s a different business DNA here in Silicon Valley and there’s no other start-up ecosystem like it anywhere in the world.  We are the descendants of miners, pioneers, and manifest destiny. We’re comfortable crafting real value from the clay of chaos. In the 49er days you weren’t a failure if your mine went dry, only if you quit and that attitude persists here today. I always tell startups, if they’re serious, they need to come to Silicon Valley.  It’s tough enough to start a business. Why not start with an unfair advantage and remove some of those obstacles you face with an ecosystem that can help solve your biggest and smallest issues?

    GrowConf Aug 22-24, 2012 in VancouverThat being said, you’re not doomed if you decide to start a business somewhere else.  Events like the GROW Conference in Vancouver have made the Silicon Valley ecosystem mobile and if only for a few days, you can have the Valley brought to you.  Between the speakers, mentors, investors, companies, and accelerators, GROW Week is like a high speed rail to Silicon Valley with exclusive access to the right players.

    As we all know, there’s a serious echo chamber in Silicon Valley, and the chance to get out of our caves and be in new places is healthy and promotes good ideas.  I find that when I attend a good conference or event, I end up having more in depth conversations over the course of a few days with people I care about than I do in any other situation.

    Some of the highlights for me from GROW last year were getting to know Vy Le, CEO of Rudy’s Barbershop, spending time with top Silicon Valley VCs like Chris Redlitz, Jeff Clavier and Rob Hayes, and networking with fellow mentors like Matt Galligan and Lane Becker from Get Satisfaction.  How awesome is that!?

    GROW is the closest thing to a “Valley” experience outside of the Valley, and Vancouver is one of the most beautiful backdrops to inspire collaboration, discussion and innovation. I’ve never met a Canadian I didn’t like, and I’ll put that challenge to the test when I return to GROW in August!

    Join Mark Silva, Julia Hartz, Sean Ellis, Dave McClure, David Cancel and others at GROW August 22-24th in Vancouver, BC

    Register for GROW with a $100 discount using the promotional code “SN” at http://growconf.eventbrite.com/

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mark Silva (LinkedIn, @marksilva), SVP Emerging Platforms at Anthem Worldwide. He was in attendance at GrowConf 2011. 

  • Looking to get hired by a startup? 10 ways to stand out

    Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Bruce Dorland (LinkedIn, @brucedorland). Bruce is the Managing Director & Recruiter at Grossman Dorland Recruiting. gdR recruits for permanent and contract positions at all levels, from roles for talented young professionals to accomplished executives. Prior to founding gdR, Bruce spent time at Brightspark, Tucows shipping products that have been used by over 3MM users.

    CC-BY-NC-ND-20  Some rights reserved by Candid-Moments
    AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by Candid-Moments

    Occasionally I interview a developer that really impresses me with their ability to make their profile come to life beyond their resume.

    Want to know what makes these developers stand out? Here are my top ten tips for making a big impression. Many of these tips work for both a resume and, once that stellar resume gets you in the door, a job interview.

    I think developers looking for a new job can have it tough. Many, if not most, job descriptions aren’t great at describing the actual nature of the role. Traditional resume formats can be flat. Interviewers don’t always ask effective questions, and HR departments that rely heavily on keyword matching can’t differentiate you qualitatively from other candidates.

    The result: unless you do something different, the odds of standing out are stacked against you. But if you’re trying to get into a startup or midsize tech company that is truly looking to build a top-notch team, it’s essential that you learn to make your mark. Here’s how:

    Tip #1: Show me your side projects

    Small and midsize companies increasingly value a well-rounded candidate with a passion for technology and a dedication to growing their technical skillset. For confidentially reasons it can be hard to show people the code you’ve been working on at your job, but side projects are a great way to show how you design and implement code. In my opinion, side projects are also a surefire sign of your passion for the craft.

    A great tool for this is a code sharing and publishing platform like GitHub. The site gives you a place to contribute to open source projects and build a public reputation for your work since the community is quite transparent. For instance, if a patch you submit is accepted, you get credit for it and it shows up in your profile. The site acts like a resume that helps the maintainer of a project determine your reputation.

    Tip #2: Have a relevant and up-to-date portfolio site

    While it’s common for certain types of developers to have a portfolio site, UI developers in particular, I’ve found that many create a site early on in their career but don’t keep it up to date.

    Most employers who refer to your portfolio site won’t necessarily have the time or patience to fill in any blanks or realize is something is out of date. It’s up to you to make sure that your site accurately reflects where your skill level is today, that sites that aren’t live anymore are removed, that screenshots are illustrative and relevant, and that you give the context of why your work was original or important at that time.

    Tip #3: Form your own opinions on technology

    What are the topics of the day within your company? What technologies have they chosen to use and why? Form an opinion about your current company’s choices of tools and have an opinion about where things might be going in the future (of course, you’ll want to make sure you’re observing confidentiality requirements if you intend to share this information in an interview).

    In addition, know the big discussions happening in tech today. What are the latest thoughts on Continuous Integration and Deployment options? Javascript MVC frameworks? Big data? Be knowledgeable and you’ll always be ready if asked for your thoughts on the trends shaping your field.

    Tip #4: Understand the users and business behind your product

    Many developers are used to only describing their products from a tech perspective out, rather than a user perspective in.

    To make yourself stand out from the crowd, be able to articulate who the users of your product are and the solution it provides for them, and more generally, the business side of the product.

    Go into an interview from this angle in mind and a company will be confident that you always do your work with the user in mind.

    Tip #5: Whiteboard your work

    Many developers aren’t used to talking about themselves, their product architecture, what they’ve accomplished, or how to best articulate the technical challenges they faced. This is why whiteboarding your work is so important.

    When I say whiteboarding, I mean mapping out the architecture of your product, the modules your were responsible for and the technological challenges you faced. It’s about taking all this information and putting it into words so that you can talk about it during an interview.

    This might also literally mean drawing this all out on a whiteboard, as I often ask candidates to do during an interview. You can’t lie to yourself or anyone else in front of that whiteboard – either you can map out and explain your work, or you can’t.

    If you can bring sample documents to reinforce your whiteboard map without breaking confidentiality agreements, that helps too.

    Tip #6: Make it interactive – demo your work!

    In an interview, I’m always much more engaged if a developer can demo their product for me. This might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how seldom I’m asked if I want a live tour of the product they’ve been working on.

    If you worked for a SaaS company, for example, and you still have an account, offer to log in and show me around. Tell me which modules you were responsible for. This is always much more visual and stimulating than a written summary of your work.

    Tip #7: Be articulate, simple & concise.

    Once you’ve prepared your whiteboard, be prepared to articulate all this information (your skills, your current responsibilities and your product) in a simple, concise manner. Start with less detail and drill down where appropriate. If you don’t know how deep to go, just ask the interviewer if they want to know more.

    Be prepared to guide some of the questioning so you know the interviewer is getting all the information that makes you an appealing candidate. An interview is an interactive process, after all.

    Tip #8: Tell me what you find exciting in tech today.

    Even if you haven’t been working for the sexiest company, products or applications, always be prepared to talk about what you DO admire and why.

    Please do me a favour – don’t say Apple or Google (and definitely don’t say Microsoft!). Come up with unique ideas that reflect your professional opinions on what makes a product or service shine.

    Tip #9: Get to know the company you’re interviewing for.

    Obvious, right? But it can speak volumes if a candidate isn’t informed, which happens a lot.

    Find out what technology stack the company uses and review their FAQs, support forums, training guides and blog. If they have a free trial account of their product, sign up for an account and give it a test drive. The more you know, the more enthusiastic you’ll appear and the better and more useful your own questions will be.

    Tip #10: Come to the interview with great questions.

    Hopefully after having done all the research I’ve suggested, you’ll have some original questions to ask that not only show that you’ve come prepared, but that will also help you make a decision about how the company, product, technology and team fit your overall career goals.

  • A few slides for every Canadian startup

    With a little help from my friends

    I think that every Canadian startup could throw a couple of slides in their presentations and pitch decks that could help themselves and help build a stronger ecosystem in Canada. I was struck by the story of Jon Medved in Startup Nation including other startups in his pitch deck. It’s a simple thing. It demonstrates entrepreneurial density, provides social proof, and potentially helps create some FOMO in foreign investors. All from including 2 or 3 slides at the end of your presentation or pitch deck, particularly when you are travelling.

    At StartupNorth, we’ve always believed that we as entrepreneurs should help each other out. The goal here is to raise the noise around Canadian startups and your friends and colleagues when you are travelling. There is a lot of amazing stuff going on in Canada. We don’t need public sector programs and not-for-profits to support us, we already do the things to grow our companies. And a little bit of extra effort to raise the attention of those around us. It won’t hurt, it will help.

    Here are basic un-styled PowerPoint slides that include a set of recent fundings in Canada by US VCs and a second slide that lists a set of other local companies that the audience might find interesting. (I have added 24 companies I think are interesting).

    Help us. Add the following slides to your presentations.