StartupNorth

Tag: Vancouver

  • GrowLab & FounderFuel Launch

    The Blues Brothers Car
    Attribution Some rights reserved by Stig Nygaard

    Jake: Here’s the plan: we put the band back together, do some gigs, earn some bread, bang! We’ll have 5,000 bucks in no time.

    Seems like I’ve been talking a lot about incubators, accelerators, catalysts, spark plugs, igniters and other programs designed to engage, educate and enable early-stage, emerging technology entrepreneurs. In the past 7 days, we’ve now seen the launch of new incubator/accelerator programs in both Vancouver and Montreal. The are 2 new programs both focused on bringing together the best talent, access to mentors, capital and networks beyond what many founders are capable of doing on their own. (Full disclosure: I am a mentor for FounderFuel).

    Vancouver » GrowLab

    GrowLabGrowLab has risen out of the ashes of BootupLabs. It includes a spectacular founding team that includes a group of people many of whom I call a friend, and even more importantly they are a group I deeply respect. The group includes:

    The deadline to apply to the GrowLab program is June 15, 2011. Accepted startups and founders spend 3 months in Vancouver and 1 month in San Francisco with an intense mentorship program. The program also includes office space in both cities plus up to $25,000 in seed funding.

    Montreal » FounderFuel

    FounderFuelThe FounderFuel is a new accelerator program with support from the team who started Montreal Startup and Real Ventures. It is a accelerator program that has been seeded with Cdn$2MM and has put together a great mentorship group that includes 85 entrepreneurs, executives, VCs, angels (and me). Ian Jeffery is the General Manager and the Partner at Real Ventures responsible for making FounderFuel work. I first encountered Ian as a competitor to his startup TinyPictures (I was running product at Ambient Vector/Nakama back in 2006). Ian successfully raised a big chunk of money and then proceeded to execute and eventually sell Radar to Shutterfly. I agreed to be a mentor just to personally ensure I get access to the team of mentors. It is ridiculous! The list includes >84 phenomenal leaders, executives, investors, entrepreneurs and people from Montreal and around the world. A sample of the awesome mentors (sorry for every I am leaving out):

    The deadline to apply to FounderFuel is July 1, 2011. Instead of a 4 month program, the FounderFuel program is “12 intense weeks”. It is also a cohort based program that provides $10,000/startup + $5,000/founder in exchange for 6% equity. The program provide access to mentors, office space in Notman House, and access to a culture and ecosystem that has bred success in the past.

    One Observation

    My one observation about both of these programs is that Debbie Landa was the only female listed. It is a really difficult and sad state. There are great number of female tech founders and leaders in Canada. I am disappointed not to see:

    These programs need to do better on encouraging diversity and actively seeking out different viewpoints. The good news is that it is easily rectified.

    Consider Applying

    The deadlines for GrowLab and FounderFuel are approaching quickly. If you are interested in what hopefully is a world-class incubator/accelerator program you should definitely give careful consideration to these.

  • Summer Lovin’

    It feels like come the lazy days of July and August most of Canada shuts down for summer vacation. There are no new deals to be done. There are meetings, lunches, maybe even a golf foursome but not new deals. So why not take the opportunity to attend one of the local events with other geeks, entrepreneurs to learn and share your experiences.

    DemoCamp

    DemoCamp
    The next Toronto DemoCamp is happening June 9, 2011. We are very lucky to have Howard Lindzon keynoting. Howard is a long time friend of StartupNorth. He has been kind enough to attend StartupEmpire and even kinder to let us republish some of his posts here. This will be an awesome session focused on helping entrepreneurs.

    There are local DemoCamps happening in Guelph, Edmonton, Calgary, there are LaunchParties and New Tech Demos. These are great ways to get out of the office/garage/basement/cube and start talking to real people, hustling for attention and gathering feedback.

    StartupFestival

    Montreal is an awesome city in the summer time. There is the Comedy Festival. There is the Jazz Festival. There is the Grand Prix du Canada. The event is being hosted by Dave McClure who knows a thing about making making new opportunities. He runs 500Startups and the ultimate startup travel event, Geeks on a Plane. StartupFestival is a great opportunity to visit a historic city, and plan on building new relationships and discovering new business opportunities.

    Grow Conference

    Grow Conference - August 17-19, 2011 - Vancouver, BCAnd just in case you didn’t have enough of Canada’s favorite entrepreneurial bad boy, Howard Lindzon, you can see him again in Vancouver at Grow Conf 2011. This was one of my favourite events in 2010. Debbie Landa and the team at Dealmaker Media have put together a great event that mixes Canadian entrepreneurs (Brian Wong, Garrett Camp, Howard Lindzon, Leonard Brody) with decision makers from Silicon Valley (Wesley Chan – Google Ventures, Mike Parker – TribalDDB, Mike Ghaffary – Yelp, Rob Hayes – First Round Capital). I had the opportunity to talk to Minister Clement at the cocktail hour about brain drain, homecoming, funding, angel investing and other things. It was a great conference focused on helping Canadian entrepreneurs.

    Making Lemonade

    Rather than lament about the downtime. There is an awesome opportunity to use the dog days of summer in Canada to keep networking and connecting with other entrepreneurs, with investors from the US, and to set up opportunities that might come to fruition later in the year. I love the program goals of Geeks on a Plane.

    • Meet startups, geeks, and investors in cities around the world.
    • Learn about trends in internet, mobile, and other tech platforms.
    • Gain insight into local markets, demographics, business models.
    • Meet cool people, new ventures, have fun on planes, trains, buses.

    My advice, is you should stop bitching about the travel costs and figure out how to make an investment in yourself, your startup and the community and figure out how to attend one of these events and get back more than you put into travel and lost opportunity. There are lots of great opportunities to meet customers, potential investors, to find new partnerships, and to grow your business. If you don’t see an opportunity, try making one, host a party, do a customer event, plan a launch. Make it work. Debbie and Philippe and everyone involved with both StartupFestival and Grow Conference are dedicated to making great startup conf0erences in Canada, but they are not going to do it all for you. Use these events to make an opportunity.

  • Open House at Bootup Labs

    Bootup LabsJevon, Jonas and I are all heading to Vancouver for Grow Conference happening Aug 19-21, 2010. But I’m hear in Vancouver hanging out at Bootup Labs.

    Bootup Labs is holding open office hours this week. Basically if you’re a startup and you’re in Vancouver and you want need some touchdown space, you should visit Bootup Labs.

    Bootup Labs
    163 West Hastings Street
    Vancouver, BC

    David Crow at Bootup Labs
    Hanging out in the middle of Bootup Labs

    This is a fantastic place. There is a fantastic vibe. There seems to be real evolution and growth of Bootup Labs since the dark days. I’ve been hanging out the past day or so with:

    There are a lot of companies, entrepreneurs and things to like happening at Bootup. I am really impressed with a few things.

    1. The space – it is gorgeous. It’s the right mix of location and finish. The offices are safe, comfortable, and interactive. There’s a great mix of open working areas, private meeting rooms, a kitchen and private offices with sliding doors. The natural light. And it’s nice but not posh. As companies demonstrate traction, there is incentive to find different space, for example Dimerocker has moved out. Having Mozilla and Strutta as “anchor tenants” also reduces the risk to Bootup Labs. It also means that there’s a lot of fun interesting people flowing through.
    2. The location – it is right on the edge of Gastown. There is a great mix of restaurants and other things going on. I had breakfast at the Medina Cafe just around the corner from the office (best breakfast I’ve ever had). There’s the Fluevog store. It’s a great neighbourhood that has come a long way since I first visited Bryght in 2005.
    3. The companies – all of these companies and the entrepreneurs working there are pushing really hard and demonstrating traction. There are exits, see Layerboom acquired by Joyent. And there are a lot of good things happening.

    My recommendation is that if you’re in Vancouver you come hang out at Bootup Labs with us. Ping me @davidcrow or @startupnorth or just drop by 163 West Hastings St in Vancouver. I’ll be here until August 20.

  • Grow – A Conference – Aug 19-21, 2010

    Grow 2010
    Our friends at C100 and Bootup are bringing Dealmaker Media to Vancouver for a great event in August. If you don’t know Dealmaker, you should. It’s run by a Canadian, Debbie Landa. They produce 2 of the most valuable events for startups in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles – check out Under the Radar for a list of events and companies.

    Dealmaker MediaThey are producing an event, Grow 2010, in Vancouver on August 19-21, 2010.

    The event is a 3 day event with an invite-only Day 1 to connect Canadian founders with the best and brightest from Silicon Valley and across CAnada. Days 2 & 3 feature great speakers and the opportunity to build unique lasting relationships.

     If you’re an entrepreneur and you missed MeshU in Toronto (and it’s really too bad, this was one of my favourite events of the past 2 years), you should attend Grow 2010. Buy your ticket today and it’s $185, if you miss the super early bird (or as I like to call it the just getting in from a late night), you can grab an early bird ticket for only $230. This is unbelievable! Add in an approximately $700 flight it’s possible to do this for less than $1500. It’s worth the opportunity to meet the companies, build the connections, and help grow your company.

    We’ll be coordinating shared hotel rooms for entrepreneurs from Toronto, Montreal, Waterloo, Ottawa, Halifax and anywhere. If you’re not local to Vancouver we’ll help you find a shared room to manage your costs. Add a comment if you are attending and we’ll try to help you find a roommate.