StartupNorth

Tag: Toronto

  • A Conversation with Brad Feld

     

    Oct 30, 2012 A Conversation with Brad Feld on Startup Communities

    We’re excited to be hosting a conversation with Brad Feld tonight in Toronto. There is still time to grab tickets before the event. The conversation is based around Brad’s Boulder Thesis and specifically how we as individuals, entrepreneurs can participate in meaningful ways to make Toronto a strong startup ecosystem. If you are interested in emerging technology, or emerging business model companies in the Greater Toronto Area this is an excellent chance to learn about how Foundry Group and Brad Feld build a vibrant startup community in Boulder, CO.

    PS Hope to see you tonight.

    Sponsors

    Tickets

  • 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 List; Mike 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.

  • Event – Mint Chip Challenge & David Wolman #mustattend

    Interested in changing financial services, identity and the changing role of currency. The folks at the Mint Chip Challenge are hosting their awards ceremony this week. I was fortunate to be a judge for the submissions. And the awards are happening in Toronto this week. The event is open to everyone. There is a chance to talk with submission developers, the judges, and the folks at the Royal Canadian Mint. The group of attendees is unbelievable!

    It is going to be a very interesting night. The invited guest speaker is David Wolman who is a Contributing Editor at Wired and author of The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers–and the Coming Cashless Society. It is going to be an awesome night talking about the future of currency, digital technology, and identity.

    Guest Speaker – David Wolman

    David Wolman

    David Wolman is a nonfiction author and a contributing editor at Wired magazine. He has also written for publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Nature, Outside, Time, Newsweek, and Discover, and his work has been anthologized in the Best American Science Writing series. His long-form feature about revolutionaries in Egypt, “The Instigators,” was nominated for a 2012 National Magazine Award for reporting. Wolman’s latest book, The End of Money, is a globetrotting exploration of a topic that many readers have always taken for granted: the cash in their pockets. His previous books are A Left-Hand Turn Around the World and Righting the Mother Tongue. He is a graduate of Stanford University’s journalism program and a former Fulbright journalism fellow in Japan.

    BTW how did I end up on this panel of judges:

    The group will be in Toronto at this event. It is a small intimate event. If you are interested in commerce, currency or mobile tech, I’d attend just to get access to these people.

    Reserve your spot!

  • 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.

     

  • A Conversation with Brad Feld – Oct 30, 2012 in Toronto

    A Conversation with Brad Feld on Startup Communities - Oct 30, 2012 in Toronto

    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.

    Great list of sponsors and supporters:

    We’re excited to hear more about the Boulder method and the efforts of Brad Feld , . We’re huge fans of this book, check out William Mougayar’s review. The Don’t Panic: A Guide to the Toronto Startup Ecosystem post was inspired inspired by the desire to (see Brad’s comments on StartupRev).

    The first step is joining in the conversation.

    Buy a ticket

  • Toronto Startup Event List Fall 2012

    Getting ready for startup event fatigue? Toronto is an active ecosystem (based on total activity in the Startup Genome database). But there are a lot of upcoming events, here is my inital tracking of Toronto startup events list for fall 2012. The question is which events to attend and which ones to stay heads down and work. An actual guide would breakdown the benefits of each of these events. But I’m being lazy, I’ll add some commentary around each event. Or please feel free to add events and commentary. I’ll update the post.

    And for those of you thinking about attending everything, go read Mark Suster’s Be Careful not to become a Conference Ho.

    September 2012

    October 2012

    November 2012

    December 2012

  • Waterloo mafia invade Toronto

    I’m guessing this is confirmation that Waterloo Region is really just part of the Toronto ecosystem.

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    I have seen The Communitech HubSpot space. Not a bad name given the facility that houses Communitech is called The Hub, calling a smaller zone in Toronto “The HubSpot” would make sense. Other than one of the leading CRM vendors based in Boston that has raised a combined $65MM in financing is also called HubSpot. That’s got to be bad for SEO.

    I first saw the Communitech HubSpot space when I looked at moving the Maintenance Assistant offices earlier this year. It’s space located on the 2nd floor of 170 University Ave, that doubles as offices for Phil Deck. Phil was previously the CEO and Chairman of MKS Inc. which was acquired by PLC for $305MM in 2011. Phil is also on the Board at Communitech, which features other key players in the Waterloo and Toronto ecosystem including John Ruffolo of OMERS Ventures, Carol Leaman of Axonify, Ali Asaria of Well.ca and John Baker of Desire2Learn.

    “It’s been a lot of hard work and even more fun putting Waterloo Region tech on the map with the help of a hugely supportive community.”
    Iain Klugman, Communitech Marks 15 Year Anniversary of Supporting Waterloo Tech

    Communitech in Toronto

    It’s great news as Well.ca already has offices in Toronto. Previously Waterloo-based companies like Top Hat Monocle have moved to Toronto. There are a large number of Waterloo alums actively working in the Toronto startup ecosystem (I’m a UWaterloo alum along with Farhan Thawar, Zak Homuth, Zach Aysan, John Phillip Green, Dan Holowack, Oshoma Momoh, Bruce Chin, Garry Seto, Mike Rhemtulla, Monica Goyal and that’s just off the top of my head).

    Too bad they chose to leverage an existing StartupNorth brand for the event. The least they could have done was invite us. Oh well, they stuck with our own “invite only” model.

     

  • 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!  ShopLocket, SimplyUs, 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).

  • Startup Ping Pong TO

    Startup Ping Pong TO - Nov 1, 2012 at SPiN Toronto The team at massively scaling Wattpad is hosting a ping pong tournament. The event is intended to bring together the startup community in Toronto by creating a inter-company ladder for ping pong.

    “We really want to start creating a dialog between startups in the city – no better way than to create some healthy competition!” – Tarun Sachdeva

    Companies will compete at the main event will be at SPiN Toronto on November 1st.

    There’s two ways to participate:

    1. Register a startup team
      The top 2 players will represent the startup in a single-elimination tournament. These are $50/team and are on sale now.
    2. Attend for casual play
      Anyone can buy tickets just to come play and network with others in the community. These are $10/person, and go on sale once team registrations are complete.

    In case you’re wondering, both of these include drink tickets and appetizers too.

    The bracket is filling up quickly. This includes Wattpad, Zynga, Jetcooper, FreshBooks, BNOTIONS, and others.

  • 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