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Startup Drinks Around Canada - Wed, Jan 27, 2010

Hi Everyone!

We’re back on track with Startup Drinks with a whole slew of events happening across Canada.  Startup Drinks Waterloo were the first ones out the gate this year kicking us off on January 5.  You can see the recap here.

Next week there are drinks happening in cities all over the country, check it out:

VANCOUVER

When: 5pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: Downstairs, Alibi Room (157 Alexander Street @ Main) (map)

Your hosts: Brian LeRoux (Nitobi), Boris Mann (Bootup Entrepreneurial Society)

EDMONTON

When: 5pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: TBA

Your hosts: Cam Linke, Startup Edmonton

CALGARY

When: 6pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: Bottlescrew Bill’s Old English Pub in the back private room (140 - 10 Avenue S.W.) (map),

Your hosts: Kory Arsenault, eSchedule

Sign Up Here!

TORONTO

When: 7:30pm, 27 January, 2010 (*special post-DemoCamp time*!)

Where: Imperial Pub in the Library Room (54 Dundas St. E)  (map)

Your hosts: Brian Watson and Robin Gittens (CEO Fusion), David Crow (Microsoft), Mark Evans (ME Consulting)

Sign Up Here!

OTTAWA

When: 6:00pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: Patty Boland’s (101 Clarence St) (map)

Your host: Cory Darby, Kelly Rusk (Startup Ottawa), Steve O’Halloran (Assetlabs)

Sign Up Here!

MONTREAL

When: 5:30pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: Brutopia (1219 Rue Crescent) (map)

Your host: Robin Ahn (Flow Ventures)

Sign Up Here!

ST. JOHN

When: 6pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: Big Tide Brewing Company (30 Princess St) (map)

Your host: Jeff Roach (Propel Accelerator)

Sign Up Here!

FREDRICTON

When: 6pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: Garrison District Ale House (426 Queen Street) (map)

Your host: Jeff Roach (Propel Accelerator)

Sign Up Here!

ST. JOHN

When: 6pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: Big Tide Brewing Company (30 Princess St) (map)

Your host: Jeff Roach (Propel Accelerator)

MONCTON

When: 6pm, 27 January, 2010

Where: Vie Tapas & Lounge (196 Robinson St, at the back of Robinson Court) (map)

Your host: Jeff Roach (Propel Accelerator)

Sign Up Here!

HALIFAX

When: Time TBA, 27 January, 2010

Where: TBA

Your host: Jeff White (Kula Partners)

*** updated with 3 cities in New Brunswick! ***

Haiti Tweetup Wrap-Up: $10,000 for Haiti!

(tons more photos here, all photos courtesy of Julian Haber)

A huge thank you to everyone who was involved with Haiti Tweetup! Here’s what we accomplished in one week:

• 120 people attended the event
• 35 businesses donated prizes
• 20 lucky/skilled people won prize lots
• media coverage on CBC, CJAD, the Montreal Mirror and elsewhere online
• $5093 raised in total ($2800 from the auction, $1668 at the door, $625 online)

Since the Canadian government is matching donations, this translates into $10,186 which is going directly to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders Canada.

Whether you attended the event or lent your support in other ways, we should all be proud of what we were able to achieve. I didn’t doubt for a second that the Montreal community would rise to the occasion.

A special thank-you goes to Robin Ahn who put in a huge effort to get all of the logistics sorted out including finding the venue. She is now our resident Silent Auction superhero. Believe me, organizing one is a superpower.

Thanks to the following people who volunteered or helped find sponsors: Christina Baudin, Lateef Martin, Massimo Farina, Sarah Lolley, Julian Haber, Christine LaFontaine, Peter Bailey,and DJ Andy Williams

And a huge shout-out to individuals and businesses to contributed prizes:

• Cruz Limousine
• Scandinave Les Bains
• DNA 11
• Pure Love
• Liz Claiborne
• Brazen Design
• Epicierie Fleur
• Gina Roitman
• Le Groupe Spectacles Gillett (GEG)
• Julian Haber
• Kevin Ledo
• Good Life Apparel
• Automatic Vaudeville Studios
• Spa Zazen
• Studio Sweatshop
• Solares
• Geoff Lapp Trio
• Sasha Kleinplatz
• DeAnne Smith
• McAuslan Brewery
• CBC Radio
• Marc Andre Cyr
• Mainline Theatre
• Moksha Yoga
• McCaughey Consumer Products
• Lorraine Craig
• Blackeye Design
• Ogilvy Renault
• 3Even
• ASM Performing Arts
• Geordie Productions
• Ristorante Capriccio

We’re working on new fundraising projects that will focus on the long-term rebuilding effort in Haiti so stay tuned. If you want to help out, please drop me a line and stay in touch.

Raymond

Haiti Tweetup - What’s Next?

Thanks to everyone for their enthusiastic support of our Haiti Tweetup fundraising drive! We need your help on the final drive for participants on Tuesday, 19 January at Casa Del Popolo (4873 blvd St-Laurent) between 5:30pm and 8:30pm. 

Get tickets here: 

http://haititweetup.eventbrite.com/

Check out the Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=272804474001&ref=ts

Reasons to come:

1. Haiti needs help on the ground and they need it yesterday.  This is an international issue (that needs no more explanation from me) AND it’s also a local one.  Thousands of Haitian Canadians are worried sick and losing sleep over their friends and relatives; they deserve to know that we’re with them and we support them. 
2. DJ Andy Williams will provide the sound and fury for your rump shaking pleasure. 
3. Prizes! Prizes! Prizes! Raffles and silent auctions will be going on for a list of wicked prizes that won’t stop growing! 
4. Did I mention something about an earthquake ravaged country just-a-few-short-hours-by-plane away? Yes, that one. 

How to help: 

1. Send an email.  Copy and paste all of the above in a new message, send it to your entourage then sit back and take the credit. Plagiarism for a good cause doesn’t count. 
2. Get on the phone - call your friends to come out and meet you for a drink on Tuesday at Casa del Popolo! They’re good people and itching for a way to give - the $10 donation-at-the-door might just be the trick.
3. Get Social on Facebook and Twitter - shout it loud and proud that you’re coming with the #haititweetup hashtag.  Let everybody know that Haiti has your support and ask them to join you. 
4. Work your contacts - Do you have friends in high places? Know people well placed in the media who just need to know about this initiative? Point them to this blog! 
5. Add a Haiti Tweetup Widget to your web page - it’s beautiful and functional. Code here: [<div style=”width: 250px;”><iframe name=”countdown” id=”mgframe” src=”http://www.eventbrite.com/countdown-widget?eid=536979119″ width=”250″ height=”420″ marginheight=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ scrolling=”no”  frameborder=”0″ ></iframe><a href=”http://www.eventbrite.com/r/ecount”><img src=”http://www.eventbrite.com/s.gif” alt=”Events” border=”0″/></a></div>]

Add the Haiti Tweetup Widget to Your Web Site

If you have a Web site, please consider adding the Haiti Tweetup Widget to your home page to help spread the word about the fundraiser on Tuesday January 19th. You can see an example of the widget to the right of this page.

Just cut and paste this code into your Web page:

<div style=”width: 250px;”><iframe name=”countdown” id=”mgframe” src=”http://www.eventbrite.com/countdown-widget?eid=536979119″ width=”250″ height=”420″ marginheight=”0″ marginwidth=”0″ scrolling=”no”  frameborder=”0″ ></iframe><a href=”http://www.eventbrite.com/r/ecount”><img src=”http://www.eventbrite.com/s.gif” alt=”Events” border=”0″/></a></div>

Thanks

Raymond

Help for Haiti - Montreal Fundraiser Tues Jan 19th @ 5:30pm

It’s rare that we post non-business stuff to the Flow Ventures blog but we’re making an exception to announce the Haiti Tweetup to help raise money for disaster relief efforts.  This fundraising get-together will be held next Tuesday January 19th at 5:30pm at Casa de Popolo in Mile-End Montreal.

See all the details and RSVP here: http://haititweetup.eventbrite.com/

Tickets are free but we’re asking that people donate at least $10 at the door. All proceeds will go to the International Red Cross (http://www.icrc.org/) who are already on the ground in Haiti and have been for quite some time. If you can’t make it, please just donate directly to the organization of your choice.

Help spread the word using #haititweetup on Twitter. Look for the Facebook event called “Haiti Tweetup Montreal”.

thanks,

The Flow Ventures team

Why you should attend StartupDrinksCA

This week marks a major milestone in the life of StartupDrinksCA. It’s the first time the event can be called a truly Canadian event rather than something that’s just happening in a few cities. Since organizing StartupDrinks in Montreal over a year ago, we’ve managed to expand it to Toronto, Ottawa and Waterloo. Now we’re happy to welcome Halifax (which ran its first StartupDrinks last week), Moncton, St. John, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. I’m sure there will be more Canadian communities joining.

We’ve created a new Web site (www.startupdrinks.ca) to make it easier to organize and promote StartupDrinks in your city. Check it out to see when StartupDrinksCA is happening in your city.

To mark this important milestone, I thought I would highlight the 3 reasons why I think you should attend StartupDrinksCA:

1. Celebrate your community - I’ve recently started reading Who’s Your City? by Richard Florida. He talks about how important creative clusters are to the work of creative people. StartupDrinks is a great way to celebrate how vibrant your local tech entrepreneurship community is. Take a step back and realize that you’re surrounded by passionate, talented people who’ll go out of their way to enable your passion and talent.
2. Build your reputation - Your personal reputation in the community is crucial, not only if you’re a social media professional. It applies to all types of businesses. Regularly attending StartupDrinks is a way for you to develop a reputation with people you aren’t necessarily doing business with today. But when opportunities arise (e.g. someone looking for a co-founder, or their next investment) you’ll appreciate the fact that you have a social bond to back up the fact you’re LinkedIn.
3. Talk about yourself - All startups (and entrepreneurs) are works-in-progress. There’s no better way to develop and hone your pitch (business or personal) than getting out there and doing it. You’ll get great feedback and just the exercise of hearing yourself pitch will give you new insight into what works and what doesn’t. The nice thing about StartupDrinks is that there are no speeches and no panel of judges. Be yourself, share a pint and talk about your projects.

One last reason: there’s a fabulous prize (paid out in kudos) for the person who attends the most Startupdrinks in different cities. We call it: Startup Lush. So far I’m winning but I’d love to have some competition!

Startup Drinks CA is live!

Big news!

Startup Drinks has expanded to include eight beautiful cities - Halifax, St. John, Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary and Montreal.  Startup Drinks Canada also has a new home over at www.startupdrinks.ca and twitter account (@startupdrinksca), to keep you informed on what’s going on locally and nationally.

If you’re eager to help organize for the fun and fellowship, contact your local organizer.  Your support in getting the word out from exactly where you’re sitting right now is always appreciated too.  Use the usual or unusual channels, I’m not picky!  This is a completely community run event for all to enjoy.  Thanks to all of our city volunteers who saw the need and stepped up so fast it nearly made my head spin!

If you’ve never been before, it’s really simple.

1. Go to www.startupdrinks.ca and look up your city’s date, location and time.
2. Sign up to show your support and let your organizer know you’re coming.  Make a date with yourself or a friend and go.
3. Order a drink and introduce yourself to someone you’ve never met before. Repeat as needed.

We don’t have presentations or sponsors and fully encourage people just to have a good time while getting to know their local startup community. This is the last one for 2009 so please accept my sincere thanks to each and every one of you who came and made it a success.  The kudos belongs to you.

Here are the need to know details for Startup Drinks Montreal:

When: Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 5:30pm

Where: Brutopia, 1219 Rue Crescent (cnr Ste-Catherine) (map)

Sign up here!

Next Startup Drinks Montreal: January 27, 2010

Playing for the Tie

Like Playing to Lose, Playing for the Tie is a strategy that doesn’t lead to winning. The difference is that people inadvertently playing to lose think they’re aiming their boat at the far shore, instead they’re heading for an iceberg. Playing for a tie means you’re more scared of losing than winning.

Why is not losing (but not winning) a bad strategy for a startup? Because:

• Opportunity cost - What aren’t you doing while you’re not succeeding? What next great startup idea are you not working on while your current one treads water?
• Survival is not (necessarily) a milestone - Survival is a huge achievement for any startup, but it’s not the goal. You have to be able to tell the difference.

Many startups have a strategy to win at the beginning but this gets diluted to a strategy for a tie when things get operational. Here are some telltale signs:

• You’re afraid to say that you are or will be a world leader in your category (ask yourself why)
• You never hear your team talk about being the best
• You gravitate towards any type of validation (”they like me!”) even if it’s too scattered to truly prove your business value
• You’re risk averse. I’m a firm believer that many risks, like operational risks, can be mitigated in a startup. But you just can’t avoid the fundamental leaps of faith that will be required in proving your business. If you’re afraid of leaping ask yourself what you’re preserving by avoiding risk. If you’re still proving out your business then you really don’t have anything to protect (yet).

Caveat: I’m not saying swing for the fences every time. Be iterative, i.e. get out there and see what sticks. But don’t forget that getting a little traction reduces some risk (a few people like me) and sets you up for new risks (how do I get everyone to like me). See Crossing the Chasm.

Next up: Playing to Win

Playing to Lose

I heard a bunch of different pitches from startups this week that made me think: too few startups are playing to win. Most people have a strategy for moving from point A to point B but I’m hearing more and more strategies for getting “better” not becoming the “best”. I think it’s a problem.

Here are some strategies that I consider Playing to Lose:

• You don’t have a strategy. No further explanation necessary.
• You only have one strategy. A good sign that you are playing to lose is that you can’t describe several alternative strategies in detail. A strategy is only as good as the ones you considered, but rejected. Be a skeptic.
• You don’t understand the cost of success. When people plan to scale a business they often forget that revenues don’t scale by themselves without a some kind of scaling of expenses. Take headcount. Double headcount and I bet you’ll more than double HR expenses. Double the feature set of your product and I bet it doesn’t maintain itself anymore. These ‘diseconomies’ of scale better be built into your strategy.
• Your winning strategy is your losing strategy in disguise. Sometimes I hear a strategy for winning that sounds a lot like a strategy for losing. Here’s an example: Your platform is so feature-rich and versatile that it can be used by anyone. Your strategy is to sell it to anyone. But soon you’ll realize that all of your customers are different and all your recurring license revenues are replaced by low-margin service fees for customization. Yep, that’s your winning strategy.

I think you can avoid Playing to Lose by spending more time understanding your winning scenario and making sure it holds up to scrutiny. Why do you think your cost structure will be leaner than other comparable companies? Why will acquisition costs go down, not up? What things get more difficult, not easier, the more you achieve success?

Are you sure your idea of winning is actually winning?

Next up: Playing for the tie…

Seeking an Exceptional Technical Writer

Flow Ventures invests in and accelerates startups. Our unique model combines financing, strategy and hands-on operational services designed to grow new ventures quickly and efficiently. At Flow, you’ll work with experienced technology entrepreneurs who have built, financed and managed high-growth companies. Flow accelerates startups by operating key areas including finance, software development, HR, business development and administration. This allows entrepreneurs to focus on their products and their customers rather than building infrastructure and capacity.

Flow has worked with startups in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. We’re contributors to the tech entrepreneurship community either as organizers, sponsors or participants in various events.

Flow is looking to hire a Technical Writer in either Montreal or Toronto to work with us on a contractual basis, possibly leading to a permanent position. Your role would be to help us gather raw data and information to help us create R&D technical documentation for SRED claims as well as other government grants and subsidies that Flow prepares for our clients.

Responsibilities include:

• Visiting our clients to gather information from their R & D and Engineering teams
• Translating raw data into key concepts to create content for technical documentation
• Writing technical documents for SRED claims
• Writing and filling in government forms for grants and subsidies.

Skills and experiences required:

• Previous experience with SRED
• Exceptional English writing skills
• Capable to write creative and well structured documents
• Previous experience in software development
• Deep understanding of web based & internet technologies
• Ability to work independently
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Meticulous attention to detail

To apply please send your resume to pbailey@flowventures.com

Candidates will be required to complete a writing test.

*Only qualified candidates who match hiring criteria will be contacted.