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Startup Drinks, Montreal and Toronto: Wednesday, July 29!

This Wednesday, July 29, Startup Drinks will be held simultaneously in two different locations! We’ve been working behind the scenes with Canadian startup agitator David Crow to get our Toronto brethren into the Startup Drinks act.  Startup Drinks Toronto makes its debut in the wake of DemoCamp and at last count there are over 180 (!) people slated to be there.

Speaking for Montreal, this drinking and networking event has become a touchstone for the tech community because of the regulars who keep the open spirit of the startup culture alive.  With David’s help, I hope we can achieve this modest end in Toronto with the same “no frills” philosophy and conviviality.

I asked David - who has no lack of projects on the go, mind you - why he was getting behind yet another community building effort and he said it’s because “Startup Drinks embodies the culture needed to build strong connections between entrepreneurs. Montreal has such a fantastic startup culture, and sometimes imitation is the finest form of flattery. This is a great social event for entrepreneurs and startups to gather over a pint and share what we’ve been working on.”

If you’re a Montrealer in Toronto for DemoCamp, check it out just as our own Raymond Luk will be doing.  You know the drill!

Without further ado, these are your need-to-know details:

For Toronto:

Venue: Pogue Mahone, 777 Bay St (Cnr College St)

When: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 from 7pm

Sign up: Startup Drinks Toronto Facebook Event

For Montreal:

Venue: Brutopia, 1219 Crescent St (Sth of St-Catherine)

When: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 from 5:30pm

Sign up: Coming soon!

You can come by yourself, with a friend or with a posse.  Everyone is welcome!

See you there,

Robin

Bulls*%t, Next Slide…

We had an entertaining speaker at last night’s meeting of Anges Quebec. Andy Nulman of Airborne Mobile and Just for Laughs fame, spoke about his experiences as an entrepreneur and his thoughts on Angel investing. I don’t know Andy but he’s absolutely hilarious.

One funny anecdote he mentioned was pitching some VCs during the early days of Airborne and being told that their financial projections were not nearly sophisticated enough. They dutifully hired a bunch of experts to create what he described as the most beautiful set of financial projections ever created. At their next pitch to a big strategic investor, they went through their powerpoint and got to the financial projections. As soon as the investor saw the projections he said “Bullsh!t, next slide.”

Under “Lies Angels and Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves” #1 has to be that financial projections mean something. Projections are a good way to work out aspirations but they’re not good for predicting the future (in a startup). We’re investing in People right? Entrepreneurs are just as bad. When their pitch isn’t convincing they roll out excruciatingly complex financials to boost their case.

Angels and entrepreneurs should stop lying to each other. Entrepreneurs should be honest about what they don’t know (which would be refreshingly impressive) and Angels should realize that at the earliest stages they’re placing a big fat hairy bet on an individual. People who aren’t comfortable doing this probably shouldn’t be investing in startups.

Andy’s version was funnier…

June Startup Drinks + Montreal Girl Geeks

Startup Drinks has joined forces with Montreal’s Girl Geeks to bring you the networking juggernaut of the summer!

On location will be another fine installment in the Montreal Girl Geek speaker series featuring local tech entrepreneur Christine Renaud (E-180).  Christine will talk about her travels in social entrepreneurship in her talk entitled “The Good, The Lucrative and the Web Friendly”.

Here’s the deal:

The Date:

• Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Times:

• 5pm: Montreal Girl Geeks, featuring Christine Renaud.  Check out their blog for more details! You MUST register to reserve your berth as space is limited.
• 6pm: Startup Drinks madness will kick off at 6pm until whenever with beer, networking and snacks.  Registration is recommended at techentreprise!

The Place:

• UPSTAIRS (as in, not downstairs) at Brutopia,  1219 Crescent St (south of St-Catherine), Metro Guy-Concordia

The Cost:

• Nothing, nada, zip.  Both events are free and you can come to one or other or both. As always, everyone is welcome!

Thanks to Tanya McGinnity for her collaboration on what promises to be a great night!

See you there!

Robin

Lead to Win: An Open source Business Accelerator

Here’s an interesting idea: take a city that is experiencing high-tech job loss, create a program that helps laid-off workers create startups, run it like a summer school program using local experts, charge nothing for the program and take no equity stake in the businesses. Oh, and Open Source all of the learning materials used!

It sounds too good to be true and it is, unless you live in Ottawa. Lead to Win is an accelerator program created by Dr. Tony Bailetti. Currently underway with about 50 participants, this is actually the second time such an accelerator has been run in Ottawa, the first one being in 2002 during the last tech downturn. That program created about 15 new companies, 300 new jobs and a significant amount of investment dollars. More importantly, it created a new cohort of tech entrepreneurs that have gone on to found new companies.

Here’s a taste of some of the things covered in the agenda:

• Design your business for success
• Define compelling customer and partner value propositions
• Lever ecosystems, open source projects, and open APIs
• Identify customers most likely to buy from new company
• Price and brand with confidence
• Build team and organization
• Define clear agreements, term sheets, and sales contracts
• Protect intellectual property
• As well as pitches and discussions with experts and LTW alumni
  

Since we all love to classify things, is Lead to Win a startup accelerator? Tech accelerators (remember, we don’t use the term “incubator” anymore…) are on the rise. StartupCFO has a nice post on the subject and First Ascent Ventures has probably the best early analysis of the accelerator space and guesses about early returns (Parts 1, 2, 3). We sometimes describe what we do at Flow Ventures as “acceleration” since we provide a mix of financing and operational services (though no office space!).

What is compelling about Lead to Win is its Open Source business model. It’s not only free (as in beer) but free as in all of their materials are available online. In fact, they’re encouraging other cities to follow suit. This openness allows LTW to easily partner with government, local tech organizations and the private sector. Unlike other accelerators, there is no implied goal of helping the company raise money at the end, e.g. there is no big funding pitch session for graduates. I like this because it emphasises bootstrapping and early profitability. Neither of these is friendly to VC funding models but they’re friendly to entrepreneurs and helping build products that markets need.

I would definitely call LTW an accelerator. After all, they help more people create new ventures quickly while providing some care and limited feeding along the way. Like many other accelerators, Prof. Bailetti has figured out that the most important thing entrepreneurs need is not cash but access to an ‘ecosystem‘ that can support the venture. This ecosystem can provide talent, technology, customers and financing.

Flow will be at Lead to Win later this month providing advice and feedback to entrepreneurs. I strongly recommend you check this program out and if you think this could work in your city, contact Tony Bailetti.

Startup Drinks - May 27, 2009

It’s great to see so many startup enthusiasts out in force and we’re set to do it all again, as we do on the last Wednesday of every month. You are most welcome to bring friends and colleagues. We’ve been seeing 60+ people through the doors and I would love to keep the pace!

Let the drinks and networking begin at Brutopia this Wednesday, 27 May from 5:30pm until whenever.

You can register soon at techentreprise! Techentreprise helps you to connect with the people you meet and even post your own items.  But wait, there’s more! You also get a gorgeous name tag on the night and satisfaction of knowing that you’re helping us to plan the best event possible.

Reminder: Startup Drinks al fresco, Wednesday, April 29

Come on out this Wednesday, April 29 from 5:30pm to Brutopia (Crescent St, just south of Ste-Catherine) for beers and startup mayhem.  The terrasse will be in full effect!

All are welcome!

Registration is now open at TechEntreprise!

Startup Drinks April Edition: Next Wednesday

Depending on weather, next Wednesday could be the first “Patio Edition” of Startup Drinks. Hope to see you there and please spread the word!

The details: Startup Drinks at Brutopia (Crescent St, just south of Ste-Catherine), on April 29 from 5:30pm.

Register soon at TechEntreprise!

Students Invent the Future at Young Inventors Conference

Nobody needs to be reminded how important students are to our startup ecosystem. I started my first Web consulting company in the McGill Music computer lab (which was probably against the rules!) along with two friends who were also students. Yet most universities privately admit they’re not doing a great job turning research projects into commercial products or students into CEOs.

It always surprises me that we see so few students at startup events. There are some but just not very many. At ConnectMcGill, a recent student event in Montreal, most students had never heard of the meetups, mixers and startups surrounding them. We need to do something about this!

One group that’s actively helping young entrepreneurs and inventors is Young Inventors International. Founded by Anne Swift, YII’s mission is…

…to work with leading universities, organizations, and entrepreneurs around the world to educate student inventors and entrepreneurs on how to create new ventures and social enterprises, build intellectual property portfolios, and acquire transferable professional skills. With more than 2,000 members who own almost 700 patented and patent-pending technologies, YII is the leading not-for-profit organization providing a comprehensive network for education and skill training specifically for student innovators and entrepreneurs in North America.

I ran a business planning session at their 5th annual Inventing the Future conference held recently in Pittsburgh at Carnegie-Mellon University. 120 students took part in a gruelling (ok, probably not that gruelling) “commercialisation marathon” that was kicked off by Regis McKenna of Kleiner Perkins fame. You can see some pictures and videos on the YII blog.

One of the highlights for me was something called BrainBuzz(tm) which was a 3-hour intensive brainstorming session. Small teams were formed and each tackled problems e.g. how to design a more effective passive solar energy collector or how to market a dancing robot (click the link, trust me). What’s amazing is the quality of ideas that flow, even from people without training in a particular field. BrainBuzz not only gives students confidence in their ideas but gives them a taste of the idea generation “buzz” that all startup entrepreneurs feel. That’s one way to get them hooked on becoming entrepreneurs.

If you are (or know) a student thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, I highly recommend you join Young Inventors and get involved. You’ll be joining a community already over 2000 strong, and growing.

Students to Startups: A great kick-off event at McGill

ConnectMcGill, the inaugural tech entrepreneurship event at McGill was a huge success. Two computer science students, Nicolae Rusan and Ladan Mahabadi, had the idea of organizing an on-campus meetup for students interested in entrepreneurship. I was immediately interested in getting involved, especially to try to help bring people from the startup scene to mingle with students. We had over 80 participants and a lot of enthusiasm for making this a regular event.

James Duncan (from Joyent) and I gave brief presentations on getting started in entrepreneurship but the real highlight of the event was seeing students mingling with Montreal startup folks. I believe that one of the most important things you can do to encourage students to become entrepreneurs is to give them access to people who are actually doing it. Half an hour spent chatting with a startup CEO is worth 40 hours plugging away at a business plan, in my opinion.

We’ll be organizing our next event with the involvement of students from the other Montreal universities as well. If you are a student, a startup, an investor or a mentor, contact me and we’ll get you involved.

Reminder: Startup Drinks this Wednesday!

Mark it in your calendar folks:  Startup Drinks month at Brutopia (Crescent St, just south of Ste-Catherine), on March 25 from 5:30pm.  Look forward to seeing you there!

Register now at TechEntreprise!