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March Startup Drinks - Spring Into Action!

Startup Drinks is back this month at Brutopia (Crescent St, just south of Ste-Catherine), on March 25 from 5:30pm.  Happy hour prices will be in effect and maybe - just maybe - we can get a taste of their terasse.

There are no presentations to distract people from making their own fun.   If you think you’ve got a good idea, this is the place to find a sounding board.  If you want to get a taste of the tech community generally and the startup community specifically, this is your spot.  Everyone is welcome!

Registrations are open soon at TechEntreprise!

Hope to see you there,

Robin

Calling All Area C#, .Net Senior Programmers to Startup Drinks!

I want to meet all qualified C#, .Net senior programmers looking to flex their leadership muscles with a venture backed startup.  I’m looking for someone with 4-6 years of experience in web application development on ASP, .NET and C# and and excellent understanding of Visual Studio and SQL. You should have a bachelor’s degree in science or engineering and if you’re bilingual, all the better.

Look forward to meeting you at Startup Drinks this Wednesday, February 25 from 5:30pm at Brutopia.

Robin

Startup Drinks February

The last Wednesday of the month comes around faster than you realise and suddenly, it’s time for Startup Drinks again!  January’s drinks was pretty gregarious and good fun, which can only be good for business.  Keep encouraging those who need to come to Startup Drinks this Wednesday, February 25 at Brutopia from 5:30pm until whenever.

I’m putting out a challenge to all who read this: if you’re a senior programmer looking for work (or know someone who fits this description), look for Robin from Flow and introduce yourself!  We’re looking for senior software developer for one of our clients and I’d love to have a chat over a pint.

Registrations are open at TechEntreprise!

See you there,

Robin

Reminder: Startup Drinks this Wednesday

Startup Drinks is back!  Come to local fave Brutopia (1219 Crescent St, South of Ste-Catherine) on Wednesday, January 28 and bring anyone you think might enjoy kicking back and talking tech.  Drinks start from 5:30pm until you say “when”; Happy Hour prices are in effect until 8pm.

Register now on at TechEntreprise!

StartupDrinks Jan 28 - Mixing Startups with Pleasure

Networking, community building, socializing - call it what you will - it’s what we’re doing.

Raymond told me about an interesting observation on the part of some Torontonian delegates at Startup Empire last year. By their accounting, one thing the Montreal tech community is definitely doing right is staying connected through regular meetups and events. Montrealers are famously sociable so I guess it’s not surprising but it’s nice to know it’s not gone unnoticed. Judging from the ebullient mood and strong turnout to CelebrateCamp last month - as well as the calls to do it again - I think we’ve got some momentum.

Since November last year, Flow Ventures has been working with Heri on Startup Drinks for the sole purpose of making sure we’re doing our part to keep the community wheels in motion. The next one is slated for Wednesday, 28 January at Brutopia from 5:30pm.

For the uninitiated, Startup Drinks was started by Heri and Alok as a pretext for getting people working in technology in the same room to have an informal drink and generally shoot the breeze. I went to my first Startup Drinks on a balmy June evening at Cafe des Eclusiers and was impressed by the lighthearted, spirited conversation. Now, you don’t necessarily have work at a startup; it’s just called that.

Startup Drinks is open to anyone who wants to get a snapshot of what’s going in the scene; who’s working on what and where. The way I see it, the more diversity of perspectives, the better: you could be a student of computer science, a programmer working for a large corporation or someone like me who is focused on administration. Everyone has a unique perspective worth exploring over a pint. If you want to come, make sure to REGISTER over at TechEntreprise.com!

Robin

Angel Co-Investment Summit Roundup

Last week’s Angel Co-Investment Summit, put together by the NACO, was one of the best investment forums in recent memory. Over 150 active Angel investors (yes, you read that number correctly) heard pitches from 25 companies who had already raised Angel funding.

Here is the list:

• PCA Services
  
• Open Ocean Systems
• Amika Mobile
• Picomole Instruments
• VanRx
• PlantForm
• SpeechBobble
• Well.ca
• Comagulation
• Signalink Tech
• Streamlogics
• PSI Engineering
• Home Stars
• HousAll
• Scisense
• Spartan Bioscience
• Sempa Power
• Viroforce
• Siamons
• Esotera Storage
• Heliocentric
• iotum
• LoyaltyMatch.com
• Nulogy
• Surface to Surface

Here is a more detailed breakdown of companies and fundraising:

• 48% were science or medical technology companies, 32% were Web and 12% were telecom based
• 72% were from Ontario, 16% from BC and the other 3 from Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. Nothing from Quebec perhaps reflecting what little presence NACO has in Quebec.
• The median amount companies had already raised was $1.15 million
• The median burn rate was just below $40k/month
• The median amount sought was $1 million
• The median pre-money valuation was $5 million

Overall I was impressed by the quality of the companies, particularly the science and med tech companies who seemed to have great CEOs, unique IP, customer traction and relatively little capital burned. The Web companies in general did not hold up.

If this is what “early stage” investing looks like these days, those entrepreneurs raising seed capital are going to have to work twice as hard to get investors’ attention. In any case, I hope events like this  encourage more deal syndication which would mean more capital available for companies.

StartupDrinks Montreal

Startups and drinking are both positive influences in my life so I never miss an opportunity to combine both. Heri at TechEntreprise has announced the next StartupDrinks Montreal which is happening next Wednesday (Nov 26) at Reservoir. It’s on Duluth just east of St. Laurent (head up to the second floor). Festivities start at 5:30pm though no one will judge you if you decide to start drinking earlier. You can always blame “the market”.

If you’re an entrepreneur or you’re thinking of becoming one, please register at TechEntrepreprise and come on out. Funders, students and service providers are also welcome. It’s exactly the kind of event I like: lite on presentations and heavy on networking.

StartupEmpire Roundup

Hats off to Jevon, David, Jonas, Michele and the StartupNorth team for putting on StartupEmpire last week. Startups do not exist in a vacuum and a better community means better startups.

There’s not enough space to mention everyone who was there but it was nice to see early stage funders out in force (JLA, Growthworks, iNovia, MontrealStartup, Sigma). It was especially nice meeting the 10 entrepreneurs who won the StartupEmpire contest, sponsored by Austin Hill and Flow Ventures. The packed audience was full of entrepreneurs and there was a real buzz about the event that comes with having 300 people simultaneously give each other elevator pitches all day long. Truly inspiring.

There were 3 important takeaways from my perspective:

1. Just Do It - I was really pleased to see the focus of the event NOT be on fundraising. I don’t think we need another event teaching people how to pitch VCs. But we do need more events that help entrepreneurs take those crucial first steps in their ventures. Bootstrapping seemed to be the word du jour.

2. Idea vetting - The pitch panel, where entrepreneurs gave elevator pitches, was a great way for entrepreneurs to learn that there’s no substitute for harsh criticism when honing your pitch. Entrepreneurs are always pitching, to co-founders, customers, funders, and many don’t take the time to practice until it’s perfect.

3. Finding Co-Founders - Many entrepreneurs I spoke with are looking for co-founders. Some are developers looking for businesspeople with specific industry expertise. Others are experienced in a particular field but aren’t programmers. We have to come up with a better way to match co-founders together.

Next week we’ll be at the NACO Co-Investment Summit where there will be 20+ funded startups pitching an audience of Angels.

Winners of StartupEmpire Contest Announced

Thank you to everyone who submitted entries to the StartupEmpire giveaway. The quality of the writing and thinking was excellent and it was inspirational hearing so many people wanting to further their entrepreneurial careers. Our hats off to all of you.

We only had 10 tickets to giveaway unfortunately so Austin and I had to make some tough choices. The good news for anyone who wasn’t selected is that there have never been more entrepreneurial events happening across Canada. I hope to meet all of the companies at one of these events at some point in the future.

So here is the list of winners (in alphabetical order):

• Chris Advansun (DramaVida)
• Bryan Bogensberger (Reasonably Smart)
• Leonardo Borda
• Felipe Coimbra (YOWTrip)
• Dan MacGrady (IntegrateSales)
• Paolo Mazza (Alexandria High)
• Chris Pyper (MyWebVine)
• Christine Renaud (E180)
• Raul Rupsingh (Softshell Computers)
• Reynold Xin

Congratulations everyone. We’ll see you all at the conference in a few days.

Ottawa Founders & Funders Wrap-Up

The inaugural Founders & Funders Ottawa was a great example of entrepreneurial power networking. I personally don’t like “fashion show” events where founders pitch a panel of funders. I have a feeling that not many startups get funded that way and it just gets in the way of person-to-person networking, which is what F&F Ottawa excelled at.

Allan Isfan (founder of FaveQuest) did a great job organizing the event and encouraging/forcing people to talk to each other. Speaking of which, here is a brief rundown of some of the folks there:

• Ian Graham from the CodeFactory, an Ottawa co-working space that I am a member of
• Mike Ball from LoyaltyMatch, a cool service to trade rewards points
• Ian Barker from Symtext, an e-content platform for distance educators
• Adrian Salamunovic from dna11 which uses DNA to create ultra-cool artwork
• Jason Kealey from LavaBlast, a software platform for mid-sized franchises
• Andrew Seely from Therapeutic Monitoring Systems
• Trevor Stewart from Hummingbird Music, a platform for booking live shows
• Aydin Mirzaee from Chide.it
• Nick Quain from CellWand
• Luc Levesque from TravelPod who created the life-destroyingly addictive TravellerIQ on Facebook

It was nice to see a variety of funding sources including a Boston VC (Sigma Partners), government funding, Angels and debt funding sources. I also think it’s encouraging that founders and funders travelled to Ottawa from Toronto, Montreal and Boston. I don’t think any Canadian city can sustain its own technology ecosystem so people need to start enlarging their networks.