It has been an exciting week here at TheCodeFactory.

We have our first two confirmed tenants:Hyatt Sakin and George from Job Joy were the first to step up to the plate and indicated definitely that yes, we want to be tenants and part of the project. Job Joy has a most awesome talent characterization model that can prove incredibly valuable to entrepreneurs. Hyatt and I have had some preliminary discussion about how to develop a training program for the entrepreneurs. More to follow soon.

The other most excellent tenant is Brad Stewart and the team from Paymail. My good friend Bruce Nolan introduced Brad and I at BarCamp last weekend. Brad is an awesome guy that brings a wealth of talent and a Nintendo Weii (woo hoo!!) with him to TheCodeFactory. Brad is also a very entrepreneurial guy and will be in the private team space area with his team of 4 people. In order to fund his adventure Brad raised money by flipping a house, how cool is that. If your are entrepreneurial handy (as Red Green would say) and looking to raise money house flipping is a new and innovative fund raiser. With his Handyman skills I thought Brad would also be an excellent guy to make part of the fit up team and board of directors to keep the tenants priorities first and foremost. That’s right; the first member of the board of directors is a tenant.

I also meet with someone this week to get some ideas on how to implement an admissions committee to review applications for private team space.

Had hoped to make the funding successful announcement today, however, there is one last funding duck that has proven to be quite elusive. With some good fortune this will be my first breaking news item next week.

Partner building continues. I am currently recruiting 6 – 8 founding partners that will contribute cash to the treasury, credibility to the project and much needed services. Again with even more good fortune I hope to have another announcement or two next week.

I have also found a number of excellent articles on innovation and commercialization that I plan on blogging about here real soon. The first post will be on something I am going to call “Lean Innovation” and TheCodeFactory is essentially an exercise in lean innovation. Just checked Google and it turns out the term already exists and there is actually a Lean Innovation Institute, anyway that just means it is probably a good idea.

Have a great weekend,
Ian Graham

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Stayed tuned for new partner announcements next week.

Will be doing a presentation tomorrow at BarcampOttawa4 hope you can make it.

If the funding ducks align we should be in a position to start the application process on Monday November 26th. This looks like a strong possibility.

Have a Great Weekend.
Ian (dot) thecodefactory (at) gmail (dot) com

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I am pleased to announce that TheCodeFactory first founding partner is Acorn Partners. A most excellent name for the first founding partner, when you consider the nature of TheCodeFactory’s business and all. Many thanks to Malcolm Williamson for all his help and guidance and to Peter and Andy for agreeing to come on board. Thank you very much to Acorn Partners.

I hope to announce another partner or two next week.

The fit up team has been selected and once we get the green light from the bank and the landlord we should be able to announce the date of the barn raising and have a better idea when opening day will be.

I will be working on the application process next week and if all goes well we will start taking applications for private space in the next two or three weeks. Please stay tuned for next weeks update.

Cheers,
Ian (dot) thecodefactory (AT) gmail (dot) com

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Well we are almost ready for ignition. The number of ducks continues to increase and the time it has taken to line them up has surprised me but the little dudes are now almost in a row. I expect the application process for team based space should start before the end of the month of November. Stay tuned for that. I plan on having weekly updates for the short term moving to multiple posts per week as we get closer to lift off.

We have our first founding partner who I hope to name next week when the ink on the contract is dry. One of the tasks that I am currently working on is to recruit founding partners to help add credibility to the project and coin to the treasury. TheCodeFactory will have up to eight founding partners and I expect to hear back from many of the other candidates by the end of next week. If you know an organization that might be interested in being a founding partner please feel free to contact me.

The fit up estimates will all be submitted by Monday November 5th and based on that I will be finalizing the team that will build out TheCodeFactory. The fit up team should be sorted out by the end of next week. On that note in order to keep costs down TheCodeFactory will be doing some work with volunteer labour from the start-up community.

A good old fashion barn raising! That’s right TheCodeFactory inaugural event will be analogous to a barn raising you know like in the movie Witness when Harrison Ford helped the Amish raise a barn. Substitute start-up volunteers for Harrison Ford and substitute sanding floors, varnishing floors and painting walls with the barn and you get the picture. When will this happen, not exactly sure there are a couple of time dependant variables in the equation such as building permits to deal with but, I will keep the posts coming.

If you have any questions about TheCodeFactory about please feel free to contact me at anytime.

Cheers,
Ian (dot) TheCodeFactory (AT) gmail.com

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