The Buddy System

October 28th 6-8

@ The Code Factory

The Code Factory is excited to introduce a new series of events called “The Buddy System” designed to put interested new entrepreneurs/start-ups together with experienced, successful entrepreneurs in order to learn from their experiences and expertise. The first installment of The Buddy System, taking place on October 28th from 6-8 pm at The Code Factory. The event is produced in collaboration with Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP and will feature Huw Leahy – Lumenera President, Greg Bell – Lumenera Vice President Business Development, Andrew Nelson – Vice President Engineering and Kevin Mayer – Chief Technology Officer.

Lumenera is a company that was started during the depths of the economic downturn and successfully bootstrapped all the way to acquisition with $0 in external funding. An inspiration for all Ottawa area entrepreneurs/start-ups with some incredibly valuable lessons learned along the way that the founding team would like to share with the audience.

Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur which is a French word meaning one who undertakes an endeavor. Entrepreneurs assemble resources including innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods. The newest workshop being offered by TheCodeFactory is presented in an entrepreneurial co-learning style. The Code Factory, firmly believes that experience is the best teacher and that in order to know how to teach someone how to start their own company it is important to have done it yourself first!We encourage participants to register for the event, however, drop-ins are welcome. http://thebuddysystematthecodefactory.eventbrite.com/

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Part of the discussion at the Friday afternoon club revolved around the differences between Ontario and Quebec in terms of early stage seed funding. Quebec seems to have a tremendous understanding and great policy framework related to early stage businesses.
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The bells in Québec are indeed ringing in joyful tunes for start-ups. The government’s 2009 budget under Jacque Bernier brought in a new $700M fund for start-ups and more mature companies in clean tech, Life Sciences and IT. The really good news is that $200M of this is specifically targeted at IT. But wait … it gets even better … Three seed funds of $42M each are being established by Investment Quebec and could be online as early as Q1 2010. These are regionally based funds that are managed by private sector fund managers and although heavily weighted toward Montreal could potentially invest just North of Ottawa in Gatineau.
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I am continually impressed with how entrepreneurial the Quebec Government is toward Start-ups. Almost every item on my early stage seed fund wish list has been met and I expect we will see some tangible results in the next 2 – 5 years.
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Quebec … gets IT.
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Start-up by Ian
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One of my favourite says is from Henry Ford (actually there are many quotes from Ford I like) and it goes like this; “The harder I work … the luckier I get”. So you could think of the barriers to growing a web based business as essentially a competitive advantage. That being, if you are first out of the blocks and gaining some traction with your web based business all of the hard work to establish leadership and build a user base will need to be replicated by whoever follows. Hard work and traction are the web based start-ups competitive advantage.
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That said, it takes more than just hard work to grow a user base. It also takes cash and that is one reason you may wish to consider a seed round for your start-up. Often the single biggest barrier to growth is the cost of acquiring new users. If you can do so profitably, it is often the best investment and biggest reason to raise capital.
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However, it takes more than just dollars to acquire customers and what follows is a list of ingredients to help grow your web based business;
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- Starts with “a kick ass product”
- MAKE SURE the product works!
- Make sure the product solves a problem.
- Targeted events or conferences can yield results
- Love your users and communicate with them … especially early on.
- 20% of new users come from using your product, build in viral loops.
- Have an inspired level of service and support … like fresh books.
- Google Adwords are Crack for web based businesses
- NEVER stop getting feedback
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That is the short list in no particular order, I am sure there are more, however, this list probably covers 80% of the stuff that will lead to success.
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Ottawa, Start-up, The Code Factory by Ian
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This post is related to the formative stage of the investor entrepreneur relationship. This is with respect to a web app based start-up. This will be based on two parts; Investor homework, Entrepreneurial characteristics they are looking for.
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First bit, Investor homework; Top 3 things investors look for (in no particular order);
- Are you trustworthy (warm referral helps)
- Initial presentation (need to like; you, your vertical, industry)
- Addressable Market (Know your segment – how big can it be? Big enough for VCs?)
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Entrepreneurial characteristics they look for in you (in no particular order)
- Honesty / Integrity / Trust
- Thick skin / sharp elbows / toughness
- Domain knowledge
- Web marketing expertise and the ability to scale
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Tomorrow’s post; Barriers to growing a web based company.
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Ottawa, Start-up by Ian
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A BIG thank you to Mark MacLeod (www.startupcfo.ca) for taking the time to drop by TheCodeFactory on Friday for our un-meeting; no agenda, free format, everyone has the opportunity to contribute. Judging by the conversation I think everyone enjoyed themselves and walked away with some valuable lessons learned. I have two full pages in my day timer that I wanted to share with everyone.
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Let’s start with a bit about Mark who started his career spending 6 years on Bay Street in Toronto. Mark also has his CA designation and while he has much of the discipline that a CA designation brings he comes across as the founder of a start-up. During his stint on Bay Street Mark did 25 acquisitions and he loves legal documents (go figure … but hey I love financial and year end reports) and the intensity of deals.
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In 1998 he entered the Tech Scene in Montreal. His speciality was raising money for existing companies’ series B rounds. Mark mentioned that the B round is probably the toughest round to raise dollars for. A Series A round is based on promise and future valuation, however, B rounds are more about traction and results.
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Notes on raising funds in Canada;
- Investment community in Canada is small and well connected.
- New money in calls the shots.
- US VC are very sceptical of any CDN company that doesn’t have a CDN VC
- To raise money in the US you MUST have local representation.
- Validation is essential to raising money today
o Validation of the product
o There MUST be people using it.
o Investors want the ability to chat with your users.
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There will be three more posts based on the session;
- Investor / Entrepreneur 1st contact
- Barriers to growing a web based company
- Entrepreneurial Quebec (funding)
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Thank you again Mark.
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Ottawa, Start-up, The Code Factory by Ian
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You are invited to meet some of the people who are inventing our future. Join us for a no cost gathering of Ottawa’s entrepreneurs, investors and support organizations, as we celebrate and highlight the excitement and buzz happening in Ottawa’s start-ups.
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This is your opportunity to network with today’s and tomorrow’s tech industry leaders.
Come join us on November 5th at 7:30pm
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The Marshes Golf Club
320 Terry Fox Drive
Kanata, Ontario K2K 3L1 The event is free but seating is limited so reserve your spot by sending an email to:
Register: jbowen@ces.on.ca or by phoning the book distributor at 613-523-2444.
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SPEAKERS:
Terry Matthews, Chairman, Mitel, www.mitel.ca
Claude Haw, President, OCRI, www.ocri.ca
James Bowen, selecting author, www.entrepreneurialeffect.com
John Reid, (MC), President, CATA, www.cata.ca
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This event is also the launch for the book, “The Entrepreneurial Effect”, which is a collection of practical advice written several successful Ottawa technology entrepreneurs. The book is billed as “your own virtual board of advisors” and has a foreword by Terry Matthews, founder and current chairman of Mitel. Articles include valuable and pragmatic advice on innovation, management, leadership, sales, planning, investing, and research.
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The book is published in Ottawa by Invenire ( www.invenire.ca ) and available for $27.95 from www.commonerspublishing.com and selected bookstores.
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Refreshments will be available, and are generously donated by David Smith www.creativekosher.com
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Facility Sponsor: Vitesse Re-Skilling Canada | Ottawa Talent Initiative
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Ottawa, Start-up by Ian
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Lead to Win announces that applications for the 3rd round of applicants are being accepted. Everyone that I know that has been on this program has had lots of really great stuff to say about it. One person even told me that it probably accelerated there start-up 2 years based on the 6 day training program. They are already seeing results from their training.
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This is a results based program and here are some interesting stats thus far:
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• 10 new technology jobs in the region
• $833,200 private and public investment
• Five startups sold products or services to first customers
• Two startups created new market niches
• Five startups introduced new product and services
• Three startups secured testers for their prototypes
• Two startups secured representation and supplier agreements with large companies
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This is a great opportunity if you are thinking about starting up or accelerating your start-up. Candidate Inteviews START 19-October-2009 have your application in before then.
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You can sign up here: APPLY
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Ottawa, Start-up by Ian
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Filed under: Ottawa by Ian
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We are excited to announce the inaugrial edition of the Friday Afternoon Club a monthly session in the spirit of; fun, freindly, informal and educational for knowledge based companies. We are honoured to have Mark MacLeod of www.startupcfo.ca. Mark is active in the Montreal Start-up scene and well versed in the current environment with respect to early stage financing. Mark was CFO at Mobivox,VP, Finance for networked storage vendor Terrascale Technologies Inc. (bought by Rackable Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: RACK), CFO at IP networking vendor Hexago Inc. and led Finance and Corporate Development for electronic signature software vendor Silanis Technology Inc (AIM: SNS).
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The agenda for the session is free form and we will see where it goes based on the conversation that unfolds. The event is open to anyone that wants to attend, however, to keep the conversation on a more personal level we have limited the number of attendees.
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The attendance for this event is limited and at the time this post was written there were 4 spots left. If you would like to attend you can sign you can SIGN UP HERE.
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Start-up, The Code Factory by Ian
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We are excited to announce that starting October 15th David Cook will be launching the Ottawa Google Wave group. I have heard Google Wave referred to as a mash up of email, IM and wiki and in fact the future of email. The future starts on October 15th at 7pm and you can contact David Cook at this email – davidcook [at] z2consult [dot] com
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GoogleWave Linkedin Group
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Camp Culture, Innovation, The Code Factory by Ian
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