Students want meaningful and relevant employment.
Start-ups want energetic and enthusiastic employees.
Sign up for SNS-12 is here: www.sns-12.eventbrite.com
I’ll be speaking toward the end of February on transitioning to entrepreneurship and what to expect. The presentation will be turned into an ~15 part …
WE are excited to announce that Shopify and Adjoy will also be participating in Students and Start-ups 4, which by the way sold out yesterday. However, the good news is this opens up ten new spots for students.
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Here is a picture of our intrepid 6 start-ups as they fade in:
These spots will be available on competitive bids.
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This competitive bidding stuff … sounds scary and complicated … how on earth does it work?
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Actually it is FUN and EASY! Just send a 100 word email to Samantha (info@thecodefactory.ca) explaining how awesome you are and why you should attend. We promise to get back to you by the end of the day Friday. Certainly if you can code a Boolean sort algorithm or Huffman compression coding then writing 100 words about someone you have known your whole life will be a breeze.
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Remember all of these Start-ups will be hiring in the next 3 to 6 months and they are way cool. The objective of Students and Start-ups is to get students hired by some of the best young companies in town. Well worth a mere 100 words, time well spent.
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Entries can be submitted starting … NOW!
. Ian Graham
Partnerships are an important aspect of almost any business. At TheCodeFactory we are proud to be affiliated with; Acorn Partners, inMedia PR, Lead to Win, Fraser Milner Casgrain, Free Open Source Software Learning Centre, Talent First Network, Lebarge Weinstein, Peters New Jobs and numerous other opportunities in the works (new partners page coming soon). Having been through this a few times certain patterns start to emerge. .
Aligning interests is likely one of the most important aspects in building long term, mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships and partnerships. It all starts with a disclosure of what exactly your intentions and interests are. The more open and honest the participants are; with each other, what they are willing to commit to the arrangement and what they expect to get out of it the great the probability of success.
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Isn’t full disclosure at the start of building a partnership a little naive and with the potential to weaken your negotiating position? Yes and no. If the nature of the relationship is adversarial like; landlord and tenant or car purchaser and used car salesperson or someone that immediately views you as a competitor … then yes it is potentially damaging. These types of business relationships tend to be profit and quite frankly greed driven. The best course of action is to sharpen your elbows and fight for the best deal you can get. The game is played for a win – lose outcome. Fight for a win.
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Full disclosure is desirable if you are working to build a long term mutually beneficial arrangement. It starts with; “what do you want and how can I help”. There is some reciprocity here and the person you are negotiating with should be asking the same questions. You quickly learn what each other want and are able to zero in on a solution in a very short time frame. If there is no reciprocity kill the negotiations early on and move along. What I like most about this mode of negotiations is it is highly efficient and when it works builds strong mutually beneficially partnerships. There are lots of opportunities out there but only a limited amount of time. Play the game for a win – win outcome or kill it quickly.
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I love a fast yes, am ok with a fast no and despise long maybes. Time is your most precious resource so use it wisely … closing a deal is great … pushing on a rope is a waste of time so don’t do it.
. Ian Graham
Cannot be re-claimed.
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One of the key lessons I have learned over the past few years is that time is the single most precious resource you have. Use it wisely because once spent you can never get it back. Money is also considered a valuable resource; however, if you spend it the potential to get it back always exists.
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I was chatting with Cory Darby. The other night just before Team Camp and was impressed by his insights into this time and money balance. He had a very simple test for your expenditure of time. “Now that the time is spent do you value or regret your investment?” This is an amazing test for what you are doing with your life and how you have been spending your time. The second key bit he mentioned was that you can always get back money spent but never time spent.
. Ian Graham
Are you a third or fourth year student in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or a software enthusiast at; Algonquin, Carleton or Ottawa U? Are you interested in meaningful and relevant work experience with some of Ottawa’s coolest start-ups? If you answered yes to these two questions please read on.
. Introducing Students and Start-ups 4 “A New Hope”:
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Students and Start-ups is an event that couples energetic and enthusiastic students with start-ups looking to hire; full time, part-time, contract or co-op in the next 3 to 6 months. Like all TheCodeFactory events this is fun, friendly and informal with the aim of generating results. In our previous two Students and Start-ups we have had 7 hires and we are looking to improve on that with this edition.
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Look whose coming: Coral CEA, Infonium, Travelpod, Zeebu Mobile and possibly two more really cool start-ups that are just a little stealthier but … shhh don’t tell anyone. These are some of my favourite Ottawa start-ups with a few that have been acclaimed the highly coveted status of TheCodeFactory “Start-ups to watch”.
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What’s the format? Well what would an event be without pizza, pop, introductions and fun and games. We set up a challenge, put you in teams and have you compete in the spirit of friendly competition against your peers for fun, glory and the opportunity to get an awesome job.
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Sounds great how do I sign up? A cautionary note: attendance is limited to 20 students and we have already had a number of spots taken. First come first served. The registration link is here:
. Students and Start-ups 4 – A New Hope Sign up link
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If you attempt to sign up and the registration is full don’t despair you can plead your case with Samantha info@thecodefactory.ca to try and get a spot. Explain in 100 words or less how awesome a programmer you are and why you deserve to attend. (emails exceeding the 100 word limit will be banished to the Tatooine desert)
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Ian Graham
This post is dedicated to the heart of all innovation “people”. The spirit of friendly competition is a powerful motivator.
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TCF version of Friendly Competiton: Students and Start-ups 4 (Student Registration) .
One of my favourite stories comes from my #1 favourite book “Winning Friends and Influencing People” by Dale Carnegie. A must read IMHO. There is one story (actually tons of little nuggets of wisdom) that is a particular favourite.
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Picture this: A group of executives are huddled together outside the main entrance to a steel manufacturing plant. Among them is Andrew Carnegie perhaps one of the greatest leaders in the industrial revolution. The rest are the plant managers and executives of the facility. This particular plant is the worst performing plant in the whole company. The team is conferring with Carnegie on the strategy for improvement.
. Plant Manager: “We have tried everything to improve performance here; offered incentives, fired troublemakers, invoked change management and everything else we could think of. Nothing works we are at a bit of a loss as to what to do next.”
. Andrew Carnegie reaches over and grabs a large piece of chalk from the blackboard at the entrance to the facility. As the executives are talking the plant is starting to change shifts. Workers are exiting the building and walking past them. Carnegie politely asks one of the workers “How many heats did you do today?” (A heat is a measure of the plants productivity).
. Plant Worker: “We built 5 heats today”
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“Thank you” replies Andrew Carnegie and he takes the piece of chalk and writes a HUGE 5 on the entrance to the building that all of the workers will walk over as they enter and leave the facility.
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A little later on one of the workers starting their shift notices the BIG 5 in the entrance and asks the departing shift worker; “What’s with the big 5 on the entrance?”
. Plant worker: “Oh … the big boss was here today and he asked us how many heats we built. I said 5 and he took that piece of chalk and wrote a large 5 in the entrance.”
. Second Plant Worker: As they are leaving the facility from their shift, erases the 5 on the ground and writes in a big 6.
This continues for several weeks until the number at the front of the entrance is 12 and the plant is the most productive in the country.
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The same principle applies to innovation. Small is big and it is really the little things you and your team do that make all the difference. That spirit of friendly competition is one of the most powerful motivators I am aware of. Great leaders inspire greatness in others.
. Ian Graham
What is it?
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Funding of course is The Holy Grail. The question then is “how the heck do you get funded”. Here is a little youtube video on the fate of many start-ups in quest of the Holy Grail at “the Cave of Caerbannog”
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The speakers at the November edition of The Buddy System are one of the few Ottawa area start-ups to to survive the caves and land a series A round.
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How did they do it?
What are the secrets to finding the start-up holy grail?
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Perhaps if you attend the November issue on November 25th of The Buddy System featuring Rob Lane and Tyler Cope these mysteries and much more will be revealed. This is an up close and personal wrap session with the founders.
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Attendance is limited to 20 people to keep the session more personable and intimate. There are still 4 spots left at the time of this post. http://thebuddysystem.eventbrite.com/
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This promises to be a very cool session. Hope you can make it.
. Ian Graham
One thing I had always thought was that both idea and easy are 4 letter words. Coming up with a big idea is relatively easy and can be done over a brainstorming session in an hour or two. IMHO ideas are highly overrated.
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Through TeamCamp we have found that everyone has ideas and the real challenge lies far less with the idea and far more with the execution. The first big challenge in pitching your idea is to find someone else that wants to work on it because everyone has their own ideas.
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The next and more significant challenge is how to make the idea work. Basically ideas are realized by execution and the devil is indeed in the detail. The idea for Twegather was hatched on June 18th we had about 20 people break up into small groups of 4 people to come up with the idea. At the end of that two hour session we had tons of great idea’s; locked, loaded and ready to go. The idea phase of Twegather took about two hours plus or minus an hour.
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The execution phase of Twegather is still a work in progress and it is now 17-Nov-2009 almost 5 months later. Plenty has been accomplished in that time; team formed, alpha product, beta product and demo camp launch with each of these being a baby step. This is a rough approximation of time based on 4 people 2 hours per week meeting, 20 hours per week development time, adding to the team 5 people 2 hours per week plus 4 hours community management per week for a total of 800 hours on execution with still many baby steps to go. Therefore the rough ratio of execution: idea is 400:1 and that is only going to increase.
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TheCodeFactory idea was born in April 2007 (I remember waking up with the idea in a bit of a eureka moment) and the facility opened in May of 2008. It is now November 2009 and we have been in business 18 months. To get the idea took a couple of hours … lets stretch it and say four hours. From 2007 to 2008 I probably spent 1,000 – 2,000 hours; after opening it is 60 – 80 hour work weeks lets round to 70 hours per week. Therefore total time spent on idea is 4 hours and execution 6,000 hours. That gives a ratio of 1,500 : 1 execution : idea. As you move forward the idea morphs and evolves which is a natural outcome of execution and the ratio only increases.
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The point of all this is that ideas are easy. Making them work very hard. To make an idea work you need to start with the first step. A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step and the building of an idea is the same. To get to where you want to be pick small achieve able goals or milestones also known as baby steps. The greatest idea needs lots of baby steps. Vision is easy, realizing it very difficult.
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The real difference between dreamers who just dream and visionaries who build is the later actually take baby steps (and lots of them) toward building the idea.
. Ian Graham
I heard a comic, from Toronto IIRC, on LiVE 88.5 one morning refer to Ottawa as “The city of comfortable brown shoes”. Is this how people on the outside see our fair city? Is this a fair statement and accurate reflection of our town?
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First of all what would prompt such a remark, other than people from Toronto enjoy poking fun at the nation’s capital, but hey after all TO is only a provincial capital … envy perhaps. The more likely reason is that it is indeed a decent metaphor for the Ottawa Lifestyle. .
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When you consider that 20% of the 660,000 direct workforce in Ottawa (roughly 145,000 of the working population) are employed by one level of government (Feds or City of Ottawa). Add in the service organizations that make a living doing business with the government and you likely have roughly 50% of the working population in Ottawa tied directly to the government as their source of income. The numbers get even more interesting when you consider other public institutions like Universities, Colleges and the public education system and you probably have an additional 10% – 20% making their living in the public sector for a total of 70% of the local workforce. Public sector employment is comfortable (decent wages, work hours, great benefits, pension …) and in comparison to say the technology sector relatively secure.
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This to a large extent explains Ottawa’s ability to withstand the current global recession so well, certainly in comparison to other Canadian cities and those anywhere in the world. This is a really good thing about living in our fair town and provides a level of comfort with stability.
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The downside, however, is that stability in fact discourages some potential entrepreneurs because after being burned the safety and security of those comfortable brown shoes can be quite alluring. Comfort in fact is the enemy of innovation. Most of the rest of the world is being forced to change rapidly in order to survive; disruption and pain are innovation catalysts.
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If Ottawa is indeed the city of comfortable brown shoes we may benefit in the short term with the public sector providing a breakwater and safe haven. However, other global villages in stress and turmoil are literally being forced to innovative for survival. Those villagers in other global cities are wearing bare feet, old shoes or running shoes and marching to the beat of the new order drum.
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In Ottawa we need to investigate new and innovative ways to deal with the changing global economic upheaval and economic development. The more we cling to that pair of comfortable brown shoes the more we stay the same. Times are changing rapidly and we should consider appropriate footwear for the challenge. If everyone around you is in a running and you continue to stroll in comfortable brown shoes, you will fall behind the pack.
. Ian Graham
This is the third and final post in the Buddy System featuring Lumenera. The good news is there will be a new event next month featuring Rob Lane and tyler Cope Co-founders of Overlay.tv.
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You can sign up here: The Buddy System – Overlay.tv – Registration
. Eric Smith asked each of the founders to contribute their single biggest lesson learned before wrapping up for the evening. . Greg – Always be reaching out marketing and selling to customers. Our strategy was “Me too but better than you.
. Andrew – Understand your customer and meet their needs.
. Huw – Be open to complimenting your own skills with others.
. Kevin – Avoid the ego thing it only leads to trouble. Our motto is always when something needs to get done “do it” and this applies to everyone.
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Thank you to Greg, Huw, Kevin and Andrew for an informative and valuable session.
. Ian Graham
Todays post is the second in our series from “The Buddy System” featuring Lumenera founders; Huw, Greg, Kevin and Andrew.
. Greg VP Business Development, mentioned that when they started out they had no clear path or vision which may come as a bit of a surprise to me. However, what they did know is that they had the right stuff. Even with the right stuff from launch to traction can take some time so that you will want to make sure there is an alternate source of revenue or savings available to tide you through the launch phase. Lumenera adopted a service for hire model and used strategic project selection to gain expertise in those areas and technologies key to the company’s success in the first year. Their intent was to find the quickest path to cash. One of the wisest investments they made early on was getting a great website and investing in SEO and Google Adwords (remember starting out in 2002 these guys were just a bit ahead of their time) and riding the wave as digital cameras gained acceptance. Both Google Adwords and tradeshows were valuable in raising Lumenera’s profile early on. Money well spent. . Kevin, CTO, used a house building metaphor to describe how the company grew and evolved. They started with a very small and simple house adding a room as needed and could afford. So basically building your dream home one room at a time. Another thought with respect to this that I had is perhaps this is an example of minimum viable start-up (similar to minimum viable product). Kevin also seconded Greg’s notion of making sure all of the projects they engaged in to generate revenue were strategic to company growth.
. Andrew, VP of Engineering, had some very sage words for many of those perfectionist engineering types I have come across “get the product out the door!” because it will never be perfect. There is a great post by Wendy Kennedy that I will always remember called “when good enough is great” that echoes this sentiment. Andrew also mentioned that “not knowing” what the customer wants can actually be beneficial because it forces you to solve real problems when they do start to use the product. Always be creative in solving problems for customers “in every problem are the seeds of opportunity” When Good enough is Great …
. Huw, Lumenera President, mentioned that while 2002 was a dark time there were also lots of benefits to starting then like a plentiful pool of talent available for hire. Space was also cheap and credit was easy to get. Huw offered a few choice tips to start-ups on looking bigger than you are;
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- Dumbed down cards (there are advantages to being Director of support)
o CEO of a big company would never be on a service call (makes you appear small)
o On a support call be Director of Support implies a bigger company
- Have multiple cards depending on where you are going to meet a customer
o VP business Development for customer visit
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Huw also likened the blend of optimism and pessimism as holding multiple hands at a poker match. If one doesn’t work out you fold and keep playing the good hands. He also mentioned that two key success factors were; speed and being nimble. Putting his finance hat on Huw also mentioned if you can keep your costs as variable (costs are pegged to product sold) then this helps your scale cost effectively.
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Tomorrows post will be the teams key lesson learned, that one bit of wisdom each feels is most important.
. Ian Graham
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