Angels on the East Coast

Hey Startups!

I attended the Halifax Angel Summit in Halifax last week. Sun Startup Essentials sponsored the event, and I gained a tremendous amount of data, and understanding on what Angel investors are looking for, when they look at you, the startups.

The morning started off with Dan MacDonald, President and CEO of inNOVAcorp. In a powerful and informative keynote, Dan shared his insights on Vetting the The Early Stage Investment Opportunity – READ: How they decide if they are going to give you money!!
Get your pencils poised because below are my Top points that you need to know!

Shelf Life of Financial Guidance is now measured in Minutes: be careful what you listen to and take as gospel

Angels are worried about cash burn and run rate more than ever

New opportunities will be vetted more robustly than ever before

There is a 4-Point Criteria

a. People
Do you have relevant experience?
Do you have the ENERGY that it is going to take?
How collaborative are you?
Integrity?
b. Market
Is the opportunity in a growing market or category?
Addressable Market: 100’s of Millions of Dollars. Yes!
c. Barrier
What is the barrier for competitors?
More than Patents!! What is the recipe of Goodness: Expertise, contacts, and unfair advantage in some wayFundability

You should be able to have a conversation about the above things on a napkin, or a whiteboard.

They are NOT interested in your Consultant-Written, hundreds of pages business plan.

Not about removing every risk: Vetting is defending your thinking. What have you done to VALIDATE your thinking?

What is the most likely business model that would allow this to reach the market?

Yes, they do revenue projections, and they want to understand this from YOU. They want to know 18 months. Leave your 5 year projections at home.

How is it done at inNOVAcorp?
Engage the opportunity (See point 4)
Work with opportunity for several months in an engaged process
Shop your idea to “Retired CEO types”
i. What are your validated, professional set of financials? Yes, they will Check, Check, Check again.

Want to see this in Full? Check out this speech, and others outlined below, at http://www.goldencoast.ca/2008/nao/
Other Sessions at the National Angel Summit Included:

Building a board for early-stage companies
(David Berkus, Keynote Speaker): A good board needs balance, not your best friends. Decide what you want out of your board: Advisors, or Governance. Remember that your board can have control at both a high level, influencing the shape and direction of the business, and the lowest level, controlling your hiring and firing.

Want to go International? Think about the UK; the Enterprise Investment Scheme is a pretty neat Tax program.
(Permjot Valia, keynote Speaker): The UK’s tax relief for income, capital gains, inheritance and investment losses go a long way to ensuring a vibrant and entrepreneurial economy, resilient to economic challenges and well-supplied with the risk capital it needs to grow.

Engineering killer exits
A great panel describes the best ways to Get Out (because you all have begun with the end in mind, haven’t you?)
Marnie Walker, Maple Leaf Angels tells us: If you can, sell your company when you don’t have to. You have time to know your buyers, evaluate terms, and protect your people and business. Austin Hill, co-founder of Radialpoint tells us to realize that investors are interested in what is best for their portfolios, not what is best for your company. Good news is, sometimes you can wait it out, take your learnings, and get back on track. Want to do it right from the start? Good IP, Great teams, Local to the market, you fit a product strategy gap of a bigger company, have a way to get market share, and well, have Revenue Potential.

Till next time!!

Sandra

It's Still the Mother

A Sun Startup Essentials program participant finds a home for his startup in Canada

In the world of ever-changing technology, rapid-fire innovation, and seemingly instant and fleeting millionaires with equally flash in the pan technology, sometimes it seems we may have forgotten that Necessity is the Mother of Invention. I was lucky enough to meet a young entrepreneur at the Montreal Entrepreneur Tech Breakfast on September 9th who hasn't forgotten at all.

Felipe Coimbra started Yowtrip to fill the most important need: his own. Felipe came to Canada from the US, and originally from Salvador de Bahia, Brazil to see our amazing country, and to study French in Trois Rivieres, QC. Travelling around Canada alone, and not having travelled much before, Felipe went online and attempted to find like-minded travellers within Canada to meet up, ask for tips, and to sight see and experience Canada with. Not finding a suitable site to meet his desire, Felipe knew he had to start such a service.

Felipe returned stateside, and had another startup (i-stats Web Analytics was bleeding edge) on the go, plus holding down a regular job, but he didn't give up the urge to build the site he had dreamed up in Canada. "When I was in California, and I had time and money to travel, half my friends were married, some were poor, and the rest didn't want to go," Felipe laments. He sacrificed his nights and weekends for 4 months, coding feverishly, forgoing full nights sleep for short 2 hour naps. Emerging from the glow of the computer screen, Felipe switched his effort to marketing and showcasing his basic platform.

Living near the Bay area, Felipe found a rich event environment for pitching his site. With events of every flavour, every day, there was no shortage of opportunities to refine his story, gather feedback and share his enthusiasm for the site. But with a keen understanding of the need to scale, and not be limited to a small geography, Felipe used his knack for performing on little sleep to travel around the US to promote in other areas, showcasing at democamp NY, SanFran Meetup, and NewTech meetup in Boulder, CO. While in Boulder, after his pitch, Felipe was offered 3 jobs, but declined to follow his entrepreneurial spirit.

Felipe understands Principle Number One of Viral and 2.0 marketing: Build a Good Product. Buzz is a fleeting thing, and in the world of 2.0, buzz without substance fades quickly, or worse, turns to jaded distain in the social media driven universe. The biggest challenge Yowtrip faces everyday is building the userbase, and getting to critical mass. Felipe focuses a ton of energy on getting the word out, and talking to the right people. But he never forgets the product. "Build a good product that keeps them coming back, and telling others about", says Felipe.

Felipe says he is having fun, but knows that what inspires him is not for everyone "Yeah, I work a lot on this, easily until 3 or 4 in the morning. [When I was developing the site] I would go out on Friday, then work all weekend, then back to work on Monday; it's lot of work, but I like doing it, and the best part is when you are done the development, you get to talk about it and get excited about it and meet people along the way. I like it!"

So what is next for Yowtrip? I asked Felipe if he thinks they are going to make it big. "I'm an optimist, I'm passionate and I love to keep trying, but I am also realistic; I look at all the people, and what everyone is doing without a lot of funding… there is only so far that you can keep going without extra help." But Felipe hints at a big improvement coming up for the site. He relies on his 'power users' to decide what to build next.

Felipe stresses that Yowtrip isn't just for the younger jetset. One of his favourite users is a woman in her 50's who loves to travel and shop. Having trouble to find other like-minded shopoholics, she turned to Yowtrip, where she can pick any where in the world, pick the type of people she wants to spend her travels with, and meet up!"As if running as startup were not enough, Felipe is passionate about bringing the event-rich startup fever to Montreal. After falling in love with Canada, and specifically Montreal, Felipe got involved with tech bloggers and events in the city even before moving "There is not as many events here as in the SF Bay area where every day there is an event." To supplement the community events where only a few companies get to demo, and to reach out to even more entrepreneurs in the area, Felipe aims to build more community for startups, investors, and other interesting people.

I asked Felipe why he came to Canada to be an Entrepreneur.

His answer "It's just something about Canada…."

Imagine that.

SSE Bloggin' Across Canada: Wow, What a Kickoff!

Tuesday I attended Montreal Entrepreneur Tech Breakfast, the first event sponsorship in the Sun Startup Essentials "Bloggin' Across Canada" series.

Held at Boccochinos, I arrived a bit early, with excitement and anticipation.

I haven't been to Montreal since the mid-nineties, and this was my first introduction to the Startup Scene in the city.Boccochinos had reserved the entire upstairs area for the informal meetup event.

Ben Yoskovitz, founder of Standout Jobs and Heri Rakotomalala of Mad Media have been instigating the event, and expected about 30 participants to attend, representing Startups, Investors, business and marketing folks, and other interesting people!

Folks began trickling in shortly after eight, and I didn't need a second coffee to get kickstarted. Everyone was extremely friendly, outgoing, and rich with stories to tell! The trickle turned into a tidal wave at about 8:30, interaction was abound, with people up and down from their chairs to mingle with other tables and meet - what I am told - were a ton of new folks at the event.

Breakfast was no sooner delivered and I was invited to say a few words to the group. I hated to interrupt such a buzzing room, but after a few words about the Sun Startup Essentials program, I'm glad I did. The balance of the morning was filled with startup CEO's and founders visiting me for more information.

At the time of writing, http://identi.ca/ and http://www.reasonablysmart.com/ are two of the amazingly clever startups who have signed up already! (For those interested in signing up for the free program, please click here!)

With a record 55 participants, the first Sun Startup Essentials sponsored Montreal Entrepreneur Tech Breakfast was a smashing success. After personally speaking with over 35 folks and narrowly missing my 11:45 train, I am ecstatic about the events to come.

Now, where are those eggs I ordered?

Sandra