Jevon MacDonald over at StartupNorth has been presenting over on the East Coast about How Startups Will Save Venture Capital in Canada and it doesn't let anyone in the start-up ecosystem off the hook.
It isn’t a criticism, but instead it is an analysis and a call to action for both Angels, VCs and Entrepreneurs. Things are pretty busted up right now and it is time to start talking about what we need to do to make a difference.
My thesis is simple: Startups just aren’t getting started in Canada nearly as often as they should. This isn’t about education levels, creativity or even for a lack of cash floating around this country. This is about ambition.
Have a read and check out his slide show.
Sorry, but I think Jevon's presentation is a stream of nonsense. "Micro funds" to do $15K rounds? "Not enough early stage funding", "we will take angel money".
The problem is much simpler: The ideas and execution aren't good enough to warrant outside funding. If I were a VC reading this pitch I'd simply say "go and get angel money then".
This seems to be all about getting starry eyed from the TechCrunch myth about VC funding being the right way and the only way. The truth is there are small epicenters of this activity, of which no Canadian cities are close to be being a part. Beyond that most businesses fund their pre-revenue days with credit cards, personal loans, etc. No idealistic rant is going to solve what actually isn't even a problem in need of solving.
There are endless successful Canadian start-ups, it's just that not very many of them are part of the web 2.0 freetard bubble. And the problem with that bubble is, like any bubble, it encourages the perspective that it's about a "great idea" not the actual hard work of building a real business.
Let's also think about the definition of "early stage". For the average person who attends DemoCamp that's considered to be "hey, I just thought of this, like, awesome idea, someone should fund it so I can get rich by selling it to Google in nine months". But the companies in the US getting early stage funding have often been around for 18 months and have actually built something that people want. Ycombinator is a blip and evidence that if you're in the epicenter you can address funding niches.
As long as potential entrepreneurs keep believing that their inability to get started is someone's fault other than their own, then they'll just continue having great ideas that go nowhere.
