DFAIT California Market Access Program Boot Camp in Calgary

The first ever DFAIT sponsored California MAP boot camp was held in Calgary last Friday. Although delivered in Central Canada previously, this is the first time it's been brought out the western frontier. Besides Calgary, Thierry Weissenburger and his team took this road show to Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Victoria and Vancouver with the folks from Miller Thomson, who sponsored it in part, promoting their MTech program.

Based around funding preparation and presentation, Chris Gill, the president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs (SVASE), took the crowd of about 70 people thru the paces of what to expect from U.S. based venture capital firms.  This was very informative, as Chris pulled no punches about not only how difficult it was, but all the do's and dont's as well as whether or not your business might be venture fundable. As we all know, VCs want high returns from hign inputs, and a very small number of firms even in the Valley qualify.

It was evident that Chris knew his stuff. As he should as SVASE has helped raise $78 million in 2008 for it's members by holding events 10-12 times a month! Membership for those outside the Valley is $25 while valley members pay more ($99) presumably because they get to go to the events.

After the overview, handouts (Do you REALLY need venture capital, Questins to ask VCs, Is my business Fundable) and pitch coaching from Chris, all the participants had the opportunity to pitch a panel (Dragons Den style), and get feedback. In addition to the constructive feedback, the various pitch styles were very interesting to see and get reaction to.

It's also good to see the Miller Thomson folks of Greg Shannon and Coby Schneider still promoting their MTech startup program. This is something usually seen in the Valley, and it's good to see the MT people stepping up to help Canadian companies get some of the legal help without breaking the bank. Of course they're hoping some of you will become the next RIM, and thus will pay back this early stage assistance with more legal work later.

Thanks to Emily McLaughlin and her team for making it happen in Calgary! Alberta can use all the help it can get to diversify and new events like this help move that objective along. Just like an entrepreneur's business, it all has to start somewhere and this is a good step forward.

What is MTech and Why is it in Alberta?

I got a late invitation to attend the launch of MTech in Alberta, put on by the IP lawyers at Miller Thomson, last Friday. It was well done, due to their clever positioning. By getting Randy Thompson (Venture Alberta, Argon Venture Partners) as the keynote speaker, it attracted the startups that MT want to present their services to. His talk was titled 'Raising Venture Capital', which is like saying free pizza at the University of Calgary to startups, so it goes without saying that it had a good turnout.

In addition, there was a panel discussion on The Future of Commercialization in Alberta, with Ken Cudmore (Technology Strategies Group), Paul Cataford (UTI), Greg Shannon (Miller Thomson partner) and Mark Kornak (angel investor), which brought out various investor groups, AVAC and government representatives. I'd say the Miller Thomson people can't be faulted for their marketing.

In fact, these lines in their invite caught me:

  • Do you have compete confidence in your product and service offerings but less certainty about the business structure protecting your valuable intellectual property?
  • Is cost always a consideration?

Great marketing for a law firm in my opinion.

Of course, for providing a great lunch and the venue, MT got to their pitch for their MTech programme and IP protection practice, which besides being fair ball, was a good primer and certainly worth learning for any new (and existing startup).

It was good content, and far too much to get covered in a blog post. I'll try to summarize:

  • MTech is an initiative to get qualified startups into a programme to get comprehensive legal advice, and in return build loyalty for helping the startup in its infancy
  • MTech has various 'kits' for various legal needs, from initial IP strategy to human resources agreements
  • The startup will hopefully 'graduate' some day by growing and be a regular client for MT, or be phased out if they don;t grow within a reasonable time
  • IP strategy is exactly that; strategy, with a plan, timing, and end objective - it's not just to 'file'
  • IP can be used strategically to ward off competitors at the 'right' time, rather than too early or too late.

Randy's presentation on Money and Venture is likely a post in itself. Suffice to say, it would be familar to startups that are, or in the process of raising money. You can find info like this at www.venturehacks.com but of course, Randy's had a great spin such as:

  • The (VC) flyover zone - Alberta, Sask, Manitoba
  • You want to be selling the equivalent of morphine to drug addicts that need a quick fix to get VC interest
  • Do you want to be Rich or King? Both answers are right but they don't go together!
  • 'The worst (VC) meetings are scheduled for an hour but are done in five minutes'.

The panel was interesting with some good question and answer regarding the Alberta government's stance to technology investment and diversification. The questions were direct, and the answers maybe not as much. There were no government representatives on the panel.

Kudos to the MTech team for being so un-boring, and to launching what appears to be a startup-friendly legal programme. I know this programme is also available in Ottawa where it started, but check with MT yourself by clicking here if you're interested.

Canadian Venture Capital Update from CFF

I attended the Canadian Financing Forum in Vancouver last week, to get a feel for the venture capital industry in Canada, and especially given the current environment. Although I had some pre-conceived notions of what might be going on, I wanted to see for myself and share my observations from their panels, and from talking individually with a few.

First of all, the opinions vary. Some VCs are downright pessimistic, regardless of what side of the border they're from. The ones that are fully invested moreso, because they have companies that they have to perform triage on, to preserve capital to keep the better ones going. VCs with new funds (or at least money to invest) had a different point of view, in that it would be a good time to invest, especially in good early stage ones, because in the two years to get them going, things will have gotten better by then.

In fact for some, investing now with a team that has 'conviction' and good business sense seemed to be a strategic advantage, as many feel that VCs have over invested previously, breeding too many competitors. The slowdown to them was seen as a barrier to entry, and a good thing for their investments and would-be investments.

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Cleaning Up at TechRev's Second Event

I attended Calgary-based TechRev's second event this year. This one featured a couple of successful CleanTech companies, as well as ENMAX, which is one of Alberta's electrical utilities. It was an eye-opener for me, as I can't say that I know much about this sector. In the short 20 minutes of presentations by Michael Carten from Sustainable Energy Technologies, Clayton Bear of New Energy Corporation and Doug Sullivan of ENMAX, I heard the heroes (and like most heroes, unsung) of CleanTech describe their companies's products, and moreso their passion to make the environment better and to supply solutions to countries and organizations where there would be no solution otherwise.

They're heroes not only in developing clean technology but in an entrepreneurial sense. Hearing their story of what it takes to get it done in the face of economic, technology and financial changes make 'normal' tech startups seem relatively easy. Michael and Clayton have some common qualities I think. They were both humble, hard working engineers who have had to endure a great deal, for a long time to get their products to a point where they are available when the world needs it. So while the rest of the world is going green, these guys were ahead of the curve, and against the headwinds at the time, made it possible for the world to 'go green'.

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Dreamforce 2008 - Worldwide Salesforce.com Users Conference and Expo

I attended the recent Salesforce.com Users conference last week which is now aptly called Dreamforce. Aptly because the overwhelming theme this year, was the ‘Cloud’ and I suppose most dreaming takes place in the clouds.

It’s a gathering that attracts almost 10,000 which is held in San Francisco. This is my second trip there, but the first as an attendee, and in particular for their Partner Summit. The perspective as an attendee is certainly a different one for me, running from one session to another, makes exhibiting actually seem like a breeze.

Salesforce.com marketers rank among some of the best in B2B marketing, and the best practices sessions were very good. These marketers know how to run campaigns, and measure everything. Email marketing is assumed, and marketing automation like ActiveConversion is quickly being adopted. Aggressive doesn’t even describe the kind of energy that the marketers here exude. You wouldn’t want to be marketing against these guys, unless you’re a Salesforce.com marketer as well.

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STIRRing the Canadian Tech Scene with Boris Wertz!

I was at the October 15, STIRR Canada Tech Mixer in Calgary to hear Boris Wertz speak. Boris is the current CEO at Nexopia (Edmonton), a part owner in TechVibes (Vancouver), runs an investment company (Vancouver) and is a former director at Abebooks (Victoria), which was sold to Amazon recently for a lot of dough recently. He is truly a 'western canadian' tech entrepreneur.

I was very impressed with his concise words of wisdom as to how to succeed as a tech startup in Western Canada. he delivered his advice like someone who didn’t make it because he ‘got lucky’. I was doubly impressed because of his modesty and smarts. Here are some of the things I noted:

Have a deep, deep niche. The search engine business is broader and more lucrative, but attracts unwanted attention from large players. Although this is obvious, many entrepreneurs don’t remember this, or get enticed by the ‘larger market’ and lose focus.

Boris stated that the another success factor he looks for is the ability to focus on the really important things. Entrepreneurs face a myriad of things to do/research/decide and the ability to see thru the noise is an important trait.

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Deloitte Announces 2008 Fast 50 Winners in Prairies

I attended the recent awards reception for the 2008 Tech Company Fast 50 and Tech Green 15 in Calgary. My company, ActiveConversion, was a nominee in the Company-to-Watch category, which scored me an invite to this event, which was attended by approximately 60 people. Deloitee's Jim Barker and Keith Mclean hosted this event for us at Teatro.

I'm happy to report, that 4 companies made this list for the Fast 50 and 4 companies made the list for the Green 15 in the prairies. The Fast 50 awards are based on highest percentage revenue growth over 5 years, whereas the Green 15 'recognizes Canada's leading GreenTech companies'.

The 4 Fast 50 companies located in Alberta and Saskatchewan are (growth in brackets):

These companies represent some of the best that Canada has to offer in high growth commercialized technology. Companies such as Research in Motion (Blackberry) started on this list, along with many well known Canadian tech success stories.

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