Archive for the ‘Toronto Technology Event’ Category
- hohoto
When I have a bit of time later this week, I will blog about our little hohoto project – our $40,000 fundraiser for the Toronto Food Bank. In the meantime I wanted to capture this because it certainly was a great way to start the morning!
- Mo’ money Mo’ fun at hohoTO
If you have not hear about hohoTO then you must be living under a rock!
A group of us have been working very hard in the past week to get Toronto’s Geek Event of the year under way. And I have to say that I am totally blown away by what we have accomplished in a matter of 72 hours: scheduled the party (it is now for Monday December 15, 2008); booked the venue, sold tickets, got sponsors and in total fund raised over $10,000 from our generous sponsors and ticket buyers all to go to the Toronto Daily Food Bank. But I want more. I am a demanding person I know. I want every single one of you out there who has not bought a ticket to buy one immediately. Why? Because our ticket price is going to increase on Tuesday and it will increase by $5 everyday until December 15. So buy your ticket now, or allow me to part you with more of your money on the day of the event because… you know… you will want to attend and tickets at the door will be prohibitive!
All the event details that are fit to blog follow:
Location: The Mod Club
Date and Time: starting at 19:00 on Monday December 15, 2008
There will be incredible geeks to meet, chat to, drink and dance with. There will be awesome food. A great charity to support and an awesome way to end the year. Planning this event has brought back fond memories of my early years fundraising for the Food Bank, the Toronto Humane Society and Aids Action Now: things get done before people care! A great thank you to the entire Toronto technology community who has been incredibly supportive in the planning and fundraising for this event. A great thank you to all the folks who rolled up their sleeves without asking questions and got working, working, working to get things done. We are at the half way mark (the event is in a week) and I still wish we could fund raise double the amount of money we currently fundraised, why you ask? Because these are difficult times for a lot of people, you have seen the scary headline…
Please give generously. Please buy a ticket for yourself or someone whose company you enjoy! Please help us make a difference for The Toronto Food Bank. And if you can’t attend the event, well, please consider buying a ticket anyway, your donation will go straight to the Daily Bread Food Bank.
Only positive thoughts forward.
(Photograph copyright Tim)
- HoHoTo
That’s the Toronto Technology Party we are planning! In Toronto, on Tuesday Monday December 16 15. Of course this is a last minute thing, but we are used to it; we bring you DemoCamp, Mesh and all sorts of Toronto geek gatherings so we are used to putting our heads together and getting things done.We need you to get the word out to everyone in the software/technology space in Toronto as we would love to see everyone before the year end. The number of tickets for the party is limited so getting your ticket is a must – ’cause begging ain’t gonna to get you in the door.
When: Tuesday Monday December 16 15, 2008 starting at 19:00
Where: The ModClub
Who: Geeks! and everyone else.
You are all welcome to join us. All proceeds from the party will go to supporting the Toronto Daily Food Bank. More details to come your way in the very near future but don’t let that stop you from getting your ticket(s) now.
- DemoCamp 18 in Toronto
Photo by Jennifer
It is time for another DemoCamp.
DemoCamp 18 will be held in July. We have all been extremely busy and
it has been a few months since our last DemoCamp (held in February!).
So put on your blue suede shoes and join us. Details below.For those of you who are new to DemoCamp: DemoCamp is one of the must attend events (well besides Founders and Funders)
of the Toronto tech and startup community. Don’t be shy. If you need
introductions or need to figure out who does what, show up early and
introduce yourself to the DemoCamp stewards. We will be happy to
connect you with others with similar interests (we are all geeks! some
of us are even super geeks…).DemoCamp is brought to you by (in alphabetical order by last name!): David Crow,
Jay Goldman, Joey DeVilla, Jay Goldman, Greg Wilson and yours truly.DemoCamp Details:
- When: Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 from 17:30 to 21:00
- Where: Supermarket, 268 Augusta Avenue, Toronto
- Registration can be done here
When you register to attend DemoCamp, you will notice that there are 3 type of registration fees:
- A general ticker: these tickets are free. You will need to register as soon as possible as these sell out very very quickly
- Community supporter tickets: these tickets cost $5 and this fee goes
toward supporting DemoCamp and helps defray any costs associated with
holding DemoCamp
- Community all-star ticket: These tickets cost $10 and again help us
defray costs associated with holding DemoCamp. If you are an awesome
supporter you would buy one of these tickets!
- Sponsor tickets: These are limited to 5 sponsor and cost $200For DemoCamp 18, we are looking for the best demos and ignite presentations ever…Apply to demo here.
The no Powerpoint (or Keynote) rules apply to DemoCamp, so bring
your application and leave the slides home. See you around folks.
- StartupCamp Toronto
The good folks at StartupNorth are organizing Toronto’s second StartupCamp. It will be an awesome event to attend. So if you have not already registered, get yourselves to the event registration page pronto. This is sure to sell out. The event will be held at the Carlu following the first StartupCamp format.
The format is simple: 5 startups will be selected to present their respective pitches. Each startup gets 5 minutes. So polish that pitch before you show up! Once each presentation is completed, the audience gets involved in a Q&A and grills the presenting startups. I am sure it is nothing compared to what you would have to put up with if you were preparing to raise a fund so come prepared and have fun.
Event Details:
What: StartupCamp Toronto
When: Tuesday April 29th, 2008
Time: 6PM – 9PM
Location: The Carlu, 444 Yonge Street, 7th Floor, TorontoRegister here.
- TTN links
We had a great TTN session on Tuesday, beers at C’est What afterwards were much deserved. It was wonderful to see everybody and of course to re-start our sessions. As promised here are a series of links, posts and interesting tid bits relating to some of our discussions. See you at the next session. I will post the next session details shortly.Compensation for your board
Brad Feld (Mobius Venture Capital) has a great post about board compensations and since he comes at this question from an entrepreneur’s perspective (in an early stage company), a board member and an investor / VC in companies that had board members at early stages he provides a balanced perspective.His key points:
- 0.25% to 1.00% vesting annually over four years
- Single trigger acceleration on change of control
- Clear understanding as to how the vesting will work if the board member leaves the board
- No direct cash compensation
- Reimbursements for reasonable expenses
- Opportunity to invest in the most recent financing
Web 2.0 Economics
One of the questions post TTN was around Web 2.0 economics and exit strategies involving a GEMAYANI acquisition: again Brad Feld nails it in his post: "Raise $2 to $6 million to be spent over a two to three year period, with an exit of a $20 to $50 million sale to one of the GEMAYANI’s"Venture Capital
An Entrepreneur on Series A Financings: Niel Robertson – CTO of Newmerix writes about his experience with early stage venture financing. A good read.Building the Team!
In this post, Bernard Moon writes about building a team from an entrepreneur’s perspective. Trust is essential. As far as I am concerned trust is the cornerstone on which your team is built. If you don’t have trust, you don’t have a team and once trust is broken your team is done for. Bernard Moon adds a few items to the trust mix:- Find out what motivates people
- Check egos at the door.
- Keep the communications channels open.
- Recruit the best talent available
- Test drive your team future team member
10 Rules For Web Startups
Evan Williams of Odeo has a great ten rules list for web startups. Give it a good read.And let me finish with Entrepreneurial Proverbs from Marc Hedlund. Read his post, read the comments too. This is a sweet, sweet, sweet post! Marc Hedlund is an entrepreneur-in-residence at O’Reilly Media; he actually just left the entrepreneur-in-residence program to start working on his venture full time.
Some of my favourite proverbs include:
- Momentum builds on itself — just start.
- If you keep your secrets from the market, the market will keep its secrets from you
- Work only with people you like and believe in
- Great things are made by people who share a passion, not by those who have been talked into one
And perhaps if you need a bit of structure to get you going, Getting Things Done is here to help. The basic principles and guidelines can easily be read here. I found that you don’t have to agree with all the approaches and recommendations. Pick what works for you and start improving how you work. Pen and paper work too.
Keep on trucking!
- TTN is back!
TTN
TTN is back indeed. For those of you who are not familiar with TTN, find out about it here:
Ah, the revival of TTN. First things first: sorry about the very long silence. I have been insanely busy and traveling with really little time in Toronto to organize a get together. But here I am now.
I received a lot of feedback from you all and here is what TTN will be:
- a founders (only) forum for technology firms in all stages.
This forum will be dedicated to helping founders grow their firms. We will invite speakers, dissect our challenges, and you (as a founder) can benefit from the knowledge and expertise of other founders who
are willing to share what they have learned over the years.So, if you are a technology/software founder, you are welcome to join TTN. I can already hear the screaming: what? a founders only forum? oh by gosh what do I do if I am not one but enjoy the company of founders? what gives? can you not be all inclusive? well, no. You can always join us for beers after the session. But founders only. We are mean peeps!
I know I won’t hear the end of it: how can you do that, this is the decade of the unconference, everyone should be welcome, it is the camp world, it is the [.....] fill in the blank. Well, TTN worked for us in the past. We like a small group of tech founders to discuss specific challenges and learn from each others. The size limit is 10 for this session. We will open it to more people in the next session. If you are interested in participating email me at lboujnane at ideeinc dot com. See you next week.
TTN Session Details:
When: Tuesday March 7, 2006
Time: 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: the Idée office at 223 Queen Street East
Agenda: Setting up a board of advisors, tips and tricks and how to work with your boardAfter the session we can all adjourn for a couple of drinks at c’est what on Front street.
TTN will also a bi-monthly gathering rather than a weekly one.
- Tuesday Technology Night
Great TTN session yesterday with Estelle. We each came away with ideas/approaches we can start using in our respective firms. It was good to revisit strategic business development approaches and discuss our experiences. I am curious to see what each of you took away from the meeting and how it will impact your firm/work in the next 90 days. So here is to all the TTNers out there: let’s apply what we learned yesterday and set up a session 90 days from today to discuss our adventures. In Estelle’s Plethora of P’s one of the Ps struck a cord with me: Planning. Prioritizing comes as a close second. We are growing, and planning is critical. I will let you know how things progress at our end!
- Next Session
Our next TTN is scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday). Here are the details:
Date: Tuesday September 13
Where: Idee offices
When: 7 PM to 9 PM
Presentation: Estelle Havva will tak to us about the Plethoras of P’s for business development.In Estelle’s own words: Today the 4 Ps of marketing is taught to all business students, the next generation of business students will learn about the Plethora of P’s of business development.
Estelle aids technology start-up companies with their strategic development and growth by correctly positioning and directly connecting them with investors, strategic partners, customers, Wall Street analysts, and acquirers.Estelle was Vice-President & Partner of TechnoCap, a $ 250 Million Venture Capital fund. She assisted TechnoCap’s investee companies with co-investors, customers, strategic partners, Wall St analysts, business intelligence and exit strategies.
Looking forward to the session tomorrow!
- Sales People
At the TTN this evening we discussed sales and business development as well as what makes a great sales person. This little article which landed in my inbox last week is a good quick read. I have no idea how this landed in my inbox but it was timely! I am sure that there are tons of articles out there to help technology start ups understanding how to build a sales force and what to look for but I am taking the path of least resistance and posting what came my way…
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