Cool Blog Links

A few links to some interesting blogs:

Futuristic Play: Andrew Chen, EIR at MDV, has gathered some great insights and analysis on viral marketing, user experience, game design, and online ads. Check out his top 50 list of essays on viral marketing, game design and online ads.

Startup Metrics for Pirates: Dave McClure walks us through the only 5 things that matter to a web startup: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue . . AARRR!!

Indexed: Jessica Hagy makes sense of the world with venn diagrams and simple graphs. Simply Brilliant.

Digital Roam: Dan Roam explains how to solve the world's problems on the back of a napkin. Here's the case for Obama.

Brain Rules: John Medina's 12 rules for optimizing brain functions. He also discusses how the brain ignores boring things - it processes meaning before it processes details.  You communicate meaning with emotionally competent stimuli. The brain pays attention to three things: Threats: Will it eat me, can I eat it? 2) Pleasure: Can I mate with it, will it mate with me? 3) Familiarity: have I seen it before? Take care of these 3 things, and you will capture the attention of your audience.

STIRR: Kickin' Butt at Banff Venture Forum

Why am I posing with the winners of best presentation awards at the Banff Venture Forum? Because STIRR PitchLab helped guide two of the companies towards the prize.

Two weeks ago, Manford Kwan, CEO of ASAT Solutions, and Dr. Mary Earle, CEO of TheraCarb participated in a 4-hour session where we concentrated on fixing the first two minutes of their pitch. That's how long you have to capture a potential investor's attention before they start checking their 'berry.

Both of these companies have been operating for over 5 years, and there wasn't anything I was going change in their business models the week before they hit the stage in Banff. So the challenge was to make the pitches interesting enough to attract conversations and get a few more meetings afterwards.

Even though there are 10 pitch tips we review in PitchLab, I've decided to highlight just a few of the more important ones in this post:

• Start Strong & Stay Strong: Don't welcome the crowd, ask them how they're doing, make small talk, or worse yet, come out with a "don't you hate it when . . ." statement. Nobody's going to answer, and you'll feel like a schmuck. Just tell them who you are, and in two or three sentences, give them a reason to believe that you're credible.


• Hearts, Minds, Wallets: Always make an emotional connection before diving into the logic, and always share the logic before asking for money. How do you like being asked for money from people you don't like for things you don't understand?


• Be Attractive: Be confident, but don't brag. Seek guidance, but don't appear desperate. Be passionate, but not emotional. It's a fine line, but you'll be surprised how investors are attracted to one set of qualities and completely repelled by the other.

I didn't realize how powerful these rules would be. When Manford and Mary made their presentations last Thursday, they hit the stage with confidence. And when they got off the stage, they were smiling from ear to ear. In my mind and theirs, they had already won - they were already stirring up more conversations in the hallways, speaking with more passion and enthusiasm than ever. And that's the power of having a good pitch - it follows you right off the stage and into elevators and boardrooms.

At the end of the conference, attendees had voted TheraCarb as best presenter in the Life Sciences stream, ASAT Solutions as the best in the Energy stream, and Akoha as the best in the IT stream.

In the picture: from left to right:
- Austin Hill, Akoha's CEO, simply one of the world's best pitch men.
- Manford Kwan, CEO, ASAT Solutions
- me, the proud pitch coach
- Dr. Mary Earle, CEO, TheraCarb

Sir Terence Matthews: It's not the richest or fittest that will survive.

Legendary billionaire businessman Sir Terence Matthews was at the Banff Venture Forum Friday night, and spoke about enterprise creation in the flat earth economy. First, he broke down the costs: really good engineers in India: $7k/year. In China: $6k/year. In Canada: $70k/year. Telecommunications links: 155 megabit cross-ocean link: used to be $2 million/month. Now: $10k/month. Office space in London: 200 GBP/square foot. Puna, India: $5/square foot. Get the picture?

Sir Terry's message was simple. You can't ignore the fact that we exist in a world economy these days. "It's not the richest or fittest that survive, it's those that adapt. You have to adapt to the competition from China and India". He continues to start new companies at a scorching pace every year, and he starts them right here in Canada. His formula:

1. Use a Mothership. For Terry, it's Mitel. Work with the motherships and develop solutions / painkillers they can sell. Working with a mothership gets you credibility and revenues.


2. Hire Smart University Grads. Terry interviews the top 20 grads from Waterloo every year, and hires 4 - 5 of them. Canadian university graduates are amongst the best in the world, but you have to structure the deal a little differently to make it work. The offer: $25k/year, along with another $50k in equity. Government can't tax it, and there's no spending cash for social activities.


3. Communicate & Motivate. Terry insists on quarterly reports from his managers, and these reports are sent to every employee. In addition, all his companies hold quarterly all-employee meetings, so that employees understand the past achievements and future direction of the company. Employees deserve to be treated like owners. Give your employees confidence that management knows what it is doing, and they will work harder than ever.


4. Passion: Motivated people can do anything.


5. Have fun: work isn't just about making money, it's also about excitement, winning, and working with people you like. (amen!)

The result? Every one of his companies ship products and have revenues within the first year. Simply amazing, by any standard.

Overall, it was a very lively speech which stressed the importance of a smart, motivated team.

Later in the night, I bumped into Sir Terence in the hallways of the Banff Springs, and thanked him for his presentation. True to form, he responded energetically, requested that we exchange business cards, and encouraged me to move quickly on my next venture. Now I know why people work for him for $25k/year! I know I would if he sent an offer ever came my way . . .

DemoCamp Calgary 10

Gord McDowell from Cambrian House set up a bazillion cameras at DemoCamp 10, and put together this great video summarizing the event. DemoCamp Calgary 11 will be October 23, and we're actively looking for a location with a better wifi/av setup. We'll be announcing the location soon at the BarCampCalgary site soon. If you can suggest any locations for a DemoCamp, please let me know.

"You Can't Let Them Self-Medicate"

Bill Bryant of DFJ & Steve Hnatiuk of Yaletown had a little chat on the state of venture capital in today's environment. Bill came up with the line of conference - read on . . . 

Steve: Is this a good time to start a company? 

Bill: Entrepreneurs don't start companies based on timelines. They start companies because they have ideas and passion around ideas. However, they need to be more patient with the exit, and they need to do more with less money. They'll likely have to build entire companies, from soup to nuts for $12 million. 

Steve: Cleantech is all the rage. Where does that leave software & IT in the eyes of VCs? 

Bill: In the enterprise market, a global market has many global 2000 companies downsizing the number of vendors it is willing to work with. I know of one company that has gone from 950 vendors to 4. This makes it tough for startup enterprise plays. In addition, valuations for consumer software plays based on advertising revenues will be tough.

Steve: How do you manage a near-death experience at a venture? 

Bill: Just like patients that have just had a stroke, you can't let them self-medicate. You need to step in as an investor and help lead the way.

Steve: Do you see huge opportunities in the market turmoil?

Bill: Sure, but the problem is, exits are tougher in this environment. 6 - 8 companies have gone public in 2008 vs. 80 - 90 last year. In the near term, things are going to be tough.

BIll: Investors should take a DNH (Do No Harm) approach. Try to add value, but don't get in the way. 

Posted by email from Patrick's posterous

Banff Venture Forum: Day 1

Presenters from the IT Stream:

Sarath Samaraseka: CEO, www.shopster.com

Ronald Stephens: CEO, www.mingleverse.com

James Hildebrandt, CEO, www.psykoaudio.com

Ben Yoskovitz: CEO, www.standoutjobs.com

Austin Hill: CEO, www.akoha.com

Lunch Keynote: Mike Ritter, Technical Solutions Engineer, PSO Mobile, Google, talks about iPhone vs. Android. Says that 80% of Google staffers carry iPhones. 80% of management carries Blackberries. The remaining 20% of both carry both. Interesting note: iPhone delivers 10 - 50x more advertising revenues. 

Mike talks about his past failures. Lists all the companies he has worked at that have gone bankrupt. One of them is in the process of going bankrupt. Then, he takes a shot a Sun: "Don't know why it's not bankrupt". 

Mike's Top 10 reasons for why startups fail.

Mike's Top 10 reasons for startups succeed.

Mike's Top 10 Inflection Points:

10: Universal Translators

9. Search engines understand what you want to know

8. Augmented Memory (PDAs, etc)

7. Machines learn how to learn.

6. Nano-machines assemble themselves

5. Computing and communications essentially free. (cheap now, will be free in the future. Value will be in the content communicated)

4. People live their whole lives off of the earth (the moon! Google SpaceX)

3. We understand the programming language of DNA

2. We understand how the rest of the body works.

1. We understand how the programming of the brain works. 

Top 10 areas ripe for startups:

10. Cloud & Mobile Computing

9. Harnessing the power of the crowd.

8. Personalized Mobile Services

7. Voice recognition & understanding in real-time.

6. Improving energy efficiency

5. Robots (Both Large and Small)

4. Renewable Energy

3. On-demand manufacturing

2. Machine learning

1. Immortality (health & life sciences)

Thoughts on cloud computing.

Top 10 problems Mike needs solved.

Afternoon session:

Bruce Johnson: CEO, www.Semantifind.com

James Sherret: CEO, www.Adhack.com

Jon Lam: CEO, www.Ph03nixNewMedia.com

Pierre La Lann: CEO, Tribalnova.com

Venture Financing Without Borders: Cross-Border investing - Neal Hill, Great Northern Capital; Bill Bryant, DFJ; Steve Hnatiuk, Yaletown Venture Partners; Charles Lax, GrandBanks Capital.

The question to the panel: will you invest in a company that is not within a 45 minute drive or a 2 hour direct flight?

Charles Lax, GrandBanks Capital: Yes, but only if the deal is syndicated to a local firm. Coaching is essential. If they are the lone investors, the venture has to be in Boston. 

Steve Hnatiuk, Yaletown Venture Partners: Proximity is more essential in the seed round, when companies need a lot of coaching. There is more confidence in the strategic direction of firms by the time they raise their series A, so going outside their region is a bit easier at a later stage. 

Bill Bryant, DFJ: international firm: 2 day rule, instead of 2 hour rule. DFJ has investments in 20 companies, and need to take advantage of the opportunities outside of the US.

Other interesting comments: Get ready for a long relationship: average time to exit from Series A: 8.3 years. Don't value your early rounds too high: 70% of all deals exited at under $150M - unlying the reason why VCs look for valuations around $10M - 15M, looking for 10x returns. 

I received a starter deck from Akoha's Austin Hill. Pictured is Christina Paganelli, with the first Akoha game card mission that I completed: donate 1 hour of time. I've spent some time advising Christina's company, Sunflower Organics. Now Christina gets to continue passing on the Karma. 

Posted by email from Patrick's posterous

October 15th STIRR event: Nexopia CEO Boris Wertz

The STIRR crew has been hard at work putting together our next big event - it's happening October 15th, and details are at http://www.stirr.ca 

Above: from L to R, our newest STIRR organizing committee member, Kim McDonald, Sharon McIntyre, and Claudia Moore. Not pictured are Shekhar Parmar and Courtney Sproule. 

Posted by email from Patrick's posterous

Scud Stud Wins Another Case Against Big Media

Calgarian Arthur Kent has won yet another battle against big media, this time settling the suit that he launched against Universal Studios earlier this year for unauthorized use of his voice and images in the movie Charlie Wilson's War. Earlier in his career as a journalist, he sued and later settled with NBC over the network's refusal to air his stories about the worsening situation in Afghanistan in the early 1990's. He went on to chronicle the experience in a book titled Risk and Redemption.

Kent, who earned his nickname by reporting from the 1991 Gulf War conflict with Scud Missiles firing in the background, tried his hand at politics earlier this year. His campaign ran into trouble, however, when Premier Ed Stelmach canceled an appearance at a campaign breakfast for Kent. That set off a firestorm of criticism, with Kent firing off most of the shots. The Calgary-Currie riding, which has acted as Alberta's protest vote against the provincial government's rural-partisan agenda, was going to be a tough race for the PCs regardless. In the end, Kent might have been more successful had he run against Stelmach.

But no matter - I have a feeling this isn't the last we've seen of Arthur Kent. It's also no surprise that Kent works best without a boss. He continues to report through his site, SkyReporter, and we find him from time to time hanging out at local barcamps. Stay tuned for more.

ZigTag is now Semantifind

Check out Randy Thompson and Bruce Johnson on the Demo stage showing Semantifind, the latest iteration of ZigTag (which we saw previously at DemoCampCalgary as a tagging/social bookmarking utility). The latest offering is built on top of Google Search, which takes care of all the "so how are you going to compete against Google"-type questions.

Many of you will know Randy Thompson from his work at VentureAlberta, and all of the other work he does with tech startups. Bruce Johnson is another well-known entrepreneur in Alberta, the founder of WinTax and the former CEO of Intuit Canada.

Video From the Nikon D90

The new Nikon D90 has just been released in the U.S., but we're still waiting our turn up in Canada. I snapped a few thousand pics on a recent family vacation, and was going through camera withdrawal after someone broke into our car and stole my D80. The D90 has a few more megapixels, and a huge screen, but the two breakthrough features are liveview (so you can use the screen as your viewfinder, like a point and shoot camera), and video.

Rather than wait, I decided that I needed one right away. It just so happened that I also needed to meet a few companies in the valley earlier this week, so now, I'm the proud owner of a Nikon D90 (one of just a lucky few in Canada, for another week or so).

The camera feels and functions pretty much the same way as the D80. It shoots amazing videos, but probably won't be replacing your camcorder anytime soon. You see, while you can shoot video with any of your favorite lenses, autofocus is disabled during the capture process. It's great for point-at-one-spot-and-shoot videos, but if you pan the camera and require re-focusing, you'll be doing it manually. Also, it has maximum file limit of 2GB, which means you can only capture 5 minutes at full HD resolution (but obviously more at lower resolutions).

Here's a video shot from the D90, on the plane taking off from SFO.

Click here to download:

DSC_0007-2.mov (46639 KB)

Posted by email from Patrick's posterous

By the way, I created this post from my email program, with the help of Posterous. I attached the 46Mb file, wrote the headline in the subject field, and typed the entry into the body. Then, I sent the the email to post@posterous.com, and Posterous took over from there. Check out the original posterous page, where the video was embedded inline, automatically. I may never use the Typepad UI again.

For those of you who can't sent 46Mb files through email, check out Loa PowerTools - a great little email utility that solves almost all the problems you encounter when sending emails. I've been using it for the last few months, and have yet to encounter a network where I could not send email.

Pitches That Didn't Suck

Last week, I attended YC Demo Days, and saw twenty great pitches. I had to laugh, however, when Paul Graham started off the day by asking us not to judge the presenters too harshly, because they were "just engineers that had been coached on how to present over the last two weeks". I've attended many a venture forum, and normally, I have to reach for copious amounts of caffeine - so hats off to the YC team for crew for a great day.

I don't really need to offer my opinions specifically on each of the presenting companies (you can read more about them at TechCrunch and Guy Kawasaki's blog - ignore the goofy pic of me). However, I'll offer my comments as to why these "kids" blew most veteran presenters out of the water:

• Short and tight presentations - Seven minutes each, to be exact. Most companies focused on showing off their killer features, as opposed to diving deep and explaining the technology. 


• Minimal use of PowerPoint slides and more use of live demos. You could see the crowd nodding, and hear them oohing and aahing when great features were shown. 


• Scripted, but no cheating - all of the companies scripted their demos - they had a person driving the computer, and others that presented. And even though some of them were a little nervous, none of them resorted to reading from cheat sheets.


• Passion, enthusiasm, credibility, and humility - it's kind of obvious that these would be endearing traits for presenters, but you wouldn't believe how often they come across as the exact opposite. If YC invests in these companies primarily because of the founders, I think Paul, Jessica and the rest of the YC team made great choices.


• Beta test information and early reviews - investors love the hear what companies are doing to confirm market acceptance. Bonus points - some companies even presented comparative metrics from the market leaders. 


• The right amount of aggressiveness - Paul had instructed his recruits to be aggressive and strike up conversations. Most people had no problem introducing themselves to Guy Kawasaki and some of the other star VCs in the room, but I was pleasantly surprised when they engaged me in conversation. I was in stealth mode (translation: I haven't done anything significant enough to be recognizable in the valley), so it would have been easy for them to ignore me. 

Congratulations to this very talented group of YC grads for making this far, and best of luck on the road ahead!

Your Pitch Sucks.

Drawing some inspiration from the You Suck at Photoshop series as well as the 3 pitches that I saw yesterday, I've decided that most presenters need some tough love. Here's why potential investors and advisors think you suck:

1. You start weak. You haven't rehearsed your opening line. Instead, you're nervous, try to be witty, and make a remark about the weather. Then, you make some impromptu introduction about yourself that is boring as hell. I'm already rolling my eyes and reaching for my Blackberry.


2. You ask a stupid question. Your audience is there to judge you, not to interact with you. So when you ask "do you ever have [problem x]?", you'll get a room of blank stares and head shaking.


3. You spent 5 minutes explaining why your team of unknown managers and coders from unimpressive organization is "world class".


4. Your PowerPoint was designed by a coder. 'nuff said.


5. You read every slide, word for word. And on top of that, you stuttered.


6. You don't know jack. You present the revenue projections and the valuations, but none of the numbers add up and you fumble the explanation. On top of that, your company is pre-revenue and you're looking for a huge valuation.


7. You sucked the life out of the room. Your nerves and the lack of rehearsals are catching up to you. When you tell us that you have the skills to sell hundreds of millions of dollars of products in a competitive market to Fortune 50 companies, we simply cannot believe you.


8. You think I suck because I don't love your business. Reality is, investors look at hundreds of businesses before they invest in one. Lose the attitude and up your game.

The solution is simple, really. You need the audience to fall in love with you in the first 30 seconds, so come out of the gates strong. Then, keep their interest for the next 9.5 minutes. If you're a person that's not comfortable in front of crowds, you need to practice 10x more than the other guy. Get a video camera and record yourself. Go to Demo.com and check out the best pitches, as well as the worst ones, and learn from both. Draw inspiration from Steve Jobs and Guy Kawasaki. Test the pitch in front of your friends and family instead of a group of people that might give you big money.

Just in case you think I'm the only that thinks your pitch sucks, I'm not - I've checked with the other guys in the room. So what are you waiting for? Fix your pitch!

Tripit.com: The Killer App For Travellers

I started planning a month-long family vacation this week, and like everything else I do these days, I started my research by looking at review sites on the net. In my opinion, Tripadvisor.com is still the best for reviews on just about anything travel related. I also like WestJet, Hertz and Expedia. But where's the glue that puts all of this stuff together? Up until now, I've resorted to entering the details of travel bookings into my calendar manually.

Tripit.com will change your life even if you travel just a bit. Here's how it works:

1. You email your confirmation emails from travel sites such as Expedia, Hertz and WestJet to plans@tripit.com. (it reads everything from flight confirmations to restaurant reservations)


2. Login to tripit.com, and make sure that the details were entered correctly.

It's just that simple. Tripit creates an itinerary, starting from the date of your outbound flight and ending on the date of your inbound flight. In-between, it adds your hotel reservations. (no more manual entries!!) Then, it automatically adds a Google Map detailing how to get from the airport to the hotel. You can also add other events, meetings and links manually.

Then, it feeds the information back to you in a slick web 2.0 interface, but more importantly, it publishes an iCal feed that you can plug back into your calendar. It also has a very cool mobile feature, where you can email commands such as "get schedule" or "get flight" and it will email the details back to you - no more digging for buried confirmation emails!

I love how much work the Tripit team has done to keep things simple. For instance, there's no sign-up page on website. You simply sign up by emailing a confirmation to Tripit.

There's a few things that I would like to see added to the feature set, but they're relatively small nits. The application is currently free to all users, and that's great for consumers - sometimes, you do get more than what you pay for. Tripit raised $5.1 million in April, and it will be interesting to see how they develop their revenue model. I, for one, hope they've already figured it out and stick around for a long, long time.

BarCamp Calgary 2: June 14 @ MRC

Mount Royal College will be hosting Calgary's 2nd BarCamp on Saturday, June 14th, from 10:30 to 3:30 - details here. This time, we're focusing on bringing the community together for some beer, lunch and snacks in a casual environment. We'll have breakout rooms, plenty of couches, and will even have Rock Band set up! (You better bring your A-game, I hear Sarah's been practicing hard).

As for the attendees, we're extended invitations to the various groups around town, and asked them to bring some people out - gaming and UX in particular, but all are invited. It's our hope that Calgary's most interesting entrepreneurs and technology experts will use BarCamp as the ultimate place to mingle.

We're also inviting some pretty interesting experts out, and think that they will make some pretty interesting presentations. But no matter - isn't the lobby the coolest place to hang out anyways?

Shopping for a PC at Best Buy or Future Shop: Now Even More Painful Than Using Windows.

I recently started working on a project which requires some doodling, so after much consternation, I decided to buy a Tablet PC. While my Mac would continue to serve as my primary machine, I needed a cheap and cheerful digital sketchbook.

I decided to drop into the local Best Buy, and asked to try out their only Tablet PC, the HP TX2000 series laptop. Pretty good machine for the price - around $1,000 - all I needed to know was whether the digitizer was pressure sensitive (press harder with the pen, and get a thicker/darker line). I had done some preliminary research on the web, but there were conflicting reports on this aspect of the machine.

There were a lot of sales reps standing around the computer department, not really doing much of anything, except socializing with each other. I asked one of them if I could get the digitizing pen for the tablet. He rolled his eyes and told me to use my finger. When I insisted, he dug up the pen and stood behind me, watching my every move as I stumbled around the Vista interface, checking to see whether the tablet was indeed pressure sensitive. He was frustrated that I pulled him away from chat time with the other reps, having to make sure I didn't steal the pen. So, when I couldn't figure it out and asked him, he just said "I don't know". I gave him back the pen, and his spirits immediately lifted. He hurriedly put the put back under lock-up. Then, he asked "so you're going to buy one, right?" Yea, right. And just in case you're thinking that this was some pimply-faced 16 year old, it wasn't. He was the "supervisor" of the computer department.

I was actually thinking of just buying it, taking it home, and figuring out it later. After all, these places carry price and satisfaction guarantees, right? However, the experience was so painful, I decided against that.

I left the store empty handed. Over the weekend, I spent a few hours doing some research on the tablet. Finally, after sifting through many pages of disinformation, I found my answer. (it is pressure sensitive, to 256 levels, btw). Now I'm ready to pounce.

Staples carries the HP tx2110ca for $1,004.96, but doesn't carry it at the store closest to my house. I called Future Shop (which was acquired by Best Buy in 2001) to see if they would match the price. After all, these guys have "Get it for less. Guaranteed" as a trademark. They carry an identical machine with a different model number: the HP tx2104ca - for $1,099.99 - a difference of about $95.


I asked nicely if they would match the price, given that it was pretty much the same machine. Maybe they wanted my business, I figured. Not only did they refuse, but they were actually quite rude about it - as if I was trying to pull a scam on them. After my experience at Best Buy, I don't know why I was expecting anything different.

So, back to the Staples website. 2 minutes after I got off the phone with Future Shop, I was the proud owner of a HP tx2110ca, saving myself any further frustrations of having to deal with either Best Buy or Future Shop employees. In the process, I also saved myself $95 plus taxes, and a bunch of gas money, since Staples ships for free.

Just in case you think I'm going off the deep end with consumer advocacy talk, think again. I'm just saying: buyer beware. Future Shop and Best Buy pour hundreds of millions of dollars into marketing and advertising, and recovers it by selling products for profit. To maintain higher margins, they hire marginal staff, and sell overpriced cables and warranties. This is old news.

Best Buy/Future Shop aren't the only companies with questionable practices. Companies like HP help support the deceptive marketing practices of Best Buy/Future Shop, by creating exclusive model numbers for each retailer. You can buy the exact same HP tx2000 series computers at a variety of retailers, however, you will never find Future Shop's tx2104ca at any other retailer. Thus, Future Shop will never have to price match on that unit. They win the argument in the fine print. Unfair? Yes. The only thing you can do about it? Your homework.

To close: a homework assignment. Try to figure out why HP has so many model numbers for such similar computers. link

STIRR Founders & Funders

NOTE: The following is cross-posted from www.stirr.ca, and is courtesy of STIRR Canada team member Sharon McIntyre. I was going to write a post summarizing the event, but Sharon has done a much better job than I ever would have . . .

On Thursday evening, Albertan tech startup founders, funders, and emerging young guns filled the main floor of Calgary's Bonterra Trattoria restaurant at STIRR Canada's kick-off Founders & Funders Dinner event. Five hours later, after some great networking and facilitated dinner table conversations, people were still buzzing.

A young startup founder remarked: "I can't believe the caliber of people I just got to talk with or the amount I learned before dessert came. This has been the most productive tech event I've been to in Calgary."

Participating companies included: Active Conversion, Broadramp, Calgary Scientific, Cambrian House, Cognera, CoolIT, Coril Holdings, Cornerstone Technologies, Datagardens, DirectVoxx, Dynastream, eSchedule, GamesCafe, iNovia Capital, Intervera, Loa Corporation, Mobovivo, Octane Venture Partners, Ph03nix New Media, Preo Software, Psyko Audio Labs ... ...  Renoworks, Shopster, SpatialQ, StockVantage, StumbleUpon, Techvibes, Tynt, and Xtreme Technologies.

Calgary native, and StumbleUpon co-founder, Garrett Camp, talked about the ups and downs of his friends-and-family funded early startup days and how he ultimately moved to Silicon Valley to be closer to his advisors. He also revealed that his first investor was a StumbleUpon user from the Valley who simply contacted him by email.

A common theme revolved around how important "retaining the right people" is to creating success. Discussions included: giving up a substantial amount of equity to attract a co-founder, asking potential employees how much salary vs. stock they wanted to gauge their propensity for risk; and a founder's preference to hire equity-only team members (whether you can self-fund the startup or not).

Here are a few conversation snippets from the evening:

"How are we gonna reach the young guns, the 'Garrett Camps' in their dorm rooms right now?" Answer back: "Reach them at university. Do free beer and pizza events on campus and get them to connect to the people here tonight."

"Geography doesn't matter, it's wherever the best ideas are."

"This kind of event is exactly what we need. A way to connect under-the-radar startups with people who can help them. That's what's been missing."

"Tech isn't only about pure software development. We have to ensure we include tech-driven startup innovation, like some of the companies we see here at our table tonight."

A selection of images from the event:

(below) Garrett Camp is introduced by Pat Lor

Allan MacKenzie, Octane Venture Partners, (below, top right) engages his table

 

(below) Pat Lor, formerly of iStockphoto and STIRR Canada co-founder, welcomes attendees

 

(below, left) Claudia Moore, Material Insight President and STIRR Canada co-founder makes a point

 

(below) Cam Linke of Techvibes (striped shirt) and MJ Sikorsky of Cambrian House (yellow and green t-shirt) dive into a discussion

 

 

 

Drama at DemoCamp!!

We have a saboteur - somebody out to destroy all the good things that DemoCampCalgary is trying to create. When the DemoCamp organizers showed up at Melrose on Tuesday night, the manager told us that someone had called to cancel the event booking. He told us that he didn't have anyone to staff the room we were booked in, and there was a construction crew in there as well. After much consternation, they managed to get us into the second level, which wasn't as ideal as the theatre on the lower level.

It was probably just a simple understanding, but wouldn't life be more exciting if we really did have a mole in the midst? However, rest assured that having lived through that experience once, we don't ever plan on letting it happen again. We'll be calling in to confirm our reservations from here on in!

So, apologies to everyone for a less than optimal experience. Then again, there were lots of smiles and some great discussions in the crowd - could it have anything to do with the beverages?

After a late start, the audience of 50 or so attendees saw 4 company presentations and one special project presentation. First, the companies:

• Mob4Hire: Paul Poutanen presented this crowdsourced platform for testing mobile applications. Participants from every region throughout the world are encouraged to register the model of their phone, their location, and their service provider. Developers of mobile applications can tap into the crowd and seek testing on specific phones in specific locales on specific carriers, or test their applications across the entire Mob4Hire network.




• Aviary: I presented Aviary, an outrageously cool set of online design applications. Think Photoshop, Illustrator and 14 other applications, all of them working within your browser - no downloads required. The system tracks every version that is saved, and allows sharing of source files - allowing the community to collaborate on design projects with ease. Drop me a line if you'd like a beta invite.

• Xtreme Technologies: Chris Becker presented the XLink, a cellular phone gateway that allows you to answer cellphone calls on your home phone. The device connects to your cellphone through bluetooth, and has an output jack that you plug your home phone system into. Calls to your cellphone will ring through to your home system whenever your cell is within bluetooth range of the XLink. It allows you to use all those unlimited evenings and weekends minutes while your cellphone is charging. If you'd like to try it out, go to their online store and type "barcamp" into the coupon code field for 20% off.
   



• Ph03nixNewMedia: Jon Lam presented "Curse of the Pharoah", a casual game which is currently hosted on Big Fish Games. It was an instant success, and Big Fish promptly ordered up two more titles.
   

Matt Beck, a student from the University of Calgary presented Alberta's entry in the Solar Decathlon. Along with students from MRC and SAIT, the team is the first-ever Western Canadian team to gain entry into this international competition. They must compete in 10 separate contests, from designing and building a solar home, to creating enough energy to power an electric vehicle for a day. The competition will be held in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 2009.

DemoCamp - May 13, Founders & Funders May 15

There are two great tech events happening next week - one that's open to all that are interested, and one that is invite only:

DemoCamp Calgary 9 (click here to register) is being held at Melrose Cafe and Bar on Tuesday, May 13th at 6:30. DemoCamp is for the community, by the community - so feel free to grab a friend and join us. Presenters get 10 minutes to demonstrate their wares, but no PowerPoint is allowed!! The audience will see 4 or 5 presentations and will get a few minutes to ask questions after each presentation. Then, we drink beer and discuss how we're going to change the world with our web 2.0 virtual reality / social networking /contextual advertising gaming platforms.

The DemoCamp Calgary community has been absolutely fantastic over the last year. We've had the opportunity to meet a variety of great entrepreneurs, companies, tech wizards and angels. Entrepreneurs have received some amazing advice, and angels have seen some great opportunities. We're looking forward to even greater things as the community moves into its second year.

Then, on Thursday, May 15th, STIRR Canada is holding a Founders and Funders Dinner with special guest Garrett Camp, co-founder of StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon was acquired by ebay for $75 million in 2007, and has recently hit 5 million users.

This is an invite only event, built by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs. After spending the last several years immersed in the community, I found that the biggest complaints about networking events was that they were either too large or had too many people that you wanted to avoid. To make things worse, the guest speaker usually sucked. 

So, the team at STIRR Canada faced those issues head-on: we restricted the invite list to entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists. So, if you're a part of a co-founding team that's developing more products than services, we're interested in hearing from you. If you're an angel or a VC that would love to contribute your smarts to Calgary's next great startup, we're also interested in hearing from you. We're just looking to facilitate the best business conversations ever. (inspiration: The Lobby) To top it all off, we'll bring in the "rock star" entrepreneurs that everyone is dying to meet.

We've limited the attendance to 50 people. Invites have been going out over the last few days, so if you haven't gotten one by Friday, contact us at info@stirr.ca and tell us why you belong on the list. And don't fret if this one isn't in the cards for you - we'll be holding more events throughout the year.

iStockphoto Revenues Hit $71.9 Million in 2007

Congrats to my former partner Bruce Livingstone and the rest of the team at iStockphoto for shooting out the lights. As Bruce mentioned on iStockphoto.com yesterday, the numbers are big across the board, including the amount paid to photographers. The scary thing is, there's still more room to grow. Did I mention we sold iStockphoto to Getty for $50 million 2 years ago? sigh . . .

 
For the first time ever, we're breaking our long-standing silence
on the numbers and giving you a few facts and figures. There is one
number that makes us most proud, and it's not the
$71.9 million in revenue we generated last year (although that is
really, really exciting). The amazing thing is that we paid out $20.9 million to contributors last year. That's one h*ck
of a lot of money, and doesn't include the $110,000 we gave out on
Punctum Day. We are now selling an image every 1.4 seconds through this
industry changing marketplace. It even gives us pause every time we
look at these stats.

 
That our revenue and payouts have eclipsed those of many
traditional stock photography companies confirms that microstock is a
viable and profitable business model for contributors and clients. We
wanted to share the sheer scale of how viable and profitable we've all
become together. The supercharged growth we had in 2007 was
orchestrated by an astounding management team that helped make
iStockphoto the envy of the industry. That same iStock/Getty team is
sticking together and adding some new faces to help execute on all the
new super-wicked stuff we have coming this year.

 

Got Funding?

Seems like April is a great month to talk about funding - here are a few events you should consider attending if you're in the market:

BVF: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Raising Money - April 2nd @ 7:30 am. A CCAT breakfast event featuring Marc Elrick, Randy Thompson, Shawn Abbot, and Terry Hughes.

VC Roundtable - April 22nd @ 3:30 pm. Rick Segal, Partner with JLA Ventures, takes your questions about VC financing.

If venture capital isn't in the cards for you just yet, check out these articles:

Startup Money Tricks #1 by Calgary Technologies' EIR Kelly Graves. The top ten reasons why you should look for alternative financing before venture money. Top reason: The more cash you bring in before you talk to angels and VCs, the more your company is worth.

Startup Money Tricks #2 by g9 Consulting President Nancy Bozek. An outline of the grant programs available to young tech startups.

Kelly and Nancy have done a great job of outlining the basics, and I'm looking forward to more articles in the series. Both Kelly and Nancy are in the business of helping tech startups grow, so I encourage you to reach out to them if alternative financing makes sense for your startup.

Rant: Hate is a Strong Word, but . . .

I just purchased a new Windoze PC for my wife, and setting it up was an all-night affair. In the years and years that it took to rewrite Vista, I'm wondering if anyone on the team stopped to think about the out-of-the-box experience. And as if Windows wasn't bad enough, you have to remove all the junk that the PC manufacturer loads onto the box. (Their goal was to make your experience with Windows less crappy, but the opposite actually happens). Then again, it was cheap like borscht and it runs Picasa . . .

Anyways, I'm hoping that someone from Microsoft reads this: The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier

Lesbians and Mind Maps

Just a quick little weekend rant about letting Google run rampant on your site: I've been researching mind maps lately, and came across a startup blog which had reviewed a mind map product. (For courtesy's sake, I'm not revealing the name of the blog). The blog had also reviewed other sites, including a mashup maker and Yahoo! Search Builder, amongst others. Nothing to indicate that sexuality of any persuasion was of interest.

So naturally, Google placed ads on the blog for a lesbian dating site and mind mapping software.

With all the money and technology we put behind profiling web site visitors, I'm wondering how Google could be so wrong? This is reminiscent of "Tivo thinks I'm gay or Nazi" syndrome that happened years and years ago . . .

New Programs For Alberta Startups

If you're at a startup that's looking for funding and partnerships (what startup isn't?), you might take a look at the following programs:

IVAC Capacity Builder
Lew Turnquist and the rest of the IVAC team are looking to place $10,000,000 in a minimum of 10 companies, on a matching basis. The money is meant to help bridge companies to the point where they become VC fundable. The money is placed on a non-equity basis, and between 2-3x the principal is paid back on royalty agreement. There are a variety of other details and requirements, but interested parties should contact Lew (ping me if you don't have his contact info) or submit an application form. All the entrepreneurs I've talked to tell me that this is one of the most inexpensive forms of investment capital they've encountered.

There's talk of this program being expanded in the future, and I certainly think that bodes well for tech startups in Alberta.

Microsoft ISV Innovation Excellence Award
John Bristowe is seeking applications for Blue Sky, a program that seeks to award a Canadian developer of "a disruptive software application" access to some special Microsoft resources, including a customized engagement plan and some red carpet treatment at Microsoft HQ. This would be a good fit if you run at least part of your solution on Microsoft technology, and obviously, if you see Microsoft on your strategic roadmap. Apply online or contact John for more info (again, ping me if you don't have his contact info).

DemoCampEdmonton1: March 26

It looks like Cam Linke, Reg Cheramy and Mark Bennett have been successful in shepherding Edmonton's tech entrepreneur community towards the development of a BarCamp community. There's always been a rivalry between Calgary and Edmonton, but this is definitely something we should be cooperating on. BarCampCalgary has been providing some advice along the way, as has TorCamp's David Crow. Locally, I hear that TEC Edmonton has also been very supportive.

If you know someone who might be interested in attending, or a company that would benefit from presenting, please let them know about DemoCampEdmonton.

The Venture Gap

Fellow Canadian technology entrepreneur Albert Lai is quoted as saying "you'd have to be an idiot to start a company in Canada" in the latest issue of of Canadian Business. The article, entitled Venture Gap, highlights the frustrations that both founders and funders face in Canada. Here's a summary:

• The money raised by Canadian VC firms, declined to $1.2 billion from $1.64 billion, a downward trend that began in ’01.



• American funds accounted for 41% of the invested capital last year, the highest level to date.



• The CRA requires an overwhelming amount of paperwork that discourages foreign investment. “Canada is the only country in the world that does this,” a Deloitte employee says.



• Tax incentives work for the benefit of pension funds, but against VCs in Ontario, thus lowering the capital pool available to startups. Government-led VC investment funds are so small, they are "laughable".



• The average Canadian VC investment size last year was $5 million. Canadian VCs are too conservative, selling out investments early to minimize losses, but also capping gains.

Lai isn't anti-Canadian. In fact, he's a huge supporter of Canadian entrepreneurs, and gives back by helping with the Toronto BarCamp movement, and speaking at events across the country. But sometimes, you have to call a spade  - a spade. Well said, Albert.

Look Who's Teching

Unlimited Magazine's article on the tech scene in Alberta features short & sweet profiles on DemoCamp/BarCamp, Tynt, Epiar, Jet Stream Media, XSENSOR, Material Insight, Curve Dental, Ph03nix New Media, Games Cafe, Zigtag, Sidefinder, Paramagnus and a few individuals, including yours truly. Author Jesse Semko attended BarCampCalgary 1 in December, and has done a fantastic job with the story.

YC Founding Partner in Calgary April 7th.

Our friends over at TechRev are putting on what promises to be a great event, with YCombinator Founding Partner and Founders at Work author Jessica Livingston as the headliner. I love the book, love the YC business model, and can't say enough good things about them. So, it goes without saying, I highly recommend that you attend this event. And, as an added bonus, it's free! Register here.

DemoCampCalgary 7 Wrap Up

It was a packed house last night at Vicious Circle, where four
intrepid companies demonstrated their wares on questionable A/V
equipment and slow wi-fi while background music was emanating from the
other side of the bar. And by all accounts, it was a huge hit. The
casual atmosphere gave DemoCampers an opportunity to freely mix while
enjoying the beverage of their choice, and we saw a lot of mixing going
on. A majority of the attendees stuck around for an hour or two after
the event, exchanging ideas, advice and business cards.

There are at least two reasons why you would attend a DemoCamp - the
first one is to see the latest and greatest stuff from fellow
technology entrepreneurs; the second one is to meet some interesting
people with common interests and goals. Last night, we succeeded in
both areas for many, if not all attendees. Be sure to give us your
feedback, as the organizing committee continues to work on making these
events even better!

Here's a wrap up of the companies that presented last night:

Casey Pechet of IVOXX
demonstrated the ultimate iPod accessory - it was a voice-recognition
device that attaches to the back of an iPod. Still in prototype form,
he first gave the command "play some stones" to the device - and a
Rolling Stones song played. He gave it a command to "play some Led
Zeppelin", and it did. Then, he asked it to "play more like this", and
the device played a somewhat similar song. The final production version
will also be able to accept commands such as "play something higher
energy" or "play something slow". This has huge implications for those
of us who aren't organized enough to categorize our music libraries.
The device is slated for an August release, and will retail at $129 as
an official "made for iPod", Apple approved product.

Lino Ramirez of Aranducorp
showed us what appeared to be an early build of a predictive analytics
engine for charities. The product, when released, will help charities
raise more money by helping them to predict and target those most
sympathetic and generous to the cause.

Lorand Szojka of JIT Resources
showed a customer site developed on their video streaming platform,
which delivers private training and corporate messaging videos to
enterprise clients.

To round out the evening, Matt Cox and Sarath Samarasekera demoed Shopster,
which was described as a fully-networked retail e-commerce solution.
For companies and individuals looking for an alternative to
advertising-based revenues, Shopster offers a fully-customizable
e-commerce store site template, complete with over 1,000,000 items in
inventory. Prospective e-tailers set up an account, choose which items
they wish to sell, and collect a percentage of all items sold. Shopster
handles all of the logistics, including payments, drop shipping and
customer service. For vendors offering a product, Shopster acts as a
distribution channel. Shopster is a multi-million dollar venture that
currently has over 1,400 active stores online.

---------

Mark your calendars for the next event - it will be held at Melrose Cafe & Bar on April 8th, from 6:30 - 8:30. Sign up here.

Calgary DemoCamp 7: Tuesday Night

Calgary's 7th DemoCamp is being held tomorrow night at Vicious Circle (1011-1st St. SW - 6:30 pm start), a fine establishment where you'll be able to enjoy a beverage of your choice while experiencing some great company demos. And speaking of great company demos, we've got presentations from Sarah Blue and Lino Ramirez, who are also DemoCamp organizers, and Lorand Szojka.

The presentation I've been dying to see for the last 3 weeks, however, is from Casey Pechet of Ivoxx Corporation. He's got an amazing voice-recognition device for the iPod that will automatically categorize your music library. So, not only will the Ivoxx device interpret metadata requests (ie, "play me some Feist"), but it also performs waveform analysis on your music files, so requests such as "play me something upbeat" or "play me something that sounds like the last song". They're going to be in the stores this summer.

Links:
The BarCamp Wiki:
http://www.barcamp.org/DemoCampCalgary7

Register Here:
http://barcampcalgary.com/

Critical Mass BeerCamp

The organizers of BarCampCalgary were treated to something special when Dave Robertson, VP at Critical Mass, invited us to their BeerCamp event last Friday. CM is one of the most respected development firms in North America, with a client list that includes Mercedes Benz, Rolex and Dell. After attending BeerCamp, I gained a better understanding of why CM has been so successful over the years:

• Great DNA: CM has some really smart people roaming the hallways. BeerCamp is just like BarCamp, and depends on the crowd to propose and present topics. The CM employees presented enough topics to fill 4 sessions in 3 separate tracks. I attended sessions on "Why Personas Suck", direct mail segmentation, and another chronicling the use of e-marketing in helping one of Edmonton's youngest councilors get elected last fall. I also saw a session on RRSP and tax planning on the agenda! Great presentations and great questions from the crowd.



• Great Philosophy: Most companies talk about cross-pollination, but how many companies actually spend the time and effort to do so? Unlike regular meetings or conferences, BeerCamp gives designers the ability to attend short business or technical talks, or business people to attend design talks.



• More Great Philosophy: Serve beer (have fun while you're learning), and don't take yourself too seriously (one of the sessions was a group of guys playing Rock Band).



• Pride: All the CMers I talked to were very proud of the work they had done for their clients. They all used Dell computers, and I'm sure they would all drive Mercedes-Benz cars and wear Rolex watches if they could!

This is fantastic news for Calgary's BarCamp community, because Dave, Christian and Kelly are not only great hosts, but they're interested in having Critical Mass participate in the community!  More on that as discussions proceed, but for now, congrats to CM for a job well done!

You Suck At Photoshop

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've seen Donnie Hoyle's brilliant Photoshop tutorials. It's sick, twisted, NSFW (unless you work with a bunch of truckers), and it's a legitimate viral hit. Here's the proof:

• Over 2,000,000 combined views on YouTube alone for his 4 tutorials since December 21st, 2007. This doesn't include views for tutorials uploaded to various other sites across the Internet.



• A search for "you suck at photoshop" reveals about 361,000 results on Google.



• Diggs: Episode 1: 3,278 / Episode 2: (not Dugg, for some reason??)  / Episode 3: 2,946 / Episode 4: 3,403



• 18,400 results from Digg.com in a site search for "You Suck At Photoshop"



• A huge spike in traffic for MyDamnChannel.com, according to Alexa.com - a peak rank of 14,828 yesterday, up from a previous high of approximately 40,000.

While Scott Kelby's PhotoShopUser TV has a more loyal and professional following, You Suck At Photoshop has reeled in a wider audience. However, Donnie's off-color jokes and R-rated language makes this one heck of a dilemma for marketers. I think most marketing people would want to sponsor him, but would likely get a lot of complaints from customers and management.

So naturally, two questions arise: Do you love or hate these videos? (I don't think there's any fence-sitting on this one), and would you support a company that sponsors these videos?

My First Million: Albert Lai

Congrats to Albert Lai on this great CBC profile. I've always said that we Canadians need to celebrate our entrepreneurs like the Americans do. It's awesome that Albert is getting some rock star treatment!

How many of you would be interested in hearing Albert speak in Calgary?

Edmonton Entrepreneur School: Jan 22-24

I'd like to start this post off by apologizing to all of you who have been trying to contact me for the last week or so - I was on a west coast road trip with my Brother-in-law Greg Kolodziejzyk. He holds two world records in piloting human-powered vehicles, and my entire family was there on both occasions to witness those events. So, I figured I would lend a hand while he was testing the boat that he plans to cross the Atlantic Ocean in later this year, in record-setting time. We had a great time in Tofino and Victoria, and even had the chance to fit in a quick meeting with Dave Shworan, an old high school friend and CEO of Bravenet and Quotemedia on our way through Parksville.

Anyways, the next stop on my tour through Western Canada will be none other than Edmonton, for an appearance at a 3-day entrepreneur school. (Download brochure) Randy Thompson and his group at the Alberta Venture Channel have done a great job in rounding up some great speakers, including Sean Wise, Kelly Graves, and Don Chapman. The program costs just $250, due in large part to Randy's tireless efforts in encouraging government to fund these efforts. So, if you're an entrepreneur in the Edmonton area, I strongly encourage you to attend.