Filed under Admin Dept
23 08.10
We recently held our fund’s annual general meeting. AGM’s are usually pretty stuffy affairs, but in true startup fashion, we kept ours light on formalities and big on just connecting our entrepreneurs with our investors (limited partners), co-investors and other stakeholders. The venue for this year’s event was a great rooftop patio in old Montreal generously offered by one of our LPs. It was a great evening and everyone we spoke with were truly excited by our companies and what they are doing. We had lots of recent news to celebrate including new financings by Beyond The Rack and Status.net.
If you missed it, here are some photos from the event.
Filed under Admin Dept, Finance Dept
11 08.08
On our CONTACT page we invite entrepreneurs to drop us an e-mail if they have any questions or an investment opportunity for us. We get a lot of e-mails and they range from the short and sharp;
"I have a startup with a completed Beta, let’s talk."
to the long winded;
"The idea my father and I have is to locate a financial partner to help us finish building the (xxx) design and put it into production, to sell it to those who enjoy a premium life. As a first impression, it might sound like …………………. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… a beautiful piece of music from Beethoven or a fine Picasso painting."
We try and reply to all the e-mail we receive but given the volume we do tend to prioritize our replies. We make often snap judgements based on your initial approach – with limited time and lots of ideas, we have too – so when you first contact us make the effort to send through something that might capture our attention. So if you want to get a quicker reply I’d suggest that you include as much of the following as possible:
- A little bit about yourself.
- What your trying to build and who might want it (if you are concerned about NDA’s – relax, we are too busy to steal your idea and we wouldn’t be as good as you at executing it anyway !)
- What stage your business is at; concept, beta, live, pre-revenue etc.
- What you want from us; just meet to talk through an idea, pitch us for an investment etc.
- Confirm that you are based in Montreal or are seriously interested in growing your business from here.
- Confirm that you have read our ABOUT page and understand the types of investment we are interested in.
When it comes to raising money for your start-up, from MSU or anyone else, its important to remember that you’re not just up against your market competitors, but also other un-related start-up’s vying for the same investment dollars.
Filed under Admin Dept
27 06.07
Je pense beaucoup aux conseils d’administration ces temps-ci.
D’abord il y a celui d’Ile sans fil (ISF) auquel je siège. ISF a accompli de grandes choses depuis quatre ans, mais aujourd’hui sa structure (ou manque de) freine son développement.
Le mandat du C.A. actuel est d’abord d’aller chercher trois autres membres à l’extérieur d’ISF et ensuite de revoir de A à Z la structure et le mode d’opération d’ISF. D’où mes réflexions sur les C.A. Quelles sont les forces et faiblesses des administrateurs actuels? Qui a l’expérience qui nous manque? Y a-t-il des organisations avec lesquelles nous aimerions avoir des liens plus étroits? Qui croit en la mission d’ISF et voudrait contribuer à sa réalisation? Comment approcher des administrateurs potentiels?
Ensuite il y a Montreal Start Up (MSU) qui commence à prendre son envol et doit se doter d’un C.A. Contrairement à ISF, les administrateurs de MSU feront face à des problèmes d’ordre légaux et financiers plutôt qu’organisationnels. Qui a l’expérience, le réseau de contacts et les habiletés politiques nécessaires à la réussite de MSU et pourquoi une telle personne nous aiderait-elle?
Je dois avouer que mon réseau comporte beaucoup plus d’administrateurs potentiels pour ISF que pour MSU. Heureusement, MSU est parrainé par des gens d’expérience dans le domaine du capital de risque et, avec leur aide, nous avons récemment dressé une première liste de candidats potentiels. A suivre.
Filed under Admin Dept
23 02.07
In the pre-blog days a good friend of mine, Simon Buckingham, the founder and CEO of Mobile Streams, used to have a site called unorg.net (or maybe unorg.com). It espoused on his philosophy of how an organisation did not necessarily have to be “organised” and that there was an alternative structure for a company … one in which the company lacks standard structure and operates as an “unorganisation” (Buck, sorry if I didn’t get that quite right.)
I can’t link to the site because it was taken down prior to the Mobile Streams IPO. I guess it didn’t gel with the message in the prospectus!
A Montreal Start Up isn’t planning on going IPO just yet and as such it will have much of the structure of an Unorganisation for the next few months!
Filed under Admin Dept
22 02.07
I am starting a new company. The company has no name, no funding, no employees and no clearly defined product or service… Ground Zero.
I’m glad to have you along for the ride !