I spent some time last week in London (UK) where I had the opportunity to spend a day at Seedcamp and get involved in mentoring some of Europe’s up and coming web and wireless businesses.

There were 20 companies and about 80 mentors !

Mentors were split into groups of eight and each group spent about 30 mins each with 8 of the 20 companies. The feedback on the event from the mentors and the entrepreneurs was really positive and I personally can’t wait to do it again.

Seedcamp runs a number of mini-Seedcamps in 6 European cities and then hosts "the full monty" once a year (to date this has been held in London).This is structually different to the other "feed capital" programs and may work well in Canada.

Interestingly the type of mentors invited were very broad. Of course there were investors and experienced entrepreneurs, but there were also a number of people from industry and some recent grads from the Seedcamp program. I think that this only adds support to the feedback that comes from all the feed capital programs, showing that knowledge transfer between smart founders plays as much a role as knowledge gained from mentors / advisors.

I’ve now been to a Seedcamp event, a Y-Combinator event and Alan MacIntosh (one of MSU’s other Partners) has also been involved in Launch Box Digital. I can honestly say that the raw quality of entrepreneurs and ideas that we see in Montreal (and this also applies to the limited number of entrepreneurs I’ve met in other parts of Canada) are as good as anywhere else; but our entrepreneurs must continually compete and co-operate in order to push themselves harder (ie smarter).

Whenever possible MSU tries to get the Founders of its portfolio companies to get together and engage in some co-opetition. We will continue to do more of this and we are now also looking to find ways in which we can get other funded and "to-be-funded" entrepreneurs in Canada involved in these sessions.

Look out for some upcoming MSU out-reach events!

Last week at Startup Empire in Toronto a couple of people told me they felt that the Montreal startup community was much more collaborative than the Torontonian one. While I can’t comment on things in la ville reine, I definitely agree that people here go out of their way to help one another. Last week for instance, I asked Sylvain Carle if he’d be willing to answer a few questions from the CTOs of two of our portfolio companies. They were preparing to deploy their services on Amazon’s cloud but, as newcomers to AWS, they had some concerns. Sylvain went one better and organized a round table discussion for CTOs, developers and sysadmins. In two hours, the newcomers to the cloud were up to speed and even those who had been using EC2 since its inception learned a thing or three. Shout-out to the Praized and Karabunga crews for generously sharing their time and knowledge. 

Last night, Akoha gave a sneak preview of their product offering to a number of their friends, family and investors in Montreal (disclosure -  MSU is an investor).

The founders, Austin Hill & Alex Eberts (along with PR guru Dov) are no strangers to creating buzz and excitement about their projects and once again they made a splash – albeit the type of precision splash that you would see from a Chinese Olympic diver and not that of Shamu the whale !

A reasonable amount of money would have been spent on the event and as an investor in the company I can’t but help consider wether this was actually a good use of money. My conclusion is that it was; and that it achieved a few  things that any start-up entrepreneurs could consider as they launch their businesses.

1) When you’re sprinting the marathon – don’t forget the feeding stations.

When your legs, lungs and brain are fatigued but you realise you’ve only just started the marathon it’s great to see the 10km feeding station. A feeding station is designed to give you renewed energy, but it also marks another milestone on the race. The lungs, legs and brains of any start-up are of course its founders and employees and its essential to provide feeding stations along the way to motivate and re-invigorate the team.

The sneak peak event created an opportunity for the founders to put the whole team in the spotlight. Akoha hasn’t even launched yet but their sneak peak event felt like a celebration of success; as an investor I don’t see Akoha as a success (yet), but I can fully appreciate that as a team, coming together to deliver a product, they have successfully reached a major milestone.

I don’t think that Akoha is actually creating any real marathon runners, but last night a few probably felt like junior (tech) rock-stars.

2) Practice your pitch

I assume (obviously) Akoha intends on taking its pitch to the "world" at some point. That would probably involve presenting the company at a much larger event than the one last night. So their sneak peak event gave them a chance to practice their pitch in a realistic environment -  in-front of an audience with all the adrenaline flowing and nerves jangling (or in Alex’s case "Jango"ing).

Anyone at the event (including myself) would say that the presentation went really well, but the guys at Akoha know that to be the best you can’t be satisfied with "really well". You need to be outstanding – and as practice makes perfect, I think that a real-life test run is a valid investment of time and money. Its all about raising the bar.

3) You get out what you put in

By inviting the community to become "insiders" the sneak peak event has placed Akoha as one of the companies that everyone in Montreal will want to help. This help is invaluable to any start-up and I would encourage ALL start-up’s, early stage and venture backed companies to open up more to the Montreal community. It’s through the community that you will probably find your next employees, your next investors and perhaps even some of your most innovative ideas.

So to the Akoha team – thanks for a great night and good luck with the next 10km !

We often get inquiries from start-ups looking to hire top talent.  Usually, we just tap our network of contacts to produce a list of potential candidates. This time, I thought it would be interesting to cast the net a little wider and so I’m blogging about it.

Recently I’ve been asked by two start-ups if I could recommend anyone for a developer position. Both are cool, expanding companies run by great people and looking to make a big splash. One is looking for a web developer that also knows a little about SMS and MMS. A lot of the work involves APIs and widgets and most of the code base is in PHP and JavaScript, so knowledge of both languages is essential. They are looking to bridge the Web and Mobile worlds. The other company is looking for a developer with 1-3 years of PHP experience and the right attitude. As a bonus, all of this company’s code is released under an open source license; therefore not only can you earn a living, you can also accumulate some good karma along the way!

So if you’re looking to escape from the drudgery of the corporate cube farm, have always wanted an employee number in the low single digits and are willing to sign on to the crazy roller-coaster ride that is an expanding start-up, please get in touch with me (daniel AT this domain). I’ll tell you a little bit more about the companies and, if there is a fit, I’ll arrange the introductions.

Twenty startup’s were in Y-Combinator’s Summer 2008 funding batch. Here is my take on the first half of them (the rest will be in the next post) and where appropriate a mention of Montreal companies I am aware of that are competitive or complimentary.

Posterous

A hosted blogging platform that allows you to post many different media types via e-mail. Great software, ultimate in simplicity – but perhaps it could have worked even better as a Worpress or Typepad plugin ? Nice software.

Ticket Stumbler

Vertical (sports tickets) search technology with a referrals based revenue model – nothing innovative per se, but there is a chance of success if they can simplify a complex issue that enough people have – it certainly worked for Kayak. Montreal’s TIBConcerts does a similar thing for concert listings.

A N Other Company

A company yet to launch but with a similar concept as Montreal’s BoostCast which already has over 17,000 communities (according to it’s website). These guys (who did seem smart and capable in general) made the mistake of starting their presentation by saying they were the “only one’s able to simple generate video-sharing site”. Anyone making a pitch to investors please remember that we see deals all the time and it’s just too risky to say you’re the only one – because it’s EXTREMELY rare that you are.

A N Other Company

A company yet to launch that may benefit from the progress being made at Montreal based Identi.ca , a company that has developed a version of Twitter that runs on the Laconi.ca open source micro-blogging platform (Our very own Evan Prodromou of Wiki-Travel fame is the driving force behind it’s development). The guys had heard of Identi.ca and were excited by the possibilities that could arise from having many vertically focused, but networked, micro-blogging sites.

People and Pages

Website builder (another one!) with member management. Just screams me2. The most interesting business I’ve seen in this space in Montreal (well the CEO is based here) is Kyube.

A N Other Company

PhD brainpower put to good use. This company yet to launch may have some interingsting synergies with Reasonably Smart, a Montreal based startup that is looking to make a name for itself in the cloud computing space.

PicWing

An integrated hardware and software solution for delivering photos (and in the future other media …. interesting possibilities) directly to an electronic picture frame. I’d be contacting Kodak and Fuji Film to start a bidding war !

MeetCast

Web-based video-conferencing and screen sharing solution. It’s a competitive / crowded space but no solution out there does it all yet. Very similar in functionality to Montreal’s Oneeko (previously Camwii) – whom I hear will soon have some very interesting news on getting their solution more widely distributed!

CO2 Stats

These guys can actually measure the environmental footprint of your website. It seemed like a gimmicky business at first but, once explained, it actually struck me as pretty complex to do accurately. It might actually fly !

More reviews to follow but I’d be happy to hear about any other Montreal based startups that are complementary or competitive to the companies profiled above.

(NOTE: This page has been edited to remove references to companies that have yet to launch)

Investors love to talk about how they invest in people. For most however, a strong team is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition to fund a start-up. With few exceptions, investors already want the team to be working on a good idea (even though they know it is likely to change along the way). But what makes a good idea? How do you know if it’s any good? Family and friends are usually the first people to hear of your ideas, but they tend to be supportive of pretty much anything you do. Once you get to asking strangers or casual acquaintances for money however, you had better be prepared to answer some hard questions, to have all your assumptions challenged. Such feedback is rarely pleasant, but keep in mind that its purpose is not to discourage you, but rather to help you refine your plans and increase your chances of success. In order to minimise the pain of those first few encounters, here are some things to consider ahead of time.

Pour ceux qui n’étaient pas au courrant, le dernier-né de la famille Startup North c’est Startup Index, un répertoire des compagnies Internet / TI / Mobile / Biotech / Environment / Médias en démarrage au Canada. Bien qu’on puisse faire des recherches sur le répertoire, je trouve plus intéressant d’observer le niveau d’activité par ville. Si l’on se fit à la carte, Toronto et Montréal semblent être nez à nez dans la course pour déterminer le premier pôle d’entrepreneuriat technologique au pays. Cependant, en passant au travers du répertoire, je me suis rendu compte que beaucoup de compagnies locales n’y sont pas inscrites. J’invite donc toutes les entreprises en démarrage montréalaises à s’inscrire; d’abord pour augmenter leur visibilité sur la toile et ensuite, parce qu’il est important pour Montréal de démontrer un niveau élevé d’activité et d’innovation si l’on veut attirer des investisseurs étrangers et l’attention de partenaires commerciaux ou acquéreurs potentiels de nos technologies.

Full-time entrepreneur, part time angels investment instigator and one of our partners at MSU, Austin Hill, likes to ask an entrepreneur looking for finance:

“What’s the bet i’m making with this investment ?”

It’s a great question … but what a lot of first time entrepreneurs don’t appreciate is that the answer to the question depends on who is asking it ……. and this is particularly so when you are raising capital from angel investors.

Let’s say an entrepreneur’s ambitious vision for his/her company is to become the Trip Advisor of the financial services industry, but right now the company is just in its infancy.

If the entrepreneur was pitching to a VC that had relatively deep pockets and was looking to fund a good idea to it’s conclusion (or at least for a couple of rounds of financing), the answer to the question might be along the lines of “You’re betting that people will be as willing to share their financing experiences to help others as they are their holiday experiences”

If however our entrepreneur pitches an angel investor for a few hundred thousand dollars, thus enabling the business to have been fleshed out more before approaching a VC for a larger investment, the answer should be very different “You’re betting that with a few hundred thousand dollars I can develop a website that will have enough traction to prove to a VC that their is a good chance that people will be as willing to share their financing experiences to help others as they are their holiday experiences.”

This bet is more about short term execution than long term vision. The long term vision is important to the angel investor, but typically he/she won’t able to fund the idea to its conclusion thus increasing the risk and changing the bet.

Fund aims to capitalize on the committed support of twenty of Montreal’s most successful entrepreneur and angel investors.

MONTREAL, Quebec, March 10, 2008 – Montreal Start Up, a venture investor dedicated to supporting Montreal based entrepreneurs in their quest to create and build successful companies, today announced the closing of its $3 million venture capital fund, Fonds Soutien Montreal s.e.c, the first of a number of funds it plans to establish. Participating in the fund are twenty of Montreal most successful entrepreneurs and investors, complemented by strong support from institutional investor, Investissement Quebec.

Whilst almost $3 billion of new capital commitments have poured into Quebec’s venture capital industry since 2005, the limited availability of funding and mentoring for seed stage opportunities has led to a drought of venture ready companies; as such, much of this capital remains un-invested.

Montreal Start Up will focus on deploying seed and advisory capital into early stage opportunities. By leveraging its capital with its investor base’s experience in building successful information technology, communications and media companies, it will be able to nurture ambitious internet, wireless and multi-media entrepreneurs in their quest to become venture ready.

“Whilst Quebec is not short of venture capital, Montreal Start Up is distinct in that it focuses exclusively on funding very early stage startups. This is the stage when entrepreneur’s financial needs are often smaller than their needs for strategic input or operational support.” said Rene Bousquet, a Partner at Trio Capital and an investor in the Fund. “By providing enough funds to allow a company to launch its offering and show initial signs of success, the company will be much better positioned to raise capital from more traditional VC’s.”

Austin Hill, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who sits on Montreal Start Up’s investment committee added, “With the availability of open source software, utility based computing and simplified software development tools, many start-ups do not require substantial venture funding to prove their ability to gain market traction.”

These recent innovations in the startup environment, coupled with the energy coming from within the local Montreal technology community have created an opportunity on which Montreal Startup intends to capitalize.

“Working so closely with start up companies it is essential that Montreal Start Up embodies the entrepreneurial spirit.” commented John Stokes, managing partner, Montreal Start Up. “With a management team and advisory board full of battle hardened entrepreneurs we understand the risks associated with starting businesses, but intend to harness our collective experiences to create Montreal’s next generation of globally successful companies.”

Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer, Entrepreneur in Residence at Vantage Point Venture Partners and Montreal Start Up board member explained the precedent being set by the fund’s structure, “In the world’s most vibrant start-up hubs a significant amount of funding and mentoring comes from successful entrepreneurs turned angel investors.” he stated. “Montreal has traditionally lacked this culture of reinvestment and thus not benefited from this valuable bridge between aspiring startup entrepreneurs and some of the city’s most successful technology executives; the structure of Montreal Start Up’s entrepreneur backed venture fund provides a visible sign that the investment culture of our city is evolving”.

In addition to working with those individuals who have invested directly into the Fund, Montreal Start Up has committed itself to forming partnerships with other members of Canada’s venture eco-system:
• Co-Investment Partnerships; Its professional investment team will actively structure investment consortiums that will include angels and early stage investors.
• Venture Partnerships: Seed and advisory capital will be deployed to nurture companies for other venture capital funds operating in Quebec and thereby create opportunities to unlock and deploy the provinces un-invested capital.

Composed of former operational executives with entrepreneurial experience, Montreal Start Up’s partners and advisory board have held top roles at companies including Terrascale, Telesystem, AskMen.com, Generation Flash, Fox Interactive Media, Microcell, RadialPoint, Canoe.ca, BCE, Nortel, FremantleMedia, Rogers and Hewlett Packard. The firm’s general partners are John Stokes, Alan MacIntosh, Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer, Austin Hill and Daniel Drouet.

About Montreal Start Up
Founded in 2007, Montreal Start Up is a venture investor committed to supporting Montreal based entrepreneurs and their companies during their start-up phase, with the investment focus being on companies developing innovative software based services in the Internet, wireless and multi-media sectors.

Standout Jobs, Cozimo and Xtranormal have recently been pitching their businesses at DEMO. These pitches were all well received by the audience – and one of the key reasons for that is that they were prepared specifically  for that audience. In other words, to deliver a good pitch it is essential to understand the motivation and objectives of your audience.

Knowing your audience is also important when it comes to pitching potential investors. Some time ago Brad Feld published a list of questions that a pitch to a VC should address. We have developed a set of questions that we think are more applicable to pitching angel investors:

• Set the scene – Explain why the space your business operates in is interesting to you and should be interesting to an investor.
• What is your vision for the business? How will you be perceived?
• What is the need you are trying to fulfill? Who specifically has this need? What is the intensity of demand? ( ie are potential customers/users willing to invest time or money to satiate the need?)
• How many potential customers/users have this need ? (ie How big is the market?)
• What is your offering? How does it fulfill the need of your potential customers/users? What stage is it at (idea, beta, in production)?
• What are you competing against? What differentiates your offering from others and why does it matter to your users / customers?
• How do you generate revenue?
• What is your strategy for attracting and retaining customers / users?
• What relevant experience or insight does your team have for executing this strategy?                       
• In addition to money, what other resources are you lacking right now? (e.g. key hires, key relationships, etc)
• How will this investment fit in with the overall financial plan of the company? (e.g.Enough funds until profitability (no further investment anticipated) or Interim financing round (how long will this funding last))
• What business milestones will this investment enable you to reach? Why are these milestones significant? What key perfomance indicators can you use to track progress towards the milestones?
• Are there any other material matters ? e.g. Outstanding debts, important contracts, specific timing requirements for an investment etc.

Whilst some of these questions might appear to invite broad sweeping answers – that is not the idea. Be tight, be concise and debate each question thoroughly before you answer it.

We will continue to refine these questions based on feedback from entrepreneurs, Reseau Anges Quebec and NAOQ.