Blogmatic

This is my second post regarding lessons learned from the VC Roundtable hosted by Rick Segal back on April 16th. Somewhat belated due to a general lack of time for writing.

This is a very small item but one that I found incredibly interesting. The difference between founder and CEO of a start-up. I hope I have captured the sentiment accurately. Basically if someone from a start-up calls themselves the CEO versus founder it may be an indication of a certain amount of a certain mindset. This is an early warning signal for Rick when he is checking out companies for funding. This is consistent with my view of the start-up world if you are leading a team of <10 people or even up to 20ish, you are a founder not a CEO. Jack Welch is a CEO, Steve Jobs is a CEO, Steve Ballmer is a CEO, and if you are leading a small start-up team you are a founder.

The phrase that no start-up looking for funding wants to hear; “let’s continue the dialogue”. Argh, … the dreaded long maybe in action.

Perhaps the most important lesson for early stage businesses raising funds is how to protect Grandma and Uncle Joe from you friends and family round. A convertible debenture is the way to go. This avoids dilution for future investors and provides a return for you friends and family investors. This is a good way to get compensation for early and seed rounds.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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DemoCampOttawa9 (Monday May 26th, has a home at 62 1/2 York Street in the Velvet Room.

Still one demo spot available.

The space is pretty funky and large enough to accomodate a bigger crowd than the ClockTower. Everyone is welcome. Spread the word.

cheers,

Ian Graham

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DemoCampOttawa is back and we are investigating a new venue, unforetunetly we have outgrown theClockTower which only has a capacity of 90. The search for a new location is on. We even have our first demo already signed up, spots go quickly so if you would like to attend or present please sign up.

When 26-May-2008

Where: ?

Time: 6:30pm (Networking), 7:00pm - 9:00pm

cheers,

Ian Graham

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Networking is an important aspect of any business. Doing it right will go a long way toward making your business successful. In my opinion one of the most important aspects of networking is providing referrals to your friends and colleges.

A couple of important points about referrals:

- Make sure the two parties you are hooking up will each benefit
- Provide meaningful connections, do it for the right reasons
- Timing is everything, is now the right time for the two to connect

The great thing about referrals is that if done properly, you have done two friends a favour at the same time. If your friends can come to count on your referrals as valuable then that will go a long way to helping solidify your relationship with that person.

Stephen Covey talks about relationships as being like an emotional bank account. Each time you give you make a deposit in your friends account; each time you take you make a withdrawal. In providing solid referrals you are depositing in two friends accounts at the same time. The natural tendency of your friends will be a desire to return the favour and provide good referrals for you.

Done in a genuine way with the intent of helping your friends referrals are an excellent way to expand your network.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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With the todays news of significant job losses at Dell has inspired me to create this post series. I am an advocate for the LSIF and think it is an important ingrediant in building knowledge based infrastructure. The cancellation of this fund by the provincial government in 2004 has devastated early stage knowledge based businesses in Ontario. Here is a summary of my LSIF post.

Return of the Funding Paradox (Part III)

LSIF - Sourcing

LSIF - What is all the fuss about  

LSIF - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

LSIF - When Bad is Good

LSIF is Beautiful

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I attended a meeting for a local organization a year or two ago where they where having a strategy session. One of the participants went into a bit of a rant regarding well we don’t do this and we don’t do that, … Anyway after a few minutes of this my frustration overcame me and I said “shouldn’t we be discussing what we DO?” Same deal on a blog I read just this week. The story went something like we don’t do this and we didn’t intend to do that, …

Frankly who gives a crap what you “don’t do” focus on what you “do”. Spinning your wheels saying all the things you don’t do is a big waste of energy and counterproductive. When you are explaining your business or idea explain what you do. Really, … who cares what you don’t do.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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The three most important things you should consider when buying real estate are; location, location and location.

The same principle applies to building a business, however the criteria is different. In business the two most important things you must do are; network and network. I came across this little gem on the weekend when I was searching the internet. There was this interview with Terry Mathews where he attributed a large part of his success to two things; networking and networking.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to attend the VC Round Table event. I liked Rick Segal’s approach to funding and respect anyone that prefers the fast NO to a long maybe, although a fast YES is still the preferred option. On that note the words of wisdom with respect to securing funding are that getting a deal in place will require at a minimum 3 months and on average 6 months. The legal aspect of putting a deal in place usually take at least 3 months, and the due diligence process is 1 month. If you are a start-up looking for funding make sure you have enough runway to get to funding take off.

Rick mentioned that the two most common errors made by would be entrepreneurs are; No exit strategy and quitting the day job too early. If you are going to approach Angels or VC for funding make sure you have an exit strategy which could be; IPO, acquisition or merger. Know your way to the door and that the exits are clearly marked. Quitting the day job to early is related to the point in the first paragraph about making sure you have enough runway for take off. 

I have a slightly different opinion than Rick on when you should approach a VC for funding. His advice would be to approach the VC at the napkin drawing stage. My advice would be to make sure your idea is protected in some way before shopping it around too much.

Will have a few more lessons learned in another post soon.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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You may have noticed the lack of Blogmatic posts last week. This is mainly the result of a long to do list for TheCodeFactory which has taken a considerable amount of time last week. On TheCodeFactory note, I have also started to post on TheCodeFactory Blog as well. With only so many hours in a day I will probably be reducing the number of posts to Blogamtic.

On a happier note, I did have the opportunity to attend two great events last week; Rick Segal’s VC Roundtable at the ClockTower and the second in Carleton Universities TIM Lecture series. Both were excellent events and worthy of a couple of blog posts. Will have a write up on the TIM event on TheCodeFactory Blog since it relates to Open Source software.

Tomorrow’s post will be my thoughts and lessons learned from the VC Roundtable.

cheers,

Ian Graham

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I use Google analytics to track stats on my website a very handy tool and one that I would certainly recommend. Recently a Google message appeared asking “would you like to share your web site statistics” or something like that. Then there is a big yellow accept button. I thought what the heck and pressed accept.

About two days later I started to notice hits on my site from this URL: www.keywordspy.com. Keyword spy is a tool for your competitors to track your internet marketing strategies? Is this the sort of company that Google plans to share my keyword information with, it would seem so.

If you are thinking about sharing your keyword information with Google make sure it is in your best interests. How sharing your internet marketing strategies (keywords) with your competitors is a benefit to anyone, other than the competitor, is beyond me. This sharing of information by Google is in my opinion straddling the boundary of ethical behaviour.

I have always held Google in the highest esteem and still do, however, this is the first sign in my humble opinion that as Google grows they will become more like Microsoft (I respect MS too) and start to show cracks in that culture of openness and creativity.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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