If you missed the event, you can see Shira’s interviews with the Founders from the top 4 Launch Party companies: Unbounce, Tiipz, Rocketr and Summify, highlights of the other 11 amazing LPGROW startups, snippets of a jampacked, lively room full of Canada’s best and brightest, and lots of bunnies hopping about.

Until next time…

Food.ee Demoing at #LPGROW

High Fives All Around
This was without a doubt our biggest Launch Party event ever. We could not have pulled it off without the support of our wonderful partners:

• Initio Group - an Investment Group run by Managing Director, Mike Edwards. If you haven’t had a chance to meet or work with Mike yet, he’s one of the best angels an entrepreneur could ask for.
• A Thinking Ape -  The Apes are making waves in Vancouver building seriously addictive games for the iPhone. The whole team rocks and we are happy they decided to call BC home. PS. They are Hiring!
• LaBarge Weinstein -  A Canadian business law firm that totally gets startups. James Smith is a good guy, great lawyer and splits his time among startups from TDot to YVR. He’s on our top 3 referral list.
• Freshbooks – One of Canada’s favorite companies makes it easy for startups and freelancers to save money and time on invoicing. Amazing product and customer service to boot! Bonus: Saul Colt is a genius WOM, who wears crazy pants.
• Strutta - the platform behind the Launch @ GROW startup competition can help you create and manage beautiful branded promos online. Conversion without sacrificing your brand’s id! No coding necessary. (disclosure: Maura & Danny are founders)
• Keith Spencer  - Keith is not only one of the best technology lawyers I know but someone, who dedicates a lot of personal time to help local startups and our tech community. They broke the mold with this guy.  Also, on our top 3 list.
• Lonsdale Rentals - North Vancouver company Lonsdale Rentals came through again to support #LPGROW and provided us with all the things we needed to make the venue look great.  Super friendly staff. Don’t rent from anyone else!
• Jet Cooper - A User Experience Agency in Toronto led by Satish Kanwar stepped up to help us with the LPGROW site, and twitter walls. Phew!
• Layer 7 - Big thanks to Dimitri Sirota’s (one of the LP’s Co-founders) company for supporting our 11th event.
• Queen’s Cross - From the beer to the flatbread pizzas, my good friend Chris Greenfield’s pub catered the entire event. Drop by his pub on Lonsdale in North Van. for a pint, ridiculously good food, and great staff. #Truth.
• Yaletown Venture Partners-   I am looking forward to seeing YVP invest even more in the local startup community.
• Urbandig - If you found yourself being served up a teacup sized portion of beer by a cheeky rabbit, you were not lost in a bad remake of Alice in Wonderland but rather at the UD booth. Big thanks to Team UD for throwing a great after party at the Hub in Yaletown! (disclosure: another company by Bootup ED, Maura)
• Pop Chips & Smart Pics – If you nom nomed on their tasty chips or posed in the digital Photo booth, you have these two awesome companies to thank for all the fun.

Big thanks to our media sponsor, Techvibes for helping us spread the word and share your startup stories. True Story: Rob Lewis and his team can help you get your brand and message in front of thousands and thousands of readers. 

Bootup is run by a very passionate volunteer group of amazing entrepreneurs and startup peeps.  We seriously could not pull a rabbit out of a hat without their help (follow these awesome people now):

• Sonia Ryan - Previously my right hand at Bootup and now a Trouble Maker at A Thinking Ape, Sonia hustled hard to make #LPGROW a stellar event. She’s awesome but you already knew that!
• Janis Behan  – Janis is part of team Bootup and helped organize everything from setup to labels to bunny suits. We could not have done it without her.
• Robin Leskiw – One of my dearest friends, who has been with me since LPV1 at Section 3.  She did everything from keep your wine glasses filled to clean up. <3
• Toan Dang, Eliz Sarobhasa, Alex Shipillo & Tammy Yik – Thank you so much for all of your help setting up that morning. Huge Help!
• Pauline Lipska & David Cameron – You were amazing at working the crowd  and doing whatever was needed during the event.  So great.
• Leila Pejman - A big supporter of ours and the tech community, Leila is always willing to lend a hand. Thanks for working the door and then some. Big Hugs!
• Rohit Tandon - Designer, Producer and awesome DJ, spinned up some sweet tracks to set the mood.  Thank you.
• Jodi Day - talented UI Designer and member of Team Strutta worked the door and made all of your beautiful name badges. I can always count on her.
• Tina Hoang – Communications Manager at Strutta kept the line moving at the door and ran the entire #LPGROW Startup Competition from start to finish.  My hero.
• Keighty Gallagher – Surprise, Surprise – one of our newest members of Team Strutta and pro hand sandwich maker helped Tina & Jodi keep things tight at the door. You Rock.
• Mack Flavelle – also part of Team Bootup, Mack did everything from pick out super heros to wear a bunny suit. An entrepreneur himself, Mack knows how to hustle and #GSD.

Until Next Time
Thank you so much for joining us and showing the world that Canada is one of the best places in the world to bootup. We hope you made some new connections, had a chance to reunite with old friends, challenged some Apes to a game of Foosball, saved bags of money with Freshbooks, tasted one of Dave O’s favorite craft brews at the Urbandig booth, snapped a photo or two in the Pop Chips & Smart Pic’s Lounge and  maybe even closed some financing or landed a new customer or two.  Rock on.

You can find more photos of the event on Flickr, of course.

You may remember that the lovely Shira hosted our 2nd LPV event, Launch Party with a Twist with Mike Macadaan way back in December 2007.

Looking forward to a very fun evening.

I have been lucky enough to have co-founded two companies with Danny Robinson and I would absolutely do it again. We both have different strengths, want the same things and respect each other immensely. Danny is also really good at having the uncomfortable conversations, which many of us want to avoid and has always taken the lead on raising money.  He is a great mentor, friend and the best person I could think of to deliver a C0-Founder & Captable talk at Bootup last Wednesday.  Danny kicked things off with a very timely joke:

“There’s a little Sheen in All of Us.”
Entrepreneurs are typically very passionate individuals, who have opted out of the safer, climb-the-corporate-ladder career path and put it all on the line (read: sold house, minimal salary- if any, eating ramen) in the hopes of creating something bigger, even changing the world and WINNING.

Splitting up the Pie
Once you find your co-founder soul mate(s), you may be tempted to just dig in and move fast so you can experience the ultimate high of WINNING sooner!  As a result, you may not take the time to have the important C0-founder discussions like shareholder splits, vesting schedules and employment agreements but before you start to turn that idea into a valuable product, it’s best to have a co-founder heart-to-heart.

Danny stressed not to delay the equity conversation because it will only get harder down the road. You may also be tempted to just split the company 50/50 and call it a day. DON’T!  If you do, you could put the company in serious jeopardy at a future date.  Danny always take a few things into account when splitting up the company pie:

• Commitment
• Skill
• Connections
• Experience
• Responsibilities
• Idea

Danny places the highest value on a founder’s commitment to the company. For instance, if you quit your day job and are hustling nearly every waking hour on your startup, while your co-founder has a lot of connections but has a family and can’t commit full time until the company either raises or starts making money, then you score higher on the commitment front. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Danny places the least emphasis on the Idea itself. The idea will change, so just because you may come up with the idea, it does not mean you should get more equity then another founder.

After you look at all of the above factors, you may end up with a 50/50 split in the end but Danny rarely sees that as the case. So, have the difficult conversation first because it will force you to really think not only about the shareholder “PIE” but also about your roles and responsibilities within the organization and each cofounder’s ultimate vision for the company. For example, do each of you see the company as a long term play or would you prefer to build and sell the company in a few years?  In the end, don’t get hung up on the % too much. Just get going…

Vesting
Founder Vesting is usually different than employee vesting in the company. To start, Danny recommends keeping it simple and using a single class of voting common shares for founders with a standard vesting schedule of equal monthly installments over the course of 3 years. (e.g. 1/36 per month)  Not all founders will stay on for the long haul, so if you are going to stick with the company – then your shares should vest.

Other types of vesting to consider:

• Cliff Vesting – when an employee/founder becomes fully invested at specified time rather than vested in increasing amounts over an extended period of time.
• Single trigger – upon change of control, 100% of your unvested shares would vest.
• Double trigger – accelerate 100% of your unvested shares if terminated after a change of control

Captable – “Your budget for dilution.”
This is a core document when you are starting a company.  On Day 1, when the company consists only of Founders, your captable may look something like this:

As you hire new employees and raise money, your Captable will expand to include ESOP and financing information. Here’s an example of a Captable for a 2M Series A Financing Round:

The Captable is a reminder that you do not have an unlimited amount of shares to give away and will help you budget and plan for “What if” scenarios. What if I raise 2M dollars in Series A financing or What if we sell for $10M dollars? You can see in the above example that the founders went from owning 100% to 80% with the ESOP to 43% after raising a Series A round.

Danny covered a lot of ground in just two hours and left me thinking we could even go deeper into how to structure shareholder agreements, set up captables and other legal documents. Stay tuned for more info on that.

Thank You Danny!
Many Thanks To Danny for educating us and sharing his tips on the Captable & CoFounder topic and to Martin Ertl from Contractual.ly for offering some legal insight and helping answer questions.  If you missed Danny’s talk, you can check out his slides below.

Q & A

1) What is the ideal # of co-founders?
Danny doesn’t think there is an ideal number while Venture Hacks recommends 2-3 co-founders. Each co-founder is just a shareholder. It can get complicated the more co-founders you have but it really depends on you, your company and the value each person brings.

2) Are titles important?
Danny thinks titles are a necessary evil.  It helps people outside the company know what you do and also forces you to take ownership over certain things. Though in a startup, you may be doing everything from the dishes to pumping out code.  He does not like to see Co-CEO titles or Vice Chair. In most cases, he thinks this is a result of not wanting to have the tough discussion but in some cases, like @summify he has seen the Co-CEO role work out nicely.

3) What if my co-founder invests more $ then I do in the business?
Danny thinks you need to keep money out of the shareholder discussion and treat the money as investment in the company, which could be treated as convertible debt.

4) We started a company 6 months ago, built out a product and there is a key employee who has been with us for a while.  Should we make her a co-founder?
Danny said “No but do make sure she realizes how important she is to the company.”  Perhaps, this would mean more stock options, responsibility and recognition but she does not need to have the title of co-founder.

If you have more questions or would like to see us cover another Startup topic, please leave a comment below.

How it Works
Players check in to various locations and venues to unlock maps, which will aid them in their hunt for the mysterious Bounty Island.  Along the way, players earn money, collect treasure, dodge critters and stuff themselves on exotic fruits to restore their energy levels as they explore the world around them.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to get this game out to market and show the world that location doesn’t just have to be about coupons and deals but can simply be fun. Bounty Island is going to prove that location can be used to personalize a game, and we all know that the more personal the game the more engaging it is,” said Compass Engine CEO Mack Flavelle.

Get It!
I have not downloaded the game yet but Flavelle told me that 1000′s of others like me already have!  And you can too as Bounty Island is now available in the App Store for the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone.

Co-Founder’s & Captables

• Wednesday, March 2 – 3:00-5:00pm
• Bootup Entrepreneurial Society - 163 West Hastings, Suite 200 Vancouver
• Tickets are $31.19 for non-members

Here are some other local startup events worth checking out this week:

The Lean Startup with Eric Ries hosted by BCTIA

• Thursday, March 3 – 8:30 -10:30am
• Sutton Place Hotel - 845 Burrard Street, Vancouver
• Tickets are $125

Introduction to Samsung Bada Platform hosted by WaveFront

• Thursday, March 3 8:30-11am
• WaveFront – 1055 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
• Free

6th Annual Women In Film Festival – Digital Media Forum

• Friday, March 4 9:ooam
• Vancity Theatre – 1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver
• Tickets $75, WIFTV members and $90, non-members

If we missed  your event, feel free to let us know by leaving a comment below.

For more tech events and news, you can also check out our media partner, Techvibes.

This week is a busy one in tech as the VEF, BCTIA and Bootup are all hosting events we think you should check out:

Clean Tech Panel Discussion: How to Capitalize on Current Business Opportunities hosted by the VEF

• Tuesday, February 22nd – 5:30pm
• Vancity Theatre
• If you haven’t bought your ticket yet, your outta luck.  This one is Sold Out!

Social Marketing Kung Fu, Yellow Belt – “Listening Everywhere” with Dave Olson hosted by Bootup

• Wednesday, February 23 – 5:00-7:00pm
• Bootup Entrepreneurial Society – 163 West Hastings, Suite 200 Vancouver
• $30 for non-members

Mac McIntosh – Marketing for Leads and Sales hosted by BCTIA

• Thursday, February 24th – 8:00am -12:30pm
• The Sutton Place Hotel
• Tickets are $155.
• Friends of Bootup can receive 20% off by using the Promo Code: Bootup when registering.

If we missed  your event, feel free to let us know by leaving a comment below.

For more tech events and news, you can also check out our media partner, Techvibes.

Considering that Boris Wertz is one of Canada’s most notable super angels, we thought it would be helpful to learn his tips on pitching early stage investors.  As an angel, Boris has invested in more than 20 early stage consumer Internet companies in the Pacific Northwest including Summify, Sparkbuy, Tynt, Suite101.com and Techvibes to name only a few and sees his share of approximately 150-200+ pitches per year.  Out of those 200+ pitches, he many only invest in about 5-6 companies,  which means you have to be pretty stellar to cut through all that noise and land a term sheet.

Step 1 – How to Find the Right Investor
I know you are busy building a company but you have to poke your head out of the garage once and a while to meet other entrepreneurs, angels etc. and get to know the influencers in your community.  Through your interactions and presence at events, you will quickly learn more about the types of investors you should consider approaching.  Boris stressed that you really need to do your homework before you start knocking on doors, so you do not waste anyone’s time.  Once you have compiled a list of investors, dig deeper to find out more about the stage (early stage vs. later) what sector (software vs. ecommerce), business model (b2b or b2c) and geography each investor is interested in as well as who you know that can personally introduce you.

Step 2-  The Warm Introduction
As I have learned first hand and Boris noted in his presentation, it is always best to get a warm introduction to an investor rather than cold call or shoot off an email out of the blue.  An introduction from someone an investor trusts and respects could make all the difference in getting you a face-to-face meeting.  And when you finally do get an introduction – don’t send the investor a 20 page business plan ahead of time. Just an executive summary with a link to your product will do.

Step 3-  Nail the Pitch
Nailing your pitch is way easier said then done but if you have done your homework and been introduced to the right investors, you are off to a great start.  Boris and many Internet investors I know look at the team first.  A strong team can weather many storms and iterate and pivot when needed.  The idea will change, so Boris recommends that in your first meeting you:

• pitch yourself not the idea
• show a product demo
• focus on a the high level concept, rather than digging deep into the long term plans and financials
• keep your pitchdeck to 10 slides. Something Guy Kawasaki also preaches

What Not to Do:

• Ask Investor to sign an NDA - If you ask for an investor to sign an NDA, you may not even get past your first slide. Investors see hundreds of pitches every year and chances are there are many other entrepreneurs, who are working on a similar idea. If you ask your investor to sign an NDA, you look like an amateur.
• Share a detailed business plan and financials. In your first meeting, going into too much detail is not necessary.  Explain what problem you are solving first and show a demo of the product if you can.
• Schedule a 30 minute or more meeting - Any meeting longer than 30 minutes is too much for Boris. If you are pitching an investor and he starts asking questions, seems engaged and you go over the allotted 30 minutes, that’s probably a good sign.  If you aim to deliver your presentation in less than 20 minutes and allow time for questions, you will be in good shape.

Remember, every investor is different.  Boris likes to spend time getting to know you before he invests. Other investors will be quicker to write a check.  Venture Capitalists usually take 4-6 months, if not more to paper a deal.  So, the be sure to allow yourself plenty of time to raise funds.

Boris’ Presentation
If you missed Boris’s presentation, he has posted the presentation on his blog here.  Thanks again Boris, for dropping by.

What Have You Learned?
As always, we love hearing from you too. If you have an investor Do or Don’t that you learned a long the way, please share with the rest of us in the comments below.

NOTE: Next Bootup seminar will be on February 23 – Social Marketing Ku Fu, Yellow Belt “Listening Everywhere” with Dave Olson. Sign up. He rocks!

He’s engaging, worldly, kind-hearted and always willing to share what he has learned with others.  And so, when I asked Dave to be a Mentor for Bootup Garage, he didn’t even hesitate.  However, instead of hosting regular mentor office hours, Dave wanted to put together a series of social marketing talks for startups. Yes, please!

On Wednesday, January 26 - Dave delivered his first Social Marketing (#smkf) presentation at Bootup and as expected, it was chock full of practical nuggets, steps and interesting stories to help attendees start building their own social marketing toolkit.

“Dave O’s talk was great. I have already implemented some of the strategies with my companies. Dave O is a wealth of information – entertaining with great practical application…..I can feel a book coming…” Mike Edwards, SMKF Attendee

Below are some of my notes from Dave O’s talk and you can also check out his notes over here:

Getting Started

• Document everything you Do. From Day 1, Dave stressed that entrepreneurs should document everything and have one place to share all of their “collective intelligence,” such as an internal wiki. Writing everything down will help you stay focused and remind you what it is you set out to achieve.
• Do not plan much farther out than 6 months.
• Define the roll of each person in the company. This will help people focus on and take ownership over certain tasks

Naming Your Company/Product

• Coming up with a name for your company that has an available URL is not an easy task.
• Define what it is your product does first.
• Start playing around with words that are easy to say, spell and remember.
• Ask friends or your community for feedback or ideas.  For instance, HootSuite crowdsourced their name.

Describe Your Product

• Try and define your product in 3 words. For example, Hootsuite at first chose “Professional Twitter Client” as it’s 3 word description and now defines itself as a “Social Media Dashboard.”
• Take those 3 words and expand on them to create a 100 word description.
• Reach out to users and get feedback and watch what terms they are searching for.  It is important to be using the same terms and descriptions that your users/customers are.

Start Listening

• Create Lists.  Start following the people who care about your product as well as watching your competitors.
• By listening and asking specific questions, you will start to build relationships with your customers.
• Respond and participate in the conversation.
• Each community is different. For example, your customers may act differently on Facebook vs. Linked In. Watch this and communicate accordingly.
• Define what you want to get out of each of the social media channels you are using.

Media Kit

• The first page you should create on your website is a media kit page.
• Make it easy for people to write about you and tell your story.
• Your kit should include artwork, logo, colors, typeface, TM with specific guidelines on how to use.
• Be sure to have multiple descriptions that writers can snag to use in articles and posts such as a 100 or 500 word description.
• Colorful screenshots or infographics like this one are a great resource for writers.
• Keep your kit up to date and fresh.

Be Loud

• Now that you have defined who you are and what you do, start telling the world.
• Don’t wait until you launch.  Become an active participant in the community you are trying to reach.
• If it is not on the Internet, it didn’t happen! So – Blog, Flickr, Tweet etc. starting right now.
• When someone writes an article or post mentioning you or your area of expertise, COMMENT. It shows you are paying attention and care about your community and the people, who are taking the time to write about you and use your product.
• Create 3-4 touchpoints to an article.  For example, Dave will comment on an article, social bookmark it and add it to an RSS Feed = juicy, indexable goodness.
• Hashtag everything. Topics, brands, acronyms – be creative and always remember to listen to your audience and be consistent with your message.

Dave O will be back in the Garage next month to deliver another his 2nd Social Marketing Kung Fu preso.  In the meantime, please share your notes, questions and tips in the comments below for other startup founders.

Riz broke Goverment funding into 3 stages:

• Early Stage: (BC – Before Customers)
• Early Customers (EC)
• Customers Customers (CC)

There are plenty of programs available in the BC & EC stages.  As your company matures, and you are trying to scale your business – there is not a lot of government funding available to you.   Riz, who has worked in startups before, stressed that it always better to focus on getting real customers for your business rather than chasing and applying for government funding.  Some of the applications do take time to complete and require additional reporting once approved.  Some IRAP programs, for instance, require monthly reports with receipts to release additional funds.

Bootup is in the process of finishing up a handy little spreadsheet on all of the different government programs available, including deadlines and contact information.  Until then, check out Riz presentation below and please share your feedback and experiences on what government programs you may have utilized in the past for fellow entrepreneurs.