The Founders and Funders dinner takes place tonight in Toronto. We really wish we could have invited everyone who asked for a ticket, but we have been sold out for a while now.
I really don’t want to miss out on hearing from all of you, even if you can’t make it to Toronto for the dinner tonight, so I thought I would post the questions we will post tonight at the dinner. Please comment below with your thoughts on the state of funding in Canada. Answering these questions isn’t a requirement at the dinner, but we wanted to set the tone of the discussion to focus as much as possible about what we can do to change things in Canada.
- Do Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists get enough recognition for the deals they do in Canada?
- Do Canadian universities inspire and support entrepreneurship? Could a “Startup Co-Op” program help?
- What is the minimum amount of funding a startup should be able to deliver a product with?
- Is the Dragon’s Den the most visible face of Canadian Entrepreneurship right now? What is wrong with that?
Some of these questions may change by tonight depending on the answers we get. As you can see, the Dragon’s Den question tends to invite some good responses!
Oh sweet. My *protected* tweet makes it out in the big league. Home page of startupnorth! I will second Stuart’s advice: Step away from the keyboard. :)
Oh sweet. My *protected* tweet makes it out in the big league. Home page of startupnorth! I will second Stuart’s advice: Step away from the keyboard. :)
Ah Leila, Idee is the big leagues and we are just watching, you know that.
Ah Leila, Idee is the big leagues and we are just watching, you know that.
I attended the University of Toronto and they had a class called “The Business of Software”. That was probably the only class that I took that related to Entrepreneurship, and the only one offered in the Computer Science program. The question then becomes, can successful entrepreneurship be taught? I think a course on idea generation should be taught somewhere. All you would need is crayons and a piece of paper. Sounds like Grade 3 art? Maybe. I always liked art class :)
I attended the University of Toronto and they had a class called “The Business of Software”. That was probably the only class that I took that related to Entrepreneurship, and the only one offered in the Computer Science program. The question then becomes, can successful entrepreneurship be taught? I think a course on idea generation should be taught somewhere. All you would need is crayons and a piece of paper. Sounds like Grade 3 art? Maybe. I always liked art class :)
No, you are right Jevon, DD is the face of entrepreneurship in Canada … in exactly the same way that American Idol is the face of modern music:
It’s appalling cringeworthy, completely disconnected from every new venture/artist that is meaningfully important, it’s “entertaining” like a car accident … and it’s exactly the first thing that springs to mind for any of millions of Canadians when you say “I am an entrepreneur”.
Maybe together we could start to try and change that.
No, you are right Jevon, DD is the face of entrepreneurship in Canada … in exactly the same way that American Idol is the face of modern music:
It’s appalling cringeworthy, completely disconnected from every new venture/artist that is meaningfully important, it’s “entertaining” like a car accident … and it’s exactly the first thing that springs to mind for any of millions of Canadians when you say “I am an entrepreneur”.
Maybe together we could start to try and change that.
funny how you write the questions, we don’t really have a choice in answers, do we?
i think there should be more videos coming from canadian entrepreneurs that gets the word out. ca.intruders.tv is a good start, but I am thinking about video blogs like Loic le meur’s seismic.
funny how you write the questions, we don’t really have a choice in answers, do we?
i think there should be more videos coming from canadian entrepreneurs that gets the word out. ca.intruders.tv is a good start, but I am thinking about video blogs like Loic le meur’s seismic.
Everyone knows that the really business is not done by the face, it’s done by the loins.
Everyone knows that the really business is not done by the face, it’s done by the loins.
The funny thing about these show’s like DD, Venture, business stories on the news or in the newspapers is you see the same people over and over again. So I imagine the media wants Start up stories bad, enough to keep some of these entrepreneurs on some sort of media circut.
The funny thing about these show’s like DD, Venture, business stories on the news or in the newspapers is you see the same people over and over again. So I imagine the media wants Start up stories bad, enough to keep some of these entrepreneurs on some sort of media circut.
I’m with Chris R (I think): Entrepreneurship can not be taught in school. (Though Malgosia & I witnessed the best possible effort when Greg had us speak an engineering class at UoT.)
What Toronto/Canada needs is role models. God bless the Lor’s, McDerment’s, Boujnane’s, Garrity’s, Lai’s which are inspiring the next wave. We need big successful outcomes to seem achievable (they are!) by having big successful outcomes to point to.
Malgosia and I helped build a company in San Fran that sold for $61M after 14 months. Our conclusion, we can do that too! (Only bigger! hehe.)
We should all do what we can to put a spotlight on the world changers we have in our midst.
I’m with Chris R (I think): Entrepreneurship can not be taught in school. (Though Malgosia & I witnessed the best possible effort when Greg had us speak an engineering class at UoT.)
What Toronto/Canada needs is role models. God bless the Lor’s, McDerment’s, Boujnane’s, Garrity’s, Lai’s which are inspiring the next wave. We need big successful outcomes to seem achievable (they are!) by having big successful outcomes to point to.
Malgosia and I helped build a company in San Fran that sold for $61M after 14 months. Our conclusion, we can do that too! (Only bigger! hehe.)
We should all do what we can to put a spotlight on the world changers we have in our midst.
I’m beginning to think we should start talking about funding tech during a recession. :(
I’m beginning to think we should start talking about funding tech during a recession. :(
Waterloo allows students to use one of their terms or even two in co-op for a startup. Not sure how easy it is to do mind you. With the creation of the Velocity residence I think that may help highlight that as an option.
Waterloo allows students to use one of their terms or even two in co-op for a startup. Not sure how easy it is to do mind you. With the creation of the Velocity residence I think that may help highlight that as an option.