Create the Future

Startup Company Profile

One of the things that I'm doing with TechVibes is profiling local Edmonton startups.  I did my first one today on Zigtag.  You can check out the post here, and sign up for a private beta with them as well.

Canadian Startup Index Launched

Jevon, from Startup North, announced the launch of a new Canadian Startup Index.  The goal of this is to build awareness of what is going on in the startup community in Canada.  It will be awesome to have one place that people can go to see some of the cool things that are going on in Canada.
Check out the site and add your startup if its not on there.

Being "Silicon Valley"

A lot has been made lately about "becoming the next silicon valley", Brendon Wilson is going to be talking about the subject on a regular basis on the TechVibes blog and has posted on it a couple of times already, Jevon posted on StartupNorth about us missing the point in trying to become it, Erick posted recently in TechCrunch on Europe trying to find it's silicon valley, Paul Graham wrote about How to Be Silicon Valley, and a myriad of others have blogged about the same subject.  So in the spirit of conversation, I figured I would throw in my two cents by looking at a Guy Kawasaki post from a couple of years ago on: How to Kick Silicon Valley's Butt.  His post revolves around stuff you can't do anything about, stuff you can do something about, and stuff that you shouldn't do anything about.  I'll look at all three and how/what is going in Edmonton in that regard.

Stuff You Can't do Jack About:
California's beautiful surroundings: Okay so this is a tough one.  We clearly can't do anything about not living on the ocean (however if Al Gore's global warming predictions hold ...) so it is tough to compete to compete in that regard.  However that doesn't mean that Edmonton is a bad place to live.  It seems as though it is our civic duty to complain about how terrible it is to live here in the winter.  True there is a bad stretch of two or three weeks where it is ridiculously cold, but other than that the weather really isn't that bad.  Boston is a tech-hub and they have cold, winter, and snow as well - deal with it.  Besides it also give us the option of skiing/snowboarding, tobogganing, ice-fishing, or a whole bunch of other things that you can do in the winter.  True we don't have the California coast and can't really compete with it, but we should focus on the great things that we do have instead of worrying about the bit of cold that we do.  (Oh yeah we also don't have earth quakes).

High Housing Prices: Guy postulates that high house prices mean that people settle down, buy houses, and start families - and that people with families are less likely to start startups.  Edmonton has this part down pretty well, our housing prices are quite high now (not as high as people would like to make the out to be), but they are way higher than they used to be.  I don't entirely agree with this as I think that if housing prices are too high than people worry more about survival than they do about starting something that they are passionate about.  If you don't have a roof over your head it is tough to choose a startup over a solid job that covers the bills.

Cities, Crowds, and High - Over Population: Overcrowding means that people are more likely to spend time in close proximity (thus more likely to get into discussions, arguments, etc. that lead to startups).  Edmonton is fighting a tough battle on this one, we are massively spread out, everyone has their mcmansion and quarter acre, and drives to work, so we are in tough here.

Absence of Multi-National Companies, Especially in Finance: While we don't have a ton of multi-nationals here in the headquarter sense, we do have the oil-patch, and all of the oil companies.  It is extremely hard to convince someone to take a long-shot on an idea, with the possibility to making a lot of money, when Syncrude just offered them a 6 digit salary.  While I would guess that a lot of people working for these companies would rather be in something exciting, when someone comes to your door after you graduated with a wheelbarrow full of money designing an oil pressure valve for the next 25 years does not seem so bad.

Life-Threatening Enemies: We're pretty safe here, life threatening enemies are not even on our radar.

Stuff You Can do Jack About:
Focus on Educating Engineers: "Engineers beget ideas. Ideas beget companies."  Okay so we are doing pretty well here in a sense, we have one of the largest engineering schools in the nations (actually it might even be the largest).  Having graduated recently from the U of A, and witnessed engineering buildings popping up on a regular basis, this is definitely a focus of the University and it's funders.  Not to mention all of the research centers that are located there (i.e. NINT).  So far so good in this department.
HOWEVER, we do have some problems in turning this into companies for a few reasons.
    1. The wheelbarrow full of money to engineering and CS grads (as mentioned above).  Talk to almost all of the engineering students about where they expect to be working after graduation (never mind the summer internships), it almost always in a discussion about the oil-patch.
    2. We have become incredibly adept at licensing our ideas.  It seems that most ideas that come from our engineers get patented, perhaps turned into a small spin-off, then licensed off as soon as the cheque rolls around.  This is fine for the researcher who made a discovery, he gets some money and gets to keep researching, however it does very little for the region.  The great ideas that get created tend to create more wealth, companies, and growth for other regions, rather than our own.  I have heard David Cox (CEO of TEC Edmonton) talk about this a couple of times and it is definitely something that they are looking to remedy, but it is not an easy process.
    3. We do a lot of brilliant research at the U of A, great, however a lot is really far removed from from the market.  While we are pumping out great ideas, these ideas are not going to become companies anytime soon, if ever.  This research needs to be done and is extremely important, and I wouldn't want it to stop, however it seems as though applicability is frowned upon while abstract, basic science is what we want to see our researchers work on.  This compared to universities like Stanford (surprise) that encourage later stage, applicable, research.  In the end we become the R&D department for the rest of the word, creating the basic science that gets turned into products companies, and prosperity for other regions.

Encourage Immigration: I have to admit a fair amount of ignorance in this area, I don't know exactly how easy or hard it is to immigrate to Edmonton.  My only observation on this is that while attending university it seemed as though there were a lot of international students, especially at the graduate level.

Send the Best and Brightest to Silicon Valley:  I'm not sure how to quantify or decide whether or not Edmonton is doing well in this regard.  I do like the idea of it however, true we loose a few people, but the people who come back to the region are awesome.  The enthusiasm, advice, connections, and mentality that gets brought back after someone spends some time in the valley is awesome and helps to spread (indoctrinate) those qualities in those that they come in contact with after they return.

Celebrate Your Heroes: I think that Edmonton needs a shot in the arm in this regard, there are a lot of incredible things going on in Edmonton that nobody knows about.  How many people know that one of the biggest youth social networks was founded, and is based in, Edmonton (Nexopia).  How many people know that one of the foremost game development companies is located in Edmonton (BioWare).  People just don't know enough about what is going on in the tech-scene, world class companies that are based and founded here.

Forgive Your Failures: This would be one of the big things that people talk about coming out of the valley, failure is not only tolerated, it is accepted and somewhat celebrated (some would say that you are not really ready to run a company until you have failed one).  We are definitely far more risk averse in what we will try to start up and what we will invest in here.  We need to get to the point where someone failing a business is seen as a lesson, not a stigma that follows them.

Be Logical: "Regions should use their natural advantages."  Our major advantage is oil.  Not a lot to be said here, we are doing a pretty good job of reinvesting the money that we have gained from the oilsands in things like education, whether this will transition us into a knowledge economy remains to be seen.

Don't Pat Yourself on the Back Too Soon: A branch office does not a tech-hub make.  I think that Edmonton is a long way from from patting ourselves on the back as being a tech-hub, however the thing that does concern me is the things that we celebrate at time.  For instance a call-center being opened in Edmonton.  Yes having Dell open a call center is (was) nice as it creates jobs, however it does little to improve the technological, entrepreneurial, start-up economy so in all-in-all it really means very little to becoming any sort of technology center.  We like to give a lot of press about things like call centers being opened (and closed), rather than focusing on the companies that we are growing and taking to the world.  I like Guy's comment that "a region is a tech center when it opens branch offices elsewhere."  That's where we need to get to.

Be Patient:  I think that we have been a little too patient, it's time form more action and less hyperbole.

Things You Shouldn't Do Jack About:
Don't Focus on Creating Jobs: See my rant above, often we worry too much about the jobs that are created by attracting branches, rather than organically growing world class companies here.

Don't Pass a Special Tax Exemption: I don't entirely agree with this point, I personally think that we need to do something to encourage venture investing and a tax credit might work.  That being said I think that the lack of venture investing in Edmonton has more to do with a lack of deal-flow rather than not enough willingness to invest.  Money tends to flow to opportunity, perhaps we have either have not produced enough opportunity, or have not publicized it as well as it needs.

Don't Create a Venture Capital Fund:  While I think that funds such as IVAC are great, and serve a purpose, a government created venture fund is not the answer.  There have been talks about the government starting one with some of the surplus and I hope that it doesn't happen.  There are too many extraneous variable that come into play with anything having to do with the government, especially when it comes to the distribution of funds.  Venture investing should be handled by private industry, with their neck on the line and without having to worry about whether their funder's constituents like or dislike what they are investing in.

Don't Provide Cheap Space and Infrastructure: Again I don't entirely agree with this, I would love to see spaces, such as Enterprise Square, where startups are able to work, bump into each other, find support, etc.  This is especially true in Edmonton where office space is in high demand and rent seems to double yearly.  Startups don't need to get hamstrung by rent in their first year.

Well that would be my two cents (and definitely my longest post to date).  I would love to hear what people have to say about the subject, and I'm going to try to post a bit more on it in the future.

Rick Segal Update

I just got notified that Rick Segal is not going to end up making it Edmonton in April after all.  They ended up canceling the date because there were not enough people that RSVP'd.  This is really disappointing, however I think that it was due more to a lack of people knowing about it, than a lack of interest - unfortunately right now there is not a tremendous avenue for people in Edmonton to find out about events like this going on.  Anyone interested in working on a project to try and change this?  Let me know.
The good news is that after both Reg and myself hit Rick back about two minutes after the word was let out, and asked him to come if we could get more people out, he said that he would make a flight down to Edmonton in late May to run his session.  I'm really happy about that, and this time around we'll make sure that everyone in Edmonton knows about it.  Stay tuned...

Rick Segal VC Roundtable

Rick Segal, from JL Albright Venture Partners, is touring across Canada passing on a little VC knowledge to Canadian entrepreneurs.  You can find the complete list of places he is stopping, and the dates for each here.  He is coming to Edmonton on the morning of April 22, if you are interested in signing up it's free - just sign up on Eventbrite.

Democamp Edmonton1

Soooo, Democamp Edmonton is officially off the ground with Democamp Edmonton1 scheduled to take place on Wednesday March the 26th at 6:30.  The venue will be room B-9 in the University of Alberta School of Business.  Special thanks to Doug Olsen and the MBA program for helping us out in getting the venue.  I'm looking forward to seeing some awesome demos, and chatting with everyone that comes out (we are planning on going to a pub nearby to have a drink and chat afterwards).  I'll keep you updated as we finalize more of the details.

Kaufman Institute on Entrepreneurial Clusters

Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class, posted a great paper by the Kaufman Institute on "Entrepreneurship and Urban Success".  Most of their recommendations revolve around the "build it and they will come" philosophy.  In other words municipalities need to build a place where smart people want to live, and have an economic environment that rewards and encourages entrepreneurship.  These thoughts are very similar in thought to the article posted by Paul Graham on "How to Be Silicon Valley".  His idea are that great startup cities have two main components: rich people and nerds.  Nerds come up with the ideas and rich people fund and help guide the ideas to market.
While it's fine to hope that the government will create a great environment for startups (and that is something that should be looked at given Alberta's looming election), ultimately waiting around for the government to do things is not what is going to make things happen.  What needs to be done in your city to get the startup ball rolling?  In Edmonton there are a lot of cool things happening but it seems that nobody is talking and collaborating.  Thus a lot of people are trying to do things on Islands, away from the support they would have in other cities.  That is one of the things that has been talked about Barcamp/Democamp solving, getting people with great ideas together and creating a community around technology and entrepreneurship.  Checkout Democamp (coming soon) and lets start to develop the Edmonton tech community.

Barcamp Edmonton

Alright to enough of the hyperbole about a Barcamp/Democamp in Edmonton.  I'm working with a group to get a Barcamp going in Julyish and a Democamp going at the end of March.  I'll try to post updates on my blog and follow along on the Wiki or on the website www.barcampedmonton.com (forthcoming).  If you would like to get involved feel free to drop me an email, I would love to chat.

Great Video on the Design Process

I found this video while I was clicking my way across the WWW.  Check it out, it's a great video on design thinking and the design process.

Great Post on Legalities for Start-Ups

Here is a great post by Guy Kawasaki from an interview that he did with Fred Greguras from Fenwick and West.  Check it out, very interesting.  Perhaps the most interesting question for me revolved was the first one about starting a business in the same industry as your current employer.  In a lecture I attended given by Evan Chrapko, one of the founders of DocSpace, he said that one of the first things that they did when they decided to break loose from their employer was to have their employer sign over their IP rights (which DocSpace paid for).  Later when they sold DocSpace, they were approached by their former employers asking for a cut of the sale price, which they easily rebutted because of their earlier transaction.  Because they had done the work earlier they were able to avoid a costly lawsuit later.