ProMontreal Entrepreneurs Application Process
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Author Archives: Katherine Korakakis
Tips for Getting Into PME
Tip 1: Apply early
We start reviewing applications on a rolling basis as soon as the application window opens. More than half of the applications come in on the last day. If you want us to spend more time on your application, get it in early. We get a lot of funding applications, so this is your chance to stand out. If you wait until the last minute, our review of your file will also be last-minute, and there will be no edits.
Tip 2: Put effort into your application and give as much detail as possible
The fact that we are a social business does not mean that we are not a serious program. Review your application before submitting it, and make sure it is complete. Don’t assume that you can submit a poor application with missing documents and then send us the rest in a few weeks.
Tip 3: Come prepared
You need to convey who you are, why your business is interesting, and be prepared for us to dig into everything from your unit economics and customer acquisition strategies to long-term plans and where you met your co-founders. Make sure you prepare your file and have all of the required documents when you come to your meeting. Arrive on time to your meeting with all the required documents, and be professional.
Tip 4: Research the program
Make sure that PME is right for you, and that you are right for PME. Know what our terms are, know how we work, and come prepared to tell us what you want from PME. Read about our selection criteria and about the requirements you need in order to be eligible. Do not apply if you did not read the criteria, or if you do not meet some of them: we will not make exceptions. Make contact with our funded entrepreneurs to find out how PME has worked for them, and see if you can benefit in the same way.
Tip 5: Tell us what you’ve learned
The most important skill you can have is the ability to adapt quickly. Tell us what you’ve learned. What were you wrong about? What’s your unfair advantage? Describe what you have done since the launch of your start-up, and what you have learned about the industry and entrepreneurship in general. Show us that you have grown as an entrepreneur, and explain to us why you are ready for funding.
Tip 6:Tell us your vision (why you are doing this?) and how you’ll grow
Where are your customers? How will you reach them? Tell us what you’ve done. Unscalable growth is fine (and reflects hustle), but ultimately we’ll need to see a path to scalability. Explain to us how you intend to grow, how you will market your product and sell it, how you will target new markets and expand your customer base, and how you will innovate and further develop your product. You need to convey a realistic long-term plan to make your business credible.
Tip 7: Make sure we understand your traction
You must be able to prove that your start-up is growing and has made significant progress so far. By providing factual growth evidence such as sales records, you are reducing the risk that comes with the investment, improving your chances of getting into PME. Traction can also be proved by the amount of active users, or the amount of views on your website. As we cannot simply fund ideas, you must be able to show that your business has already attracted customers and that your product can sell.
I hope this is helpful. We’re grateful for all the amazing companies we received applications from. Application is open NOW, so apply here. And good luck!
VC Funding 101
Your business idea is great, but you are still having trouble getting funded by a venture capital investors. When funding businesses, VCs look for certain characteristics, to ensure that they make a return and that they minimize their risk. Here are some of the criteria VC’s look for:
- Market Size
One of the most important things that VCs consider is market size. If your business only has operational potential in a certain neighborhood, you will have trouble finding a VC: your idea needs to be global, or at least be a part of a massive addressable market. For example, if you own a local sushi shop, you will have trouble finding VC funding, as your idea does not address a global market for fish and rice.
- Scalability
If your market size is large enough, the next thing to consider is the scalability of your business. Very often, VCs look for businesses that have a large growth potential. This means that once your product is developed, manufacturing should be relatively inexpensive and barriers for distribution should be minimal. If your product is cheap and can sell easily, you have more chances to attract VCs.
- Time Horizon
You will need to show your investor that you will be able to grow your business substantially in a given number of years. Each investor has a different time criteria, but expects a good return after a given amount of time. This is why it’s crucial to have a good and well-founded understanding of your profit projections.
- Team
Your team plays a crucial role in determining if you will get funded by a VC. Since your start-up is still in its early stages, chances are that your product and your market fit is less than perfect, and will have to adjust overtime based on customer needs and other different factors. Due to this uncertainty, VCs prefer to bet on the team rather than the start-up, as it is the factor that is the less likely to chance. Make sure your team is skilled, motivated, and willing to evolve with your start-up.
If your business does not meet these criteria, it does not mean it is wrong. You will simply have to look elsewhere for funding, as you will have a hard time with VCs. You can look for other kinds of investors or consider debt financing. Remember that not all VC firms are the same, and they all have different criteria and interests. VC funds are always picky about the start-ups they invest in, and you should be too. Before applying for a fund, do your research: find out what kind of start-ups the VC usually funds, what they are known for and how they can make your business grow. This will improve your chances of getting funded, and will help you find an investor that can truly be helpful for your start-up.
How to Approach a VC Firm
VC firms are a great way to help launch and finance your startup. If you are unsure about how to approach a VC firm, here are a few tips:
1) Find a connection/advocate
The best way to create initial contact with a VC firm is by getting an introduction. You can get referred by an entrepreneurship program such as ProMontreal Entrepreneurs, or simply be introduced by a friend or colleague.
2) Never send in your business plan
The VC firm will not read your 40-page business plan over email. Instead, once you’ve secured a meeting bring your pitch deck to the firm. If they want to know more about your business, that’s when bring out the business plan.
3) Don’t cold call, especially if you’re not ready
If you cold call a VC firm without having been introduced, you run the chances of a) not getting your call returned and b) your chances of getting a deal are close to zero. Furthermore, don’t rush to approach a VC: make sure you are ready. If your start-up is not ready and you make contact with the VC firm, you have missed your opportunity of the first impression and possibly ruined your chances of making a deal with this firm. Remember VC firms, get pitch ALL the time. Make your chance count!
4) Do your research
Yes, this point seems to appear in every single blog post, but research is important. Research the firm itself, to find out the services they offer and to make sure your start-up would be of interest to them. Furthermore, talk to companies that have already been financed by that firm in order to see what kind of experience they have had. Don’t blindly accept the first deal that comes your way. Make sure that the VC firm you approach has the connections you need to make your start-up grow.
All About Idea Generation
Before you start thinking about sales and investors, you need an idea. You can’t start a business without an idea. However, finding an idea that would successfully launch a start-up is often easier said than done. Consider these tips:
Again, this is easier said than done. Start by listing all of the things that interest you, as well as things you are good at. Also, ask yourself why you even want to start a business in the first place. This list doesn’t have to make sense: it is meant to make you think about your strengths and weaknesses, and how you could use them in your start-up. If your idea is something you are passionate about, chances are you will be successful.
You should also consider your financial situation, and know how much money you can afford to invest in your business, as this may influence your start-up ideas. Don’t start a business relying solely on investors: be prepared to use some of your own money as well.
Fill a Need
Think about your own life, and how you can make it better. You can think of small improvements or big ones. Ask yourself: how could my life be better as a father, mother, husband, wife, grandparent, etc.?
Look for inspiration in the outside world. Whenever you go out, think about how you can make it better. If you are thinking it, chances are you are not the only one, and your idea can fuel a start-up. Here is a good example: Reed Hastings once got charged 40$ of late-fees while returning a DVD. Instead of simply paying the fee and moving on with his life, he thought about how he could make this small aspect of his life better: and that’s how Netflix was born.
Think about the long-term
Get inspired by everything around you, but don’t forget to consider your business idea’s potential in the long run. Think about current market needs, trends, and demographics that are ever-changing and could impact your business idea. You can use the media to constantly stay connected to market trends.
You should also consider competitors when you search for an idea. Sure, every business has competitors, but you shouldn’t be wasting all of your money in a pricing war. Use something with minimal competition so you can invest money on growing your business instead of competition.
Above all, your idea is about you: your strengths, weaknesses, and interests. If you choose an idea you don’t care about, it will be harder to stay inspired and make it successful. Don’t forget that once you found your idea, protect it: use non-disclosure agreements, trademarks, and patents, to keep your idea to yourself.
Wherever you go, keep looking for inspiration: you never know when you will find the idea that will start a successful new business.
International Startup Festival
Montreal is a city starting to get known for encouraging start-ups and providing them with the right conditions to grow. For the past four years, Montreal hosts the International Start-Up Festival, that brings together investors, start-ups, and analysts from more than twelve different countries. Yes, this is an amazing opportunity, but the ticket price of $500 might give you cold feet. It’s worth it though. Below are a few reasons on why you should attend the International Start-Up Festival.
Networking
The festival hosts a multitude of different people from the entrepreneurship world. First off, there are the investors. If you are looking for funding, or simply want to connect with powerful people from the business world, this is the place to be. You will be able to meet representatives from a multitude of VC firms, as well as angel investors, depending on what you are looking for. If you are too shy to directly go up and talk to an investor, you can attend one of the festival’s many cocktail networking events, designed especially for that purpose.
Not looking for money? No problem. If you are searching for a co-founder, there is no better place. With hundreds of entrepreneurs on the site, your chances of finding a partner are higher than ever. Alternatively, you can meet and connect with different incubators, and perhaps find yourself a nice new workplace.
Education
Entrepreneurship is not easy. Do you have trouble gaining traction, finding the right market for your company, getting funding, or virtually any other issue related to start-ups? The International Start-up Festival provides great keynotes and presentations every day, with speakers such as Terry Jones and David Segal. Whether you need inspiration or information, you are sure to find a presentation that will be of interest to you.
By networking with other entrepreneurs and investors, you will also be able to discuss some of your ideas and get feedback or suggestions. Anywhere you go, you will learn something that will help you grow your start-up. If you don’t, you’re probably spending too much time partying.
Media
With media passes already sold out for this event, you can expect a full coverage from a multitude of different media organizations. Mingle with reporters and get your start-up featured in the media: you direct a large amount of attention to your start-up, and gain more customers.
ProMontreal Entrepreneurs, is a Patrons of the festival, and sponsors a starving start-up to attend, because we have seen first hand what attending the festival could mean for a start-up. If you are attending, come say hi!
This type of event is very beneficial for Montreal, as it brings international attention to the city and its start-ups. As an entrepreneur, you will be able to make priceless connections that are very hard to get outside of the festival. Attend as much keynotes as you can, but don’t forget to have a good time!
Optimizing Social Media for your Business
Promoting your start-up and making it go viral is now easier than ever, thanks to the multitude of social media outlets available online. As a start-up, you should use as much of these tools as possible, as they will help your business expand and gain popularity. Yes, your business probably already has a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+ account. If it doesn’t, you should get on that as soon as possible. However, you may want to consider making your start-up known on more social media platforms. Here are just a few you may want to use:Pinterest
- Pinterest can help your business expand in many ways. For example, you can collaborate with established pinners who have a large follower database to help your own business grow and expand. You can also pin educational and informative boards that will establish your business as an authority in your field. By using Pinterest, you will educate people on your product and will promote it at the same time.
- Instagram will work well for you especially if your start-up creates great visual content or products. Instagram lets you post pictures of your business and products. However, Instagram being a social media website, you should balance business photos with fun, uplifting photos. Fun photos do not necessarily have to be photos of cats. You can post things that are still related to your business: for example, if you sell nutritional supplements, you can post pictures of healthy foods to promote the healthy lifestyle. Remember to follow back the people who follow you on Instagram, as this will let you create strategic business relationships in the future.
- Foursquare is the largest social media platform when it comes to location-focus. By using Foursquare, you will be able to make your customer base grow without doing much yourself. Let’s assume, for example, that your start-up is a restaurant. When a customer visits you, he can “check-in” using Foursquare. Thus, his or her friends will see the name and location of your business, and are likely to visit you when they are unsure about where to eat.“Check-ins” spread very quickly, increasing your visibility exponentially on Foursquare, and increasing customers.
- Reddit is an extremely important tool when it comes to building relationships with clients. There are so many tools you can use to connect and communicate with customers. One of the most important Reddit features for start-ups are sub-Reddits, topics that are narrowed down to a specific subject for a specific audience. Sub-Reddits can help you create discussion topics about your product or service and offer customer support. Furthermore, you can add news and events about your start-up to keep your clients up to date.
Remember that your main social media platforms are still Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The websites mentioned above however, will increase the popularity of your business even further. When it comes to social media, more is always better: do not limit yourself. In fact, look around to find other social media websites you can use.
Montreal Smart City
Only a few weeks ago, a private initiative was launched to help and assist start-ups located in Montreal: InnoCité MTL. This program is a business accelerator that funds and promotes smart start-ups and emerging companies. Innocité MTL is “composed of workshops, development sprints, pitch and demo sessions”, as well as “a 12-week prototyping program in an urban setting”.
This program is based on the Montréal Ville Intelligente (Montreal Smart City) campaign set in place by Denis Coderre, the mayor of Montreal. It aims to transform Montreal into a model technological and numerical city by 2017.
As these two programs are very closely connected, InnoCité greatly favors technological start-ups that support the interests of Coderre’s campaign. The businesses that are given priority are related to urban mobility, direct services to citizens, general lifestyle, the democratic process, and economic development.
This initiative can provide many good things to the city of Montreal. As new modernized and smart businesses emerge, Montreal will become a model technological city. Developing start-ups will create jobs and new opportunities for citizens, increasing the overall standard of living. Denis Coderre stated that this program “will generate economic spinoffs that will contribute to the growth of our metropolis”. InnoCité MTL will boost entrepreneurship in Montreal and will contribute to the sharing of ideas and the development of solutions to current technological and economic problems.
However, this business acceleration program is extremely competitive. Start-ups are judged based on their business plan quality, growth potential, and their relevance to Montréal Ville Intelligente (Smart City). If selected, businesses will receive a $50,000 down payment and constant guidance until their prototype stage.
This initiative is a great opportunity for start-ups in Montreal, and will provide great benefits to the city. New jobs, better technology, Montreal may soon become a model digital city!
Common Legal Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make
Smart entrepreneurs learn from their mistakes, while smarter entrepreneurs learn from the mistakes of others.
Managing start-ups can at times be an overwhelming experience, but can be done right if certain crucial mistakes are avoided. Although some legal slipups are easily fixed, others will cause big problems to your business in the long run. Here are a few common legal mistakes entrepreneurs make that have serious long term consequences.
Not having a shareholders agreement with co-founders
Think of this as a pre-nuptial agreement between the co-founders. When you launch your start-up, you all have the same goal and the same vision for your company. As your business grows and expands however, interests may change, and if the deal is not clear between you, this can result in legal troubles. Just think of the Zuckerberg/Winklevoss scandal back in 2004.
The deal between co-owners must be made clear from the very beginning to avoid legal troubles in the futures. Establish issues such as:
– What percentage of the company does each person have?
– How will you decide the sale of your business?
– What is the goal of the business?
These are just a few questions to be asked. Make sure your agreement is exhaustive and will protect you from any possible conflict between co-founders.
Disregarding Trademark and Copyright
Once your company innovates a new product, a new idea, or a new technology, this innovation has to be protected. Many intellectual property protective measures can be used by start-ups such as patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, etc. Inform yourself on which protective measure is appropriate for your business.
It is also important to note that this concept goes both ways. As much as you need to protect your intellectual property, make sure you don’t infringe other companies’ trademarks and copyrights. For example, make sure you do ample research before deciding on your company name or your domain name. You can use tools such as GoDaddy to avoid legal issues of the sort.
Not Lawyering Up
Saving money by cutting back on expenses is definitely a good thing for your start-up. However, you should not hire an inexperienced lawyer or a friend to guide your start up: while you may save money at first, the legal troubles caused by an inexperienced lawyer will definitely catch up to you in the long run.
A good lawyer can also help with trademark and copyright, as well as your terms and conditions and privacy policy. Invest in a good lawyer, and make sure he or she is specialized for your type of business. Different online resources are available in order for you to find the lawyer that is just right for your start-up.
These are just a few important legal tips to think about when starting your business. Legal mistakes are often made by start-ups, but it is crucial to avoid legal problems that you won’t be able to fix down the line.
C2MTL: Worth the Hype?
Arielle Beaudoin (co-founder and CEO of Lori.Biz), Nadia Lakhdari (VP Programming of C2MTL), Katherine Korakakis (ProMontreal Entrepreneurs), and Despina Sourias (Regional Entrepreneurship Officer)
I was asked recently if attending an expensive conference like C2MTL had any benefit. The truth is, any conference is only as good as the people attending make it. If you are open and ready to meet people, then any conference is good…Right? Right, but C2MTL is a special case. I have been to hundreds of conferences in many countries on a variety of topics and nothing compares to the experience of attending a C2MTL conference.
First of all, the lineup of speakers and their perspectives on business, life and society is unparalleled. The master classes, as they are called, take you on an in-depth ride of a variety of topics by experts in the field, and give you concrete tools and actions that leave you better equipped and considerably more knowledgeable on the topic than before you entered the room.
Despite this, what makes C2MTL stand out above all other conferences is the caliber of the people attending the conference and the atmosphere that the C2MTL team creates. There is no other conference that I’ve attended where all participants are ready and willing to meet with you and talk to you, help you out, give you advice, and share know-how. They are called BrainDates and they are, in my opinion, what makes C2MTL rise above all the rest.
I was able to help out others at the conference who booked a time with me to discuss topics ranging from starting a business, to helping set-up a battered women shelter in a social entrepreneurship model. I was also able to benefit from advice from people at the conference who enlightened me on topics that I’m going to consider going forward in my own work.
So, to answer the question of whether or not C2MTL is worth the money, the answer is a resounding YES. Here are some tips if you can’t afford the ticket:
- You can volunteer. There are many volunteer opportunities available at the conference.
- If you work at a not-for-profit you can get visitor passes to enter C2MTL and although you don’t get access to the main room where the speakers are, you can listen and watch the conferences from the big screen located at the agora.
I hope to see you all next year at the 2016 edition, which I am sure will not disappoint.
