10Jul
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!

2Jul
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.

25Jun
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!

15Jun
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.

5Jun
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.

4May
Top 5 Sources for Reference Letters

To apply for funding to various programs (including ProMontreal Entrepreneurs), candidates are often required to submit a letter of reference, and I am always asked for my advice on whom to request a letter from. It’s not a good idea to ask for a reference letter from an employee or a parent, because of the conflict of interest it creates which therefore makes the person writing the letter not credible.

So, what is a letter of reference? The letter serves as a character reference, where the person is vouching for you, your skills and your abilities to get the job done. In the letter, they need to provide context as to where their knowledge comes from, and they should clearly outline the project, context or experience they had with you in order to write the letter.

That being said, who can you ask to write you a reference letter? Here are the top 5 sources:

1) People from the same industry
It’s important to establish yourself as an active participant in your industry. Presumably, you are in contact with other individuals from your industry that are not direct competitors but that know the industry and the opportunity your product or service may offer. They could talk about your potential impact or innovation, or express an interest they might have in doing business with you. This is also known as a letter of intent. Even though this contact may not know you on a personal basis yet, they should state in their letter that they have intentions of working with you or doing business with you in the future. Of course, just because they mention this in their letter does not make it legally binding.

2) People currently doing business with you
If you are a few years into the startup stage of your business and you have some traction, chances are you are already doing business with various people. For example, it could be a supplier, distributor, or retailer you’re working with. We once funded a company that got a reference letter from a store that was directly implicated in selling their products. They can vouch that you have a good quality product or service.

3) Past employers
Past employers are great sources for attesting to your work ethic, your achievements, your leadership, and any transferable skills that you have in the workplace. They are ideal because they have firsthand experience in working with you.

4) Past professors
Asking for a reference letter from a past professor is a great idea for younger entrepreneurs who may not have as much experience in a professional work environment. In the past, I’ve received glowing letters of recommendation from professors of Masters/PHD students we’ve funded. Professors can attest to your diligence, work ethic, and they can easily back up any of their claims with references to your past projects or grades.

5) Community service
Perhaps you don’t have much experience in a work or university environment, but you spend a lot of time doing community service. If you’re an active member of an organization (i.e. you’ve volunteered there more than once or twice), and especially if you hold some sort of leadership role, getting a reference letter from a supervisor could be valuable.

If you have any other ideas for reference letter sources, feel free to leave a comment below!

23Feb
Demystifying Industry & Market Analysis

Understanding how your market works and what customers want is vital. When done right, it will enable you to find investors, help spot potential roadblocks, and most importantly, attract customers.

Having a properly done market analysis is going to provide key data to convince the investors that your business idea is worth investing in because you will have the hard numbers to back it up.

What is a Market Analysis?

Market analysis is determining the characteristics unique to your particular market and analyzing this information, which will help you make informed decisions for your startup. A market analysis will help you determine and gather valuable data that will enable you to get to know your customers, figure out your competitors, set pricing and pinpoint exactly where opportunities lie.

Industry Description and Outlook

The first step is to describe your industry, paying close attention to its current size and historic growth rate, as well as other trends and characteristics. Relevant industry metrics like size, trends, life cycle, and projected growth should all be included here.

Target Market or Niche Market

It’s important to establish a clear idea of your target market or niche market early on. A lot of new entrepreneurs make the newbie mistake of thinking that everyone is their potential market; they are not. By identifying your real customers, you’ll be able to better use your marketing dollars in an effective way while attracting and retaining loyal customers. The target market section of your business plan should include the following:

User Persona and Characteristics: A persona represents a cluster of users who exhibit similar behavioral patterns in their purchasing decisions, use of technology or products, customer service preferences, lifestyle choices, and the like. Behaviors, attitudes, and motivations are common to a “type” regardless of age, gender, education, and other typical demographics.

Market size: Do your research and find out who and where your competitors are, and how much your customers spend annually on your product or service. How big is the potential market for your business? A question you should ask yourself is who do you fear most and why?

Competitive Analysis

Evaluate your competitors by placing them in strategic groups according to how directly they compete for a share of the customer’s dollar. For each competitor, list their product or service, strengths and weaknesses, and size. Obviously, it’s a good idea to know what you’re up against, but this strategy also lets you spot the competition’s weaknesses. Are there customers out there being under served? What can you offer that similar businesses aren’t offering? The competitive analysis should contain the following components:

Market: Who are your main competitors? Are there any indirect competitors who could impact your business?
Competitor strengths and weaknesses: What is your competition good at? Where do they leave a gap where you can come in and meet the need they are not addressing?
Window of opportunity: Does your entry into the market rely on time-sensitive technology? Do you need to get in early to take advantage of an emerging market?

Barriers to entry: Is the industry easy or difficult to enter? If entry is easy, competitors enter the market during periods of high profitability and expand production capacity. This drives down prices and profit margins. Barriers to entry make it more difficult for competitors to enter so profit margins remain favorable. Barriers to entry include the following:
- Limited access to markets – If the market is dominated by well established branded products, a new entrant will need to spend the time, money and effort to establish a successfully branded product.
- Large-scale production – If large scale production requires substantial financial investment, the financial requirements will limit entry.
- Limited access to technology or production processes – Patented technology and other intellectual property will also limit entry.
This is where you examine your weaknesses. Be honest with investors and yourself.

Regulations

Some business may be subject to governmental regulations or restrictions in order to provide a fair ground in which to do business. If your business is subject to regulations or restrictions, you’ll need to bring them up and discuss how you’re going to comply with them. Is there a cost to the compliance?

In conclusion, market analyses vary from industry to industry and company to company. Most of the information you will need to include can be found by a simple Google search and, most importantly, it can be found for free. Keep in mind that a little estimation is okay, but the bulk of your numbers need to be based on facts and they must, in all cases, be sourced. If you don’t know were to begin, download our entrepreneurship guide that outlines all the good places to start your market research.

22Jan
Top 6 Entrepreneurship Blogs You Should Read

All you really need to brush up on your entrepreneurial skills is a good internet connection and a functioning computer. A simple Google search will result in great advice that you can use to your startup’s advantage. You can find amazing blogs from seasoned entrepreneurs, or even watch live streams and webinars. And, best of all, they are free! One of my favorite channels is the 500 Startups. If you look through their archives you can find so many helpful video resources on a number of topics are are sure to enlighten your entrepreneurial understanding.

If you’re more of a reader you should consider following blogs regularly. They will help keep you up-to-date on various entrepreneurial practices that could make or break your business. The following are six blogs that I look to for information and tips that I pass on to any entrepreneur that I coach.

Tomasz Tunguz – tomtunguz.com

Tomasz Tunguz’s blog is well-written and informative. It’s a great resource for finding out how your company fits into industry trends. He always provides metrics and analyses to corroborate his findings, which make his points easier to understand. Tomasz updates often and provides great tips for start-ups.

Dan Martell-https://clarity.fm/danmartell

Dan Martell offers tips on entrepreneurship in general and emphasizes the entrepreneur rather than the business. He uses real-life examples to help entrepreneurs navigate the startup arena, and provides really practical advice to new business owners.

Duct Tape Marketing – ducttapemarketing.com/blog

Duct Tape Marketing gives marketing tips that are simple to follow and easy to understand. You could have a fantastic business but if you don’t know how to sell your product, you’re dead in the water. Marketing is crucial, and the information that Duct Tape Marketing provides transcends industry, meaning it’s applicable to any business.

CB Insights Blog – cbinsights.com/blog

CB Insights Blog is ideal if you’re looking to raise VC money. It provides examples that will give you crucial insight on potential investors, and will help you clue in on important investments happening in the world of business.

Tech Crunch – techcrunch.com

As its name suggests, Tech Crunch only highlights new initiatives in the tech world. If you’re running a tech company, it can give you ideas on how to position your business in comparison to your competitors.

Ryan Hoover – ryanhoover.me

Ryan Hoover, inventor of Product Hunt, is a young entrepreneur who is easy to relate to. His writing is simple, funny, and unintimidating. I often refer his blog to young entrepreneurs who are entering the tech world and could use someone to identify with.

Bonus tip: A fantastic way to keep track of your favorite blog posts is by using Pinterest. Here is the LINK to my page where you can see which other bloggers have caught my eye.

8Dec
Hiring Talent for Your Startup

Today’s startups need the best possible talent. Great people are out there and it’s up to you, as the entrepreneur, to find them or to attract them. Perhaps you have never been an employer before, so it’s imperative to have a clear understanding of the kind of talent you need, but most importantly, the kind of work environment you wish to cultivate. Like every individual has a personality, every company has a culture. What kind of culture do you wish to have? Is it unique? Energizing? Compelling? Here are some tips for hiring based on your company’s culture.

Hire slow & fire fast. If an employee doesn’t fit the vision you have for your workplace, listen to your intuition and let them go. Not all people will fit within the culture of your company; they may hinder the creative process and slow down teamwork, even if, on paper, they’re qualified for the job.

Hire relevant experience. Desired work experience should be defined not in terms of years, but rather in terms of specific work achievements. A way to define work experience is in relation to their previous work environment. As you review candidates, pay attention to work histories in which applicants were required to perform with little managerial supervision and team assistance.

Don’t be too micromanagy. At some point, you’re going to have to relinquish some of your responsibilities. This is the only way your company will grow. Hire people you have confidence in so that you won’t be inclined to monitor their every move. An autonomous and proficient worker will give you peace of mind.

Pay well and have the right incentives. It seems like a no-brainer, but paying well and having the right perks in place will really help you attract some killer talent. Instill a results-oriented work environment wherein the employee is allowed freedom, and the main mandate is getting the job done. This is the type of innovative perk that attracts people.

By the time you create the right company culture, you should have the type of start-up where great talents want to work at. Who seeks out companies like these? Individuals who are sharp, capable, and motivated.

Like attracts like. Kind attracts kind. And if you want to attract innovators, you’ve got to be innovative.

24Nov
The Benefits of a Social Business Model

At ProMontreal Entrepreneurs, our incentive is to help our community. Our primary concern is to give young entrepreneurs the resources they need to launch their businesses by providing tactical help, funding, or in some cases, both. In other words, we are not in it for the money but for the socio-economic impact inherent in such an initiative. The model ProMontreal Entrepreneurs uses is called a social business model.

This model is based on the innovative ideas of Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank. Grameen Bank provides micro loans to individuals in poverty-stricken areas (it began in Bangladesh), in order to alleviate them from poverty. What makes Grameen Bank different from charitable organizations is that it does not simply offer a one-time solution to poverty; the goal is to cultivate and maintain financial and economic stability. It promotes the ethos of the quote “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”. The impetus is to try and solve poverty instead of simply managing it.

I believe that there’s a place for Muhammad Yunus’ model in industrial nations, and it starts with PME. As a community, we decided to put our efforts together to enable our youth—to inspire them to stay in Montreal, and in some cases, to free them from the cycle of poverty. We’re different from other programs because we have extremely low interest rates, we require a personal guarantee in the form of a promissory note, and we give our founders moratorium on payments and interest for one year. This is drastically different from getting a loan from a bank, for example. The bank’s interest rate may be low (6%) however they do not take risks; they need their money back guaranteed. In other cases, the way interest in calculated is based on risk. The riskier the business, the higher the interest rate.

An initiative that focuses solely on the socio-economic impacts and benefits of entrepreneurship is unprecedented in the Montreal area. We believe there is immense power and potential in knowing that what we offer will have a direct impact in someone’s life. In our fifteen years, we have witnessed firsthand just what this impact means for our cohort members. Once we have helped them and their business is thriving, the impact can be felt by all—whether it is by the jobs they create, the innovations they bring, or the taxes they pay. PME helps build a strong economic landscape for all Montrealers and Quebecers. Many times, an individual with a budding business idea is looking for someone who will take a chance on them and believe in them. That’s what PME is here for, and that’s the main goal in adopting a social business model.