New Funding Approaches to Support Startups
The Startup Canada Calgary Town Hall introduced 3 core new ides to the Startup Canada portfolio of community-backed projects. We also
heard old favourites within the domains of mentorship, one-stop shopping for entrepreneurial support services, and a new take on the entrepreneur –to-entrepreneur business lava life solution. Let’s jump in.
UnBanked positioned the development of a micro money seed fund that would provide small scale investments into local businesses to help them address practical business challenges. The group indicated that initially they would look to raise around $200,000 in seed capital, which would then be provided to an investment group, and the money generated through interest or returns would be available for investment into local businesses. The group also noted that the UnBanked philosophy to help local business is meant to counteract the government handout approach, which does not work very well, and that their program would instead be positioned as a small business step up program.
Who Moved Our Mouse positioned a provincial/national entrepreneurial webinar series that would, at the outset, teach people how to raise business startup capital from friends, family, fools, and other investors. The objective of the webinar series would be to help new entrepreneurs get the initial capital they need to startup their business sooner, much quicker than the current Canadian norm. To attract attention to the webinar series the group would reach out to famous, knowledgeable, and successful investors and entrepreneurs, and have them chair each of the opening webinar session. This would hopefully attract a groundswell of attention to the series in the beginning, and would help to attract potential sponsors and supporters.
Risk is Good positioned an entrepreneur-to-big-business connection platform that would help to create valuable partnerships between skilled new entrepreneurs and medium to large scale companies looking to secure specialized advice, technology support, or business services. An example of how the platform would work is as follows: Let’s say that we have a medium sized electrical engineering firm that really requires specialized software development support, and we have an specialized software developer that is looking to test out a new program in an electrical engineering testing facility; the platform would be designed to connect these two groups together so that one could share their facilities and the other could share their skillset in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Ultimately there was a sense that local entrepreneurs rarely work with medium to large scale business, even though there are many opportunities to create valuable partnerships. The revenue model for this service would be pay-to-post your requirement plus membership fees.
IM Harmony positioned a traditional match making and mentorship service, but one that would be focused on connecting new entrepreneurial immigrants in Canada to seasoned local entrepreneurs in their area. The established Canadian entrepreneur would provide the new immigrant with critical advice, network connections, talent sources, etc. and would help them to speed up the process of setting up their new venture in Canada – and hopefully with much higher levels of success.
Mentor Link positioned a social web-enabled mentor program that would be targeted towards a focused set of business/challenge areas (to be determined with widespread stakeholder engagement) around which a targeted group of mentors would be indentified and secured. Revenue would be generated through sponsorships and through advertising driven by the likely high levels of web-traffic through the social media sites.
Canadian Startup Venture Fund positioned a crowdfunding-enabled, entrepreneurial-support-focused mutual fund. At the outset, the Fund would focus on securing a base of funding from Canadians through crowdfunding approaches and would then turn this money over to an experienced fund manager (to be recruited) who would use the money to invest exclusively in small Canadian startups. The Fund would also partner with local business support and mentorship organizations, and would require that all firms receiving funding take full advantage of the parallel tracked business support and mentorship services. The group also noted that the Fund would need to be launched alongside a robust marketing strategy that would clearly communicate the benefits of investing in Canadian startups to potential crowdfunding contributors.
Overall, the Calgary Town Hall came up with many exceptional new ideas to support entrepreneurship in Canada, and their new solutions to classic challenges were refreshing.
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The Startup Canada Calgary Town Hall introduced 3 core new ides to the Startup Canada portfolio of community-backed projects. We also heard old favourites within the domains of mentorship, one-stop shopping for entrepreneurial support services, and a new take on the entrepreneur –to-entrepreneur business lava life solution. Let’s jump in.
UnBanked positioned the development of a micro money seed fund that would provide small scale investments into local businesses to help them address practical business challenges. The group indicated that initially they would look to raise around $200,000 in seed capital, which would then be provided to an investment group, and the money generated through interest or returns would be available for investment into local businesses. The group also noted that the UnBanked philosophy to help local business is meant to counteract the government handout approach, which does not work very well, and that their program would instead be positioned as a small business step up program.
Who Moved Our Mouse positioned a provincial/national entrepreneurial webinar series that would, at the outset, teach people how to raise business startup capital from friends, family, fools, and other investors. The objective of the webinar series would be to help new entrepreneurs get the initial capital they need to startup their business sooner, much quicker than the current Canadian norm. To attract attention to the webinar series the group would reach out to famous, knowledgeable, and successful investors and entrepreneurs, and have them chair each of the opening webinar session. This would hopefully attract a groundswell of attention to the series in the beginning, and would help to attract potential sponsors and supporters.
Risk is Good positioned an entrepreneur-to-big-business connection platform that would help to create valuable partnerships between skilled new entrepreneurs and medium to large scale companies looking to secure specialized advice, technology support, or business services. An example of how the platform would work is as follows: Let’s say that we have a medium sized electrical engineering firm that really requires specialized software development support, and we have an specialized software developer that is looking to test out a new program in an electrical engineering testing facility; the platform would be designed to connect these two groups together so that one could share their facilities and the other could share their skillset in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Ultimately there was a sense that local entrepreneurs rarely work with medium to large scale business, even though there are many opportunities to create valuable partnerships. The revenue model for this service would be pay-to-post your requirement plus membership fees.
IM Harmony positioned a traditional match making and mentorship service, but one that would be focused on connecting new entrepreneurial immigrants in Canada to seasoned local entrepreneurs in their area. The established Canadian entrepreneur would provide the new immigrant with critical advice, network connections, talent sources, etc. and would help them to speed up the process of setting up their new venture in Canada – and hopefully with much higher levels of success.
Mentor Link positioned a social web-enabled mentor program that would be targeted towards a focused set of business/challenge areas (to be determined with widespread stakeholder engagement) around which a targeted group of mentors would be indentified and secured. Revenue would be generated through sponsorships and through advertising driven by the likely high levels of web-traffic through the social media sites.
Canadian Startup Venture Fund positioned a crowdfunding-enabled, entrepreneurial-support-focused mutual fund. At the outset, the Fund would focus on securing a base of funding from Canadians through crowdfunding approaches and would then turn this money over to an experienced fund manager (to be recruited) who would use the money to invest exclusively in small Canadian startups. The Fund would also partner with local business support and mentorship organizations, and would require that all firms receiving funding take full advantage of the parallel tracked business support and mentorship services. The group also noted that the Fund would need to be launched alongside a robust marketing strategy that would clearly communicate the benefits of investing in Canadian startups to potential crowdfunding contributors.
Overall, the Calgary Town Hall came up with many exceptional new ideas to support entrepreneurship in Canada, and their new solutions to classic challenges were refreshing.
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