ONsetMagazine Final
Content
S E T
Magazine
Inspiring and informing Ontario’ Ontario’s s
CAREER GUIDE TO VIDEO GAME WRITING DEFINING START-UP: Where to draw the line BREAKING THE BOYS CLUB: How women are making a name in tech ’ ’
HOW I MET MY CO-FOUNDER? CO-FOUNDER? What start-up bachelor(ette)s need to know about co-founder matchmaking
young tech entrepreneurs
HAMILTON: The next Waterloo? Brennan McEachran, 22 CEO of HitSend/Red Bull Drinker/DMZ-er/Multitasker Bryan Xu, 29 Managing Director Director of IdeaNotion Coffee Add Addict ict//Multitasker
ROCK LIKE A ONE-MAN BAND: How start-up entrepreneurs multitask
PREMIERE ISSUE WINTER 2012 $3.75
Editorial
Table of C ntents Briefs 3-4 Community Your start-up is growing, what’s next? 5 Hamilton: The next Waterloo 6-7 Breaking the boys’ club 8 Tech T ech brain drain: drain: A Canadian Canadian problem? 9 Money Why Ontario’s can’t use KickStarter 10 Learn the ropes: How do investment work in the start-up world? 11 Lifestyle Designing by utility 12-13 How to Rock like a one-man band 14-15 Q&A: Can friends be business partners? 16 What start-up bachelor(ette)s need to know about co-founder matchmaking? 17 Before the beginning of everything: Preparations for launching a business 18 Four secrets for success 18 Education Start-up: Rethinking the term 19 Entrepreneurship Entrepren eurship centres: Build your business with your school’s help 20-21 Career guide to video game writing 22-2 22-23 3
2
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Editor 's Word From the BlackBerry’s birthplace o Waterloo to Toronto classrooms developing lie-changing medical apps, Ontario is a hub o technological innovation. Start-ups — a trendy term or technology-ocused businesses that are trying to make it big — are attracting thousands o young people to the heart o the province’s economy. ONset Magazine covers Ontario’s start-up culture, oering young entrepreneurs a publication that inorms, inspires and empowers them in the knowledge economy as they vie or success. We dig deep into technology and business issues and develop Canadian and Ontario-specifc news angles. We tell our readers in plain language about training programs,, laws, government grants available in the programs province and in the country and ways to fnd investors. We also highlight success stories to inspire readers, and appeal to groups underrepresented in the industry, including women and immigrants immigrants.. Please join us as we explore Ontario’s startup community in the next 24 pages. Sincerely, ONset Magazine editorial team
Editorial Team
Dylan C. Robertson
Jennifer Pang
Sarah Taguiam
Sunnie Huang
Briefs HOW-TO
Pitching: your verbal verbal business card car d
O
Nset Magazine talked to two panellists on ’s weekly show Te Business News Network ’s Pitch to compile a demo day survival guide. Te hal-an-hour show where entrepreneurs pitch in ront o investors has eatured anything rom anti-bacterial towel to intimacy toy gi boxes. Dr. Leslie Roberts, president and ounder o GoForth Institute, a small business training company, said she can’t stress enough to entrepreneurs how important it is to always have a sound pitch ready to go. “All entrepreneurs should be rehearsing a oneto two-minute pitch in their head, so they could pull it out o their pocket like a good business card and deliver it,” said the entrepreneurship specialist. “Tose could be game changing some time. “Whether you are actually raising money or you are just being introduced to somebody at a cocktail party, you have to be prepared or those moments, because opportunities can be lost i you are not able to communicate what is so g reat about the business you are running, running,”” she said. Tat doesn’t doesn’t come naturally or tech te ch entrepreneurs, however, according to Dr. Roberts.
“echnology entrepreneurs are some o the worst pitchers I have ever heard, because the only thing they know is the technology. “Tey are not clear, concise and slow communicators. Tey get lost in the technical jargon. And that o course loses the investors.” Jacoline Loewen, director o corporate nance rm Loewen & Partners, said the communication gap between entrepreneurs and investors can be best explained by John Grey ’s 1992 relationship advice mega-bestseller. mega-b estseller. “Finance people are rom Mars and entrepreneurs are rom Venus. You have to speak their language,” she said. Metaphor aside, to Loewen, pitching is more like an art than science. She looks or clues that reveal young entrepreneurs’ commitment. It is not uncommon or the once-enthusiastic pitchers to leave behind their ideas and work or more prestigious companies, leaving their investors empty-handed. “I’m looking at the idea, but I’m really looking at the person,” she said. s aid. — Sunnie Huang
Pitching tips Prepare diferent versions o your pitch. Be ready to pitch on TV, to a live audience, or at a cofee shop to an investor who is ready to sign a cheque. Pitch oten. The more opportunities you have to tell the story, the better. Dress or success. Although costumes and props might help investors remember you better, proessional attire is imperative. Don’t be over-optimistic. Use real numbers. No kittens or rainbows. Rehearse,, rehearse, rehearse. Rehearse I you pitch on T V, the ootage can be recycled on your website as a virtual pitch. pitch. Some humour and a smile go a long way.
TECH CULTURE
Caffeine + stress = app success? We followed a 48-hour hackathon. A full story and video are posted online, but here’s a taste
H
unched in ront o his laptop, Abhishek Gupta sis through hundreds o lines o code, guring how best to x a small programming glitch. It’s 1:30 a.m. and the oronto student is spending his Saturday night at Ryerson University’s innovation lab overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square. his late September weekend, hundreds o post-secondary students like Gupta are pulling allnighters across Canada. Tey’re participants in the two-day Great Canadian Appathon. “I think I slept three hours,” says Gupta, pushing his hair back with one hand while con-
Dylan C. Robertson/ONset Magazine
tinuing to type. His eyes don’t leave his screen. “Tat’s aer he passed out acerst on the beanbag,” chimes in teammate Brandon Perkins. Te two pause or a brie laugh, then go back to coding. Tey’re trying to win the third edition o the appathon, dubbed GCA³. eams o up to our students have been invited to build a mobile game app rom scratch in just 48 hours
or cash prizes, geek stardom and much more. A spectacled student in a neon-green giveaway -shirt is splayed out on a bench in a dark corner. About 25 students are silently tapping away on their keyboards. One just phones in an order o Chinese ood. One team has built a pyramid made o the 25 cans o giveaway Red Bull they consumed. By Sunday at 5 p.m., 518 stu-
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
dents in each province will have spent a weekend at one o the participating 39 colleges and universities. When Gupta’s team kicked of at 5 p.m. Friday, they were upbeat and ready or a challenge, “stoked” as Perkins put it, to build a game that mixes chess with this year’s theme: retro design. But the clock’s ticking, as team leader Budd Royce Lam is well aware. “We’re on schedule, we just have to keep it that way,” says Lam, who’s working on just ve hours o sleep. Tough he doesn’t want to get ahead o himsel, Lam has his eye on the $25,000 top prize. His team, Whiskey ango Foxtrot (WF), is competing or a spot in Canada’ Canad a’s competitive but understafed game industry industry... ... — Dylan C. Robertson 3
Briefs WELCOMING THE WORLD
Canada to launch launch start-up star t-up visa in 2013
W
hen a Vancouver incubatior head put out a worldwide call or talent, he never knew he’d end up driving to Detroit. Danny Robinson welcomed two promising Romanian wunderkinds to launch a start-up. But with no visa or companies that have yet to launch, the group ended up in a two-year bureaucratic saga o denied applications, quixotic drives across the U.S. border and red tape. “Te experience put in concrete terms how hard it is to launch a start-up while getting a visaa in vis in Cana Canada, da,” say sayss Boris Wertz, a longtime colleague o Robinson’s. Te two launched an advocacy organization o tech employers and entrepreneurs, petitioning or a start-up visa similar to ones in New Zealand, the U.K., Ireland and Chile. Te petition generated enough pressure that Minister o Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenny announced a start-up visa in April, at a press conerence with CBC’s Dragon’s Den Den star Kevin O’Leary . CIC anticipates opening 2,750 spots in a
pilot project starting in 2013. Te visa is set to ollow the conventional path o requiring applicants to secure unding beore arriving. Te industry petition called or a $150,000 requirement, a third more than an ongoing U.S. proposal and double the U.K.’s ’s amount. Some blogs have criticized the government’s requirement or venture unding, saying that entrepreneurs who gain unding through crowdsourcing are excluded, while venture capitalists are given an undue amount o power. But CIC ocials believe it could prevent raud. “I we want to succeed as a country we need to attract the best companies to Canada,” says Wertz, who was born in Germany. “Te visa is not the whole solution, but I think it can be a pillar.”
Jason Kenney
Kevin O’Leary
Courtesy of CIC Media Centre
There’s much There’ much mor more e to the visa story story,, includi including ng an ongoing project to launch an innovation hub on a boat just outside U.S. jurisdiction… Catch the full story at www.onsetmag.com
— Dylan C. Robertson
HEALTH
Start-ups compete against age-old methods Start-ups aimed at people with health needs face off against some unconventional rivals
O
ne way to make sense o a company’s vision and goal is to look at its competitors. But orget about market share and price wars, or now. GaitTronics Inc., an Ottawabased company that designs a robotic device that helps patients to move around, is in the battle with a much more established competitor. “Our real competitor is the status quo where you have three or our sta helping the patient get out o bed and walking them down the hallway so they can get the exercise they need aer the surgery,” said Richard Beranek , president and co-ounder o Gaitronics.
4
Gaitronics was established in April, 2012 by Beranek and other two owners. “[Te] technology that we’re developing is a robotic patienthandling device. So the concept is that we can bring some automation and some productivity
support the patient, so the main thing with that is the risk o injury or both patient and the nurses is signifcantly reduced.” As a recently established company, Gaitronics still needs sucient time to realize its vision.
develops iPhone and iPad applications that help people with speech disabilities to communicate eectively, is also competing against a strong competitor. But MyVoice’s competitor has been around or centuries. “We sometimes joke that our number one competitor is paper, “Our real competitor is the status quo which is a sort o a unny thing where you have three or four staff helping but it’s actually true i you look at justt the sheer number jus number o people, people, the patient get out of bed.” — Richard Beranek the most common communication aid in the world right now increases to nurses and hospitals “I think our fnal product prob- are paper boards,” said Alex Levy , so that [they can] get patients ably won’t won’t be launched until 2015 CEO o MyVoice Inc. up and walking right aer a sur- or 2016. It’s gonna be in some He explained that even though gery with the whole help o only orm o product development in papers are commonly used to asone sta,” Beranek said. the next a couple years. I think th ink we sist people with speech disabiliBeranek also explained that will be in the position to start sells ell- ties, they are not very eective. their device has an “automatic ing beta versions or early versions “Tere is less that you can all detection system”, which o it into the research market do to anticipate a user’s needs. “allows the device to catch the sometime in 2014,” 2014,” Beranek Ber anek said. [And] somebody has to watch patient automatically rather Similar to Gaitronics, them, them,”” he said. than having the nurse there to MyVoice Inc., a company that — Jennifer Pang WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
COMMUNITY
In New York, a desk at a typical coworking space costs about $600 a month and comes with phone lines and Internet access.
Chris Sukornyk
Courtesy of Chango Inc.
Your start-up is growing, gr owing, what’s what’s next? Globe-trotting CEO Chris Sukornyk shares some advice on running multiple ofces
F
our oces and our kids later, Chris Sukornyk is still going strong. Te CEO and ounder o Chango Inc., a real-time ad targeting company, company, announced on Nov. 21 that his start-up has secured an additional $12 million in unding with existing investors, making it one o the astest growing marketing technology companies in the world. Along with 50 new positions, Chango will also open three more oces in Detroit, London and Chicago, adding to the impressivee lineup o oces in Los Angeles, impressiv San Francisco, New York and oronto. “Tese are great cities to visit,” said Sukornyk, 32, rom his oronto oce. “But I spend a lot o time on Skype.” While communications technology is breaking down the connes o oce walls, start-up entrepreneurs still rely on their undamental judgement, keen observation and business instinct when it comes to launching and running multiple oces. Chango’s U.S. oces usually start with one person who works rom home. As lo-
cal clients grow, additional employees are brought in and the company proceeds to rent desks at coworking spaces. “You only get your own oce once you have an established growth plan and you want to get out o the desk-by-desk situation,” Sukornyk said. With the announcement o the most recent round o unding, Chango’s revenue has grown more than 600 per cent over the past two years. When a start-up is growing so rapidly, Sukornyk said it’s sometimes dicult to gauge how many oces or how much space is needed. Entrepreneurs need to strike a balance between over-commitment and underestimation — sometimes using gut instinct. “As a start-up, you really do want to be absolutely busting up the scenes beore you commit to anything that’s xed big cost,” Sukornyk said. One o the strategies to mitigate uncertainty, Sukornyk suggested, is to negotiate a exible lease with landlords who are exWWW.ONSETMAG.COM
ible. Chango’s oronto team, or example, will soon take over another oor o its King Street West oce complex. While setting up new oces south o the border, Sukornyk also learnt to tailor employee benets to regional dierences. Whereas most o his Canadian employees don’t see benets as the deciding actor o taking on a job, their American counterparts place great emphasis on health care coverage. “You play by ear and gure out as you go,” Sukornyk suggested, adding that hiring local lawyers to draf contracts is essential. Sukornyk also said the culture in each oce can be subtly dierent. Te oronto oce houses mostly developers, who Sukornyk describes as introverted. Te U.S. oces, which are marketing-ocused, are homes to sales specialists who are more outgoing.
R
ob Mitchell, assistant proessor at th Richard Ivey School of Business who specializes in entrepreneurship, agreed that culture is valuable to start-ups, but it doesn’t have to be consistent throughout all locations. CEOs can either encourage competition among dierent oces or teams, or reward them collectively or collaborated work. “It’s not necessarily one or the other is better, it depends on what [the CEOs] are trying to accomplish,” Mitchell said. One o the biggest challenges or a company with multiple locations, according to Mitchell, is the missed opportunity o inormal encounters, such as hallway conversations and lunch-time talks. echnology such as video conerencing and live chat can shorten the virtual distance, but cannot replace the ace-to-ace interaction. “Entrepreneurship is inherently uncertain. Having multiple oces is just one element o uncertainty [entrepreneurs] are acing,” Mitchell added. For Sukornyk, no matter where his oce takes him, one thing is certain. “I’m not CEO o multiple oces, I’m CEO o one company,” he said. “When you are expanding into new cities, it means your company is growing and that’s exciting.” — Sunnie Huang 5
COMMUNITY
In 2011, Hamilton’s population was 520,000; that’s a fth o Toronto’s 2,600,000. Waterloo counts 98,700 people.
HAMILTON The Next Waterloo? A con concer certed ted ef effor fortt is is stee steerin ring g The Hammer from a grimy steel town into an innovation hub for medical technology. Dylan C. Robertson explores how one city is pivoting its industry through start-ups
Godreault is good at contests. In May, Mohawk College sent him to Vancouver, to compete and win the e-Health 2012 Apps Challenge. Te $3,500 competition required entrepreneurs to pitch their app to health soware proessionals. Judges grilled all nine teams, and Godreault says he was ready because his instructors prepared him or it. “We learned how to pitch and get people interested and paying attention. I knew nothing about pitching,” he says. “I’m a guy with an idea. Tey showed me how to make it work.”
K
evin Browne is on a mission to change the ace o Hamilton. As a 29-year-old computer science PhD c andidate at McMaster University, his decade-long career has included a 16-month stint in Waterloo, Ontario’s tech mecca. “[Waterloo’s] a nice place to live; good place to raise a amily,” Browne says. “But Hamilton is home to me. And we have so much to oer.” Despite Hamilton’s low cost o rent, vibrant art scene and sizable ohawk College sits atop Hamilton Mountain. A platorm down downtown, it wasn’t enough to keep his tech colleagues in town. the street overlooks the city’s aging steel mills and industrial Browne says “it was very personally rustrating” to see riends leave downtown. or jobs in oronto, Waterloo, New York and Silicon Valley. In 2010, In the heart o the main campus, past its wind turbines and glass aer years o the usual rotation, he asked a riend why he was leaving. walls, Jerad Godreault, 21, types sporadically on his Macbook. He sits “He said you need a community; you need events and networks,” on an IKEA couch at iDeaWORKS, the college’s innovation hub that Browne recalls. reca lls. “You “You can’t just create this out o thin air.” takes bright students with ideas and equips with them resources and Determined to stop the brain drain, Browne gathered his riends know-how. together and launched Hamilton’s frst DemoCamp in March 2011. Godreault, a soware development student, co-ounded the medi- Te event attracted 100 people, including unamiliar aces. cal app Imaginauts with his brother Leo, a nursing graduate. Teir Tings snowballed. Within a year, Hamilton Hamilton had multiple monthly and app tracks a patient’s prescription compliance by reminding them to annual events, rom networking and competitions to employee-employer employee-employer take their drugs, and logging when they do. Doctors can monitor the matchmaking sessions. data, which can suggest when in the day a prescription works best. In early October 2012, the city held its second annual Lion’ Lion’ss Lair L air A born-and-raised Hamiltoevent, a take on Dragon’s Den nian, Godreault is enthusiastic that sees 10 entrepreneurs comabout his city’s “nurturing, suppete or $100,000 in investment portive community.” He’s also a and contracts. Both events sold test case in a concerted eort to out, with over 500 guests and transrom this municipality o plenty o media coverage. 520,000 rom a steel town to a hub Browne’s initiative is only part o medical tech innovation. o the story. Local colleges, uniTe iDeaWORKS lab is a con versities, city planning departcrete-walled room with tables o ments and employers are taking computers, multiple whiteboards an all-hands-on-board approach and binders o inormation on coto making new technology a key op placements. Tree-dimensionpart o Hamilton’s Hamilton’s economy. ec onomy. al cardboard fgures rom video “We’re all on the same page games hang rom the ceiling, inand it’s not an issue to say ‘Hey, cluding a Zelda logo and the Super I’m doing this event, do you Dylan C. Robertson/ONset Magazine Mario Ma rio question-mark cube. have anyone who could help me Godreault is sending mesout?’” says Carolynn Reid o the Jerad Godreault sages to people he met at recent networking events. He’s asking or city’ city’ss economic development department, which oers consulting, votes in Startof Hamilton, a city-wide, month-long contest where unding and promoti promotion. on. start-ups pitch their idea to Hamiltonians, who vote or the best At least one tech patent is fled rom Hamilton each week, and the idea. Te contest, with $150,000 at stake, has attracted 27 teams. city’s digital ootprint is displayed through the hundreds o stickers or Stickers with 8-bit graphics promoting the long competition are October’s Hamilton Starto competition, as well as the 17,000 unique peppered across the city city.. voter vo ters. s. CBC chose the city or its frst digital-only branch this spring.
M
6
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Jam es Street
Business Dis tr ict
Gore Park
With Victorian stone houses, a bustling business district and wide streets, Hamilton mixes a city and town feel. See more photos online at onsetmag.co onsetmag.com m
A big orce behind this shi toward new technologies has been non-prot,, provincially unded organization Innovation Factory , a non-prot that connects start-ups with investors and resources. It even mirrors the tech industry’s penchant or unconventional spelling: iF iF.. In less than two years, iF counts 350 start-up clients, hal o which work in inormation and communications technology. Tat gives Hamilton’s tech industry roughly a ourth the he o Waterloo, a city the province started investing in as a tech hub in the 1960s. I building a tech base rom scratch is a challenge, ghting negative impressions impressions is no cakewalk. ca kewalk. “I never thought o living in Hamilton until I actually explored the city. It diered in every way rom my rst impression,” says Keanin Loomis, iF’s chie advocate who lived in Waterloo and Washington, DC. “People are riendly and really down-to-earth. I ell or the city.” Start-ups have ollowed a similar path, like REfcient, an online marketplace where businesses can buy and sell surplus inventory across seven countries. Founded in Mississauga, the company moved to Hamilton last year to save 30 per cent o their business costs and rent, and hasn hasn’t ’t looked back.
cardigans are in vogue tonight, as is pumpkin-favoured beer. It’s the one-year anniversary ann iversary o StartUpDrinks, an inormal monthly evening where ideas, business cards and cra draught fow. “I can’t think o a reason to leave the city,” says Steve Veerman, a soware developer or Postmedia who was raised in Hamilton. “You have events like tonight, and a bunch o stu that Kevin [Browne] got going and some sort o tech culture here.” Outside his day job, Veerman is working on Eventity , an app that maps out social media on events around the city. onight, he’s also hawking or votes or the online Starto Hamilton competition. Over the course o an evening, two strangers will come up with an idea or an app and write it on a napkin, a young entrepreneur will land a job interview intervie w and almost everyone will discuss the city’s monthly outdoor outdoor art crawl that happened earlier that week. “From what I can see, we’re blossoming as a city,” says Duane Hewitt , a biologist by trade who’s hoping to expand his consulting work into mobile health technology. “Hamilton’s sort o the best place or health-ocused work.” Many o the projects discussed at this month’s StartupDrinks have a medical ocus. Hamilton is where most North American “Steel’s important to our economy and our eHealth records systems are designed, and the city hosts medical identity, but we’re so much more. People have competitions like Apps or Health. Healthcare has long been the city’s second industry aer steel, to come and see the city for what it is.” he alth research rom McMaster, the prov— Carolynn Reid propelled by decades o health ince’s largest medical school. Trough new technology start-ups, But Loomis says Hamilton can be dwared by its proximity to health is remerging as Hamilton’s raison d’être. oronto, and long-held perceptions linger. Te city’s switch to health innovation echoes the path travelled beore “When people rom Southern Ontario hear Hamilton, they see by Kitchener and Waterloo, two cities that pivoted rom insurance compathe steel mills along the QEW,” says Loomis. nies and manuacturing to mobile innovation over the past two decades. Te other route into Hamilton is through Hwy. 403, which passCommunitech, a Waterloo non-prot similar to Hamilton’s iF, es by the McMaster Innovation Park , a red-brick building where estimates that 30,000 people are now employed in more than 1,000 researchers and entrepreneurs share workspaces and ideas. tech rms in the Kitchener-Waterloo Kitchener-Waterloo area, with new ones popping “Steel’s important to our economy and our identity, but we’re so up at a rate that doubles every ever y year. much more,” says Reid, o the city’s economic development departJust as Waterloo start-ups steered the city to mobile innovation, ment. “People have to come and see the city or what it is.” Hamilton start-ups are looking to make waves in medical technology. “A lot o my clients have health-related businesses. I guess health is t’s a windy Tursday night in October and Te Winking Judge, a sort o our bridge into the tech world,” says im Miron, an accounmicrobrewery pub operating in a Victorian house, is bustling. tant who works with many start-up clients. He points across the bar to Upstairs, a group o about 30 techies is chatting big ideas. Some are some entrepreneurs he’s been chatting with, all in their 20s. in their 20s, but most are mid-aged. Almost all are male. Unbuttoned “We’ll get there through these guys.”
I
Dylan C. Robertson/ONset Magazine WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
iDeaWORKS at Mohawk College
7
COMMUNITY
e i i r u a L h c u a R
In Canada, 25 per cent o the tech sector is made up o women. Only 16 per cent o them hold leadership roles.
BREAKING THE BOY’S CLUB
Sarah Taguiam/ONset Magazine
L
aurie Rauch is ond o words. Aer weathering the recession, she never imagined she’d still be writing — but with new languages like HML and CSS. “I was always ascinated with web developing but … it was just something a lot o women at the time didn’t do,” Rauch said. aking a giant leap, she learned the necessary skills or a tech career and now owns web developing company Code Diva. Rauch is part o the glaringly small 25 per cent o women working in Canada’s tech sector — a number that has puzzled industry proessionals or decades. “Wee have this potential to … impact just “W about every business but we aren’t taking up that challenge,” said University of Toronto computer comput er science s cience proessor Kelly Lyons. “I don’t understand why we’re still not 50 per cent o tech.” Tough no one knows the exact reason, Lyons, Lyo ns, who joined j oined previously worked as an IBM program director beore joining U o in 2008, said there are theories explaining the situation like the stereotype that tech is a boy’s club. CanWIT executive director Emily Boucher ound that most women see tech companies as “a room ull o men working in a dark room coding in the wee hours.” 8
A 2007 Ryerson University Diversity Institute study ound the notion that tech jobs
ter one month aer raising unding or her luxury home decor sales site, Pulver acutely are ocused on coding contributed to a de- elt the pull o motherhood. cline in emale enrollment in tech univer“Tere have denitely been some meetsity programs. Te place where women are ings where I’m more pre-occupied with my most scarce, however, is boardrooms. kids and what they’re doing than what’s beIn Canada, only 16 per cent o women ing discussed on the table,” table,” she agreed. agree d. hold leadership roles in the corporate secBut Pulver said it’s possible to balance it tor and only 14 companies had women in as long as you have a good support system. executive ranks in Deloitte’s list o 50 astest In Ontario, several industry organizagrowing technology rms. tions and initiatives are put in place to assist women who are already working in the “There have defnitely been industry or looking to enter it. CanWit and Wired Woman ofer mensome meetings where I’m more torship programs that pair new proessionpre-occupied with my kids and als with leaders in the eld, while oronto what they’re doing than what’ what’ss incubator Driven Accelerator Group provides training and support to startups being discussed .” — Aliza Pulver led by women and people o colour. Te group Girls in Tech Toronto hosts socials Facebook CEO Cheryl Sandberg a- eaturing women tech speakers, while Lamously deconstructs the phenomenon in a dies Learning Code acilitate introductory 2012 ED alk, saying that rearing children workshops on like HML and CSS. and managing a household on top o havTough these initiatives are airly new, ing a job cause some women to quietly shy they have already grabbed the attention o away rom the career enhancement. the Ontario’s Ontario’s tech world — a possible sign oronto-based Homesav.com CEO, and o better things to come or women. mother o two, Aliza Pulver is all too amil“Lie ‘s moving and women have to evolve iar with this scenario. with it and I think we are,” are,” Pulver said. Aer giving birth to her second daugh— Sarah Taguiam WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
According to a 2012 Pricewat PricewaterhouseCoopers erhouseCoopers report, nding and keeping great talent is the biggest problem o most Canadian start-up CEOs.
COMMUNITY
Tech brain bra in drain: dra in: a Cana Can a dia dian n prolem?
E
ven in his teens, teens, Albert Lai always knew that ih wanted to make a name or himsel in tech, he had to go to San Francisco. Driving or the rst time down Interstate 280 during the late 90’s, the 33-year-old oronto native recalled looking out his window, seeing green lawns anked by giant brick and steel campuses the size o miniature cities thinking, “I’ve ound my place.” Like him, hundreds o Ontarians ock to San Francisco’s Bay Area yearly — joining 350,000 Canadians, who according to Te Globe and Mail , reside and work within the region— eager to try their ortune in the world’s largest tech mecca. But the huge inux o Canadian employees leaving this country has created a gaping hole in the industry, creating a worrying tech brain drain.
nding more reasons to stay in Canada such as: the increase o start-up unding, the prestige associated to being in a a local startup and the large amount o high-prole start-ups that have spawned and been acquired in the country. Aer co-ounding ve start-ups, and exhausted rom living out o a suitcase, “People fock to Silicon Valley Lai decided to set up his sixth start-up and though that can be very Big Viking Games in London. “Te cost o living’s lower, talent rom inspiring to be around, it also hotbeds like University o Waterloo and means it’s very loud here .” Sheridan College is good and tax credits — Atlee Clark or building games are impressive,” he said. According to a 2012 PricewaterhouseCAtlee Clark , director o C100, an orgaoopers (PwC) report, nding and keeping nization o inuential Canadians in Silicon great talent is the biggest problem or most Valley, said that Canadian companies also Canadian start-up CEOs. Sixty-two per have the ability to ocus on their products cent o the CEOs interviewed said nding away rom the pressure o competition. qualied tech personnel has been harder, “People ock to Silicon Valley and as Silicon Valley companies scoop the m up. though that can be very inspiring to be One o the reasons behind this, accord- around, it also means it’s very loud here,” ing to University of Toronto organization- Clark said in an interview rom her San al behavior proessor Samantha Montes, is Francisco oce. that the younger generation, who are mostTunezy CEO Derrick Fung agreed, sayly employed in start-ups, is seeking chal- ing that being a big sh in a smaller pond lenges instead o long-term job security. can help propel start-ups into success. “Te new cohort’s more interested in At the same time, Fung, 26, who oundgetting experience that make them more ed his oronto-based music-sharing commarketable and i they’re not getting it, they pany 10 months ago, acknowledges that may leave,” Montes said. “big boys” like Facebook and Google can Lai agreed but said brain drain has been easily steal away elite employees and ofer a smaller problem Canada in recent years. them more attractive pay. According to him, tech employees are ech employee salaries tend to be higher highe r WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Sarah Taguiam/ONset Magazine
in San Francisco where entry-level incomes start around $60,000–80,000 CDN, while oronto employees are paid around Canadian $40,000–60,000 CDN, Lai said. However, companies like Fung’s and Lai’s stay competitive in hiring in several ways. As a newer start-up, Fung said ostering a more relaxed oce culture through exible work hours, stock options, a “mini-Google “mini-Google”” setup and ofering medical benets makes his start-up more attractive to employees. Lai recognizes that while there will always be “talented and curious” employees who can’t can’t be held back ba ck rom wanting to experience working in a tech centre like the Bay Area, there are others that are “talented, but apathetic about location.” Regardless o location, C100 director Clark said Canadians should support each other. Instead o adapting an “us-againstthem” mentality, Canadians, should encourage their peers who come down to the Valley to work, because bec ause aer all, “the Internet know no borders.” — Sarah Taguiam 9
MONEY
The Beacon bike light, launched launched through a KickStarter page, can now be ound at bike stores in Toronto and beyond: www.beaco www.beaconbikelights.com nbikelights.com
Why Ontarians can’t use KickStar KickStarter ter Archaic Archai c regu regulat lation ion law laws s are are hol holdin ding g entr entrepr epren eneur eurs s back from crowdfundin crowdfunding g initatives
E
ric Migicovsky had a good idea. He just needed money. It was spring o this year and the 26-year-old engineering student rom Vancouver had developed Pebble, a multi-purpose watch that connects wirelessly to smartphones. He invented the watch while a student at the University o WaterWaterloo’s innovation lab. la b. But when he couldn’t get a venture capitalist on board to make it big, he turned to the Internet. Websites like KickStarter acilitate crowdunding: pitch your idea globally and ask or small bits o investment on a site that takes a 5 per cent cut. U.S. crowdunding rm Massolution estimates that $1.5 billion was raised through online campaigns worldwide last year. Migicovsky launched a KickStarter page this May, oering a Pebble watch to people donating over $100. He thought he was being ambitious, asking strangers to cough up $100,000. In ve weeks, almost 70,000 people donated a total o $10 million — the most successul donation in the U.S.-based site’s three years. For Migicovsky, it was “the chance o a lietime” to ulll his dream. But he’d need a U.S. banking account to receive unds through KickStarter, even though contributions can come rom any country. It wasn’t a problem or Migicovsky, who moved Pebble’s operations to Silicon Valley aer rustration with a lack o Canadian venture capita capital.l. It’s It’s ar rom the rst start-up to migrate south or unds. Tis summer, the ederal government said it was alarmed by the requency o Canadian entrepreneurs moving abroad, and contributed $400 million to help the oen-lamentedkj lack o private investment. According to an October study by Ottawa crowdunding rm Ideavibes hal o Canadian start-ups rate riends and amily as their top source o unding. aking on debt was the second most popular. Lack strong personal credit records, young entrepreneurs oen max out credit cards and pester relatives or cash. Crowdunding could be a debt-ree option, but red tape means Ontarians can only reach so ar.
S
teve Tam is a orontonian who got sick o having thieves yank the lights o his bike. So he launched Beacon, a company that designs a $15 bike light that’s that’s almost impossible to steal. ste al. The Canadian Media Fund published the report “Crowdunding in a Canadian Context” in August. Listing 461 crowdunding sites by country host, Canada ranked a modest eighth place. US 191 UK 44 Netherlands 29 France 28 10
Brazil Germany Spain Canada
21 20 18 17
Beacon was started through a KickStarter page this May, linked to the bank account o an American employee. In six weeks, the B eacon bike light page raked in double their goal o $5,000 “It was un to watch it grow,” said am, 24, who opened the page ollowing the press boom generated by Migicovsky’s $10 million success. Echoing most crowdunding projects, Beacon oered small gis to donors — stickers, -shirts, battery packs. Like Migicovsky’s Pebble, the Beacon team sold the product being developed, at a raction o the market price, to people who pitched in. am regularly posted updates on his progress, a common crowdunding technique to orm a captive audience o potential clients clie nts and show investors where their the ir contribution’ contribution’s going. In total, his start-up attracted 250 backers through KickStarter.
“The trafc you get on KickStarter isn’t even comparable to other sites.” — Steve Tam
Te Canadian Media Fund has counted a total o 17 active Canadian crowdsourcing websites, websites, none o which come close to the top U.S. sites — killer or sites that run entirely on buzz. For am, other sites like Indiegogo — the most popular site that allows entrepreneurs to register with Canadian bank accounts a ccounts — weren’t weren’t even a question. “Friends who had started businesses all said the trafc you get on KickStarter isn’t even comparable to other sites,” sites,” he said. Beacon has made the bike lights, shipped them to donors and put them on shelves in oronto and beyond. But not all crowdunding projects go smoothly. Tousands o Migicovsky’s backers have yet to receive their promised Pebble watches aer the company missed its original September deadline, attracting a host o negative press. In June, American tech site App site AppsBlogge sBlogger r studied studied 60,000 KickStarter projects and ound that only 30 per cent o projects meet their goal, o which 25 per cent deliver their results on time. Success tends to be hit-or-miss, with projects either reaching only a third o their goal, or bypassing it by more than double. It’s because o this lack o accountability that oering equity in the company — a common way to seduce investors and prove project leaders take their company seriously — is illegal in Canada. As an added headache, each province has its own regulatory bodies that set rules on crowdunding. Industry groups are lobbying the Canadian government to implement a national policy, as the U.S. did in 2011 through its Ju its Jumps mpstart tart Our Bus Busine iness ss Start Startups ups (JOB (JOBS) S) Act Act . Te Ontario Securities Commission limits those who can invest in unregistered private companies to what they call accredited investors: people with a salary o $200,000 or a net worth o $1 million. Te regulator announced it was studying opening exemptions to allow JOBS Act-style investment, launching consultations this year. Meanwhile, KickStarter opened shop in the UK in October, welcoming British bank accounts and pounds sterling. A spokesperson would only say other countries are being studied. Until private unders, regulators or KickStarter ofcials step up, young entrepreneurs are le bugging Mom and Dad or cash until they can move down south.
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
— Dylan C. Robertson
MONEY
Learn the Rope$ How do investments work in the start-up world?
Some young entrepreneurs starting out in the tech industry are usually eager to raise capital but unfamiliar with the concept of angel investors and venture capitalists. Jennifer Pang interviewed fve stakehold ers about the ins and outs of investments.
Rodgers,, director o Allen Lau Lau,, CEO and Jesse Rodgers co-ounder o Wattpad, University o Toronto’s Crean online community ative Destruction Lab at where people share and Rotman and co-ounder o - Te problem o not understanding the angel TribeHR, an Ontario-based capital or the dierence between angel and vc is read stories, says: company that develops hunot a problem restricted solely to young entrepreman resource management neurs, it’s something that we are dealing with as sofware, says: an organization right across the spectrum. - I you want to raise money, the process o - ypically the relationship between an angel going out and network- - It took almost two years to and the investee is that o a mentor. ypically ing has to start a little bit go rom a concept to where we were moving towards speaking, the way the angel model operates is that earlier. und raising. the angel takes a very active role in the development o the company and provides advice, input and helps the entrepreneur develop their skill set Sid Paquette, Paquette, Omers Venture senior associate, says: in the company at once. Yuri Navarro, Navarro, National Angel Capital Organization executive director, says:
Scott Bowman, Bowman, Canadian Youth Business Foundation, senior director, Ontario, says: - Investors
are investing in you and in your business, but it’s or a return. Tey are going to see i there’s a sales aspect to your business, what the cash fow is and what’s the revenue like.
- I you look at
North America, most venture capitalists are investing in traditional inormation and communications technology companies that deal with hardware, soware and their various combinations. However, over the last ew years, you see a lot o venture venture capital being moved into lie sciences and clean tech.
-
Venture capitalists will be looking or things like potential or growth. -
VCs generally meet with a lot o companies over the course o a year so getting a warm intro rom them is very benecial. b enecial. Tis gives you an indication i you can get some time with a VC to talk about your idea. -
- In
Tey would want to see measurable impacts, where their money’s going and how their money will be spent, as well as how their money is going to come back in terms o success. -
order to get this warm intro, try to actor any way you can use your network, gure out which people in your network knows that VC and see i they can introduce you.
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
11
S
tep into web consulting start-up Nascent Digital’s shared oce space with ad agency Rethink and you’ll be greeted by sparse white walls, neatly lined desks overlooking oronto’s cityscape and a pearl white ama drum kit and re engine red chairs sitting atop astrotur astrotur in the middle o a wide open space. Te place has all the trappings o a modern tech oce: clean yet unky with a buzz o creative energy. But asked about the philosophy behind his oce’s design, Nascent Digital CEO Shawn Konopinsky chuckles. “I wish there was a more romantic story, but it’s a design by utility,” he says. Along with his partner, par tner, Konopinksy Konopinksy says they chose designs that met their needs as a growing start-up — and that seems to be a philosophy most tech start-ups ollow. “Our design concepts are built around having a place that has transparency, openness and most importantly, collision,” says onya Surman, CEO o Centre or Social Innovation (CSI), which ofers shared spaces, private oces and desks or entrepreneurs in oronto’s tech world.
PHOTOS BY SARAH TAGUIAM
o oster this type o ecosystem, ec osystem, Surman says CSI’s branches in Spadina, Annex and Regent Park are outtted with glass walls. “Everyone is always able to watch and keep an eye on what’s going on,” she says. Another way to create an environment like this is by having an open-concept oce according to Konopinsky. “I we were to section people of, we won’t get that serendipitous communication that’s so vital in this business,” business,” he says. Te positive efect o having an open and interactive atmosphere can be seen through CSI where Surman says 85 per cent ce nt o members have collaborated with each e ach other. Another theme common in most startup spaces is purchasing cheaper u rniture. Konopinsky Konop insky recalls sitting down with his partner and pouring over an Ikea catalogue to gure out what urniture to use. According to him, a custom workstation costs $1,200–1,800 per person but they spent only $400 per station in Nascent. “As our company gets bigger, we might outgrow our urniture so we wanted to make sure that it won’t be painul to throw
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
things out,” Konopinsky says. Te ever-changing nature o start-ups dictate that companies have to nd cost-eective ways to do expensive things like, in Nascent’s case, soundproong. o x their boardroom’s loud echo, Nascent dotted their walls with astrotur insteadto dampen the sound. Tis ability to be resourceul and use unky materials is another vital characteristic o start-up spaces: having a un and relaxed atmosphere, says Lux Design interior designer Laura McLellan, who has helped design tech oces like Climax Media. According to her, since start-ups employ a younger generation o people, the oce has to cater to their needs. “Tey believed in having un while working so we accommodated that,” she says. In designing Climax Media, McLellan had to pencil in a lounge where employees can play video games and movies. “Each oce should be tailored to the people it’s housing and though tech spaces don’t usually ollow the layout o traditional oces, it still works,” McLellan says.
13
DESIGNING BY UTILITY Sarah Taguiam explores how interactivity, relaxation and Ikea furniture play into a tech office’s design
12
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
PHOTOS BY SARAH TAGUIAM
ROCK LIKE A ONE-MAN BAND Jennifer Pang explores how start-up entrepreneurs multi-task and balance their day-to-day activities
“What multi-tasking really means is allocating the tasks [according to] the overall time you have and being able to fnish one thing at a time. ” — Bryan Xu
U
nlike most I guys, Byan Xu, a 29-year-old oronto entrepreneur, is a morning person. Hsu usually gets up at 7 a.m. Aer doing some exercises, he heads o to his oce in Markham. During the day day,, Xu takes care o all aspects o his company’s company’s daily operation: sending out bills, replying to emails, trying to push orward the application or government unds, and conducting project work. Xu works at IdeaNotion, a soware consulting company he established in 2010 with his partners. It’s currently run by a team o fve. Xu’s usually the frst person who arrives at the oce. “I get to the oce at around 8. I respond to all my emails. Some o the guys will come in [later],” Xu said. Aer, his team kicks o the new day with a daily scrum meeting. “Most o my people will be more ocused [on specifc work]. For me it is more or less struggling through multiple things all the time,” he said. Experts say it’s typical or start-up entrepreneurs 14
like Xu to multi-task in order to get their company running. “Entrepreneurs end up being multi-taskers because there are so many things to do,” said Drew Smylie, coordinator o the business administration program and entrepreneurship program at Centennial College in oronto. When explaining what it’s it’s like to start up a business, Smylie calls ca lls up a You ouube ube video. In the video, an acrobatics perormer quickly runs back and orth tr ying to make more than a dozen plates spin at the same time. “Starting up a business and getting it running is like plate spinning,” Smylie said. “Even i there [are] two people or ten people [in the company], there are dierent business systems that have to be kept in motion all the time.” Xu’s strategy o spinning all his plates is to break his work into pieces and tackle each one o them with a ocused mind. “[Multi-tasking] doesn’t mean you do multiple things at one time. Tat doesn’t get things done,” Xu said. “What multi-tasking means is allocating the tasks according ac cording to the overall time you have and being able to fnish one thing at a time. Not fve minutes this, fve minutes that, and then fve minutes o that.” Xu is not the only person battling the challenges created by multi-tasking. Brennan McEachran, 22, a student working towards a Ryerson BComm degree, is the CEO o oronto start-up company HitSend. Like Xu, McEachran also highlights the importance o ocusing on a single task when managing to get multiple things done. “o me, eective multi-tasking is a mix o time management and honesty. Optimize your routines and make sure you’ you’ve ve allotted enough time or each task,” he tells ONset Magazine in an email interview, “I you need to do work that can be done by yoursel, do it at night when there are no distractions.” McEachran started working on a management application SoapBox when he was in his second year at Ryerson. SoapBox is an app that aggregates ideas based on popularity. Backed by community members, these ideas — or example, increasing bike sharing in oront oronto o — are then sent to stakeholders,
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Brennan McEachran
Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine
who have the ability to instill change. own boss instead o waiting or instructions McEachran decided to become a night- rom others. schooler, saving the day or his business. “I’m constantly working through a prob“As the project grew into a company, I lem in my head or doing research on what dedicated more time into it and less time we could be doing next,” he said. “I think into school. As we started booking meet- like most entrepreneurs, I work signifcantings, we needed to be available during the ly more than the average worker.” day. At that point I switched my courses As intense as his work can be, McEachran over to night school,” he said. credited his girlriend or helping him balAs a student and entrepreneur, ance between work and lie. McEachran’s day is particularly long. He “Without “Witho ut my girlriend I would be burnt wakes up at 8 a.m. and then walks to work. out. She helps me ocus on lie every once At about 10 a.m., McEachran becomes lost and a while,” he said. in a whirlwind o sales meetings, business o maximize their abilities to run their meetings and fnally, lunch. Aer, he con- businesses, both Xu and McEachran spend tinues work and goes straight to school. extra hours on learning new knowledge. Te length o his working hours is not the While McEachran chooses to attend night only challenge. At work, McEachran needs school, Xu is working on several things into switch roles according to the tasks that cluding developing his sales skills. need to be accomplis ac complished. hed. “I have been working with a couple o “[Te most challenging aspect o my sales [people] rom the industry, they have work is] managing both development and been coaching me on sales,” sales,” Xu said. sales/business and constantly switching When running start-ups, trying to learn rom one to the other,” he said. everything about the business all by oneBesides working long hours and attend- sel, however, may not be the most eective ing night school, McEachran, like many way to keep the company unctioning. other entrepreneurs, also needs to be his Both Xu and McEachran value the team
eort when it comes to dealing with things that are outside o their feld o exper tise. McEachran thinks a team can fll the knowledge gap. “First, you have to be honest with yoursel. Tere are only so many hours in a day and so much you can know. I nothing else, know what you’re bad at and ask or help. Find a team that balances itsel,” McEachran said. Xu has a similar strategy. “One thing is to keep trying, and the other thing is to fnd smarter people and hire them, allow them to do it,” he said. By the time the sun rises and lightens up the busy streets, Xu and McEachran, as well as many other start entrepreneurs, get ready to head o to their companies. It’s probably going going to be another day flled with meetings, phone calls, and project work. But like them, don’t be discouraged, because you are bringing ideas into reality and creating jobs. So don’t be over overwhelmed whelmed when there’s too much on your plate. Just go and make your plates spin. — Jennifer Pang
Multi-taskers’
TOOL BOX
here are some available tools that can be utilized to help eciently
track tasks and manage time. Proessor Smylie suggested two tools he described as boring, but that worked well or him. One is a day-timer. Te second thing is a to-do list. “I work rom a to-do list all the time where I’ve got little things
that are somewhere between a minute and an hour to do,” do,” he said, “As I get them done, I check them o.” Xu and McEachran also use some digital tools to help their perormance. “I use Google Calendar, rello, Github, and tools we’ve made internally to track everything, everything,”” McEachran said. Xu, on the other hand, uses an iPhone app called Errands.
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
15
PEOPLE
ROXI is not Je Tchadjeu and Chris Spoke’s frst business. The duo started an airbrush T-shirt company in high school.
Q&A
Jeff Tchadjeu
Can friends be business partners? Chris Spoke
Jeff Tchadjeu met Chris Spoke at high school. A decade later, their friendship is as strong as their start-up company ROXI
chadjeu, 25, and Spoke, 26, co-ounded ROXI, a nightlie brokerage app that replaces promoters and connects partygoers with night clubs. Tey sat down with editor Sunnie Huang in their Queen Street oce, just minutes away rom the limelights o the Entertainment District, and shared their decade-long riendship and business adventure. How was the transition from friends to business partners? JT: It was very easy. Our personalities
match really well. I know Chris is ver y procient in where I need help and vice versa. It’s unspoken respect we have or each other. We We are all looking lo oking or the same s ame thing. He was a good pick. CS: We were riends beore we were business partners. We have a relationship that makes it very easy to be objective. We could both be passionate about the project, but dispassionate when putting our opinions across. We also recognize that we each bring separate skill sets. Why did you decide to get a third founder to join the team? CS: Neither o us are technical. Tat’s an obvious gap. So we plug that gap by rst bringing on a technical co-ounder. Why not go with the classic two-founder model like most start-ups? CS: Tere is no real ormula. You nd what works or you. Te main issue with bringing on more co-ounders is you dilute your own equity stake, but at this point we are
round
16
What happens when disagreements arise? people. I we JT: Chris and I are the rational people. disagree, we disagree, and that’s it. CS: We know that being a tech start-up, we can iterate and change course very quickly, so it’s more important that we are decisive than always right. Sometimes it’s better to shoot rst and aim later. You could be paralyzed with indecisiveness and constantly argue over every minor detail. What do you guys think of online dating for co-founders? JT: What?! Tat’s interesting. I haven’t had to use it yet. Now you mention it, I might use it to nd my match. CS: It’s not ideal, but it’s a solution. It gives you the benet o not just nding out who the technical people are, but technical people that are specically interested in starting a business. And o course because you are meeting through this medium, there is very little baggage, so you can be more ob jective. Ten years and still going strong. What advice would you give to other start-up co-founders to maintain a healthy relationship? JT: It’s important to be transparent. I you have an issue, just voice it. Don’t keep it in. As long as you share the same vision, it
Who is more bossy? JT: It’s a synergy. CS: Neither. Our dynamic is more cooperative. g
Rapid fre
more concerned with building a good product, launching it and creating a successul business than how much we can maximize our own share.
Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine
should work out. CS: You need to be able to compartmentalize your business and riendship. You have to stay objective and very rational. Make use o data as much as possible when making decisions so it’s not just conicting assumptions. I you see a lot o disagreements that arise, develop a systematic method to work through them. Do you guys hit the clubs a lot because of what you do? JT: We are over the whole clubbing scene, as weird as that sounds. It’s strictly business. CS: Less than you’d think. More so in the past, and we understand the business having gone through that. Do you guys still play basketball together JT: Maybe when we have time. It’s getting cold. Who’s better at basketball? CS: I’ll give it to Jef. I’m taller but he’s more athletic.
g Beer or wine? Favourite club? JT: There’s a sick lounge with a JT: I’m a an an o both, but beer cultural twist called Zam. wins i I had to choose. CS: I play pool at Spacco’s as it’s CS: Beer by a slight margin. cool and near where I live. g
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
HOW-TO
Did you know: CoFounde CoFoundersLab rsLab was launched on Nov. Nov. 11, 2011 (11/11/11). Founder Shahab Kaviani attributes the curious date to his ascination with the number.
How I Met My Co-found er What start-up bachelor(ette)s need to know about online co-founder matchmaking sites
B
edges and would like to address. It is common or business developers to seek partners with technical skills, such as programmers or designers, to join their venture and polish their ideas, but the site has a shortage o such candidates. For that, CoFoundersLab recently acquired its competitor, techcofounders.com, to better match people with complementary business and technical skills. Although many businesses originate as an idea, Kaviani said having the right team is more crucial.
en D’Angelo’s black-and-white portrait makes him stand out among “You are going to take so many dierent turns tur ns other aceless online along the way, it doesn’t really matter what proles. Te young orontonian is seen the initial idea is. It’s more important that you sporting a plaid shirt, fnd the right person who can help you naviwith a genial smile gate the market, refne the product and bring complementing his Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine it to market.” curly locks. His brie — Shahab Kaviani yet punchy biography reads, “I have been programming online ash games since high school and college. I have read all the classic programming books and can’t get enough o it.” Te advantage to online matchmaking, according to Kaviani, is But D’Angelo is not looking or a romantic partner. it exposes entrepreneurs to a larger pool o candidates than their For the past our months, the 21-year-old has been on the Mary- own network o riends and business connections. land-based matchmaking site CoFoundersLab — dubbed as the “Strong teams need diversity. Tey need people rom dierent eHarmony or entrepreneurs — searching or a business partner industries, dierent age groups and cultural backgrounds,” backgrounds,” he said. s aid. or his start-up website Trow the Game, a platorm where users “Te more diverse the team is, the more eective it is.” is.” can create, share and play games. According to Kaviani, there are currently 300 to 500 Canadi“[Trow the Game] is outgrowing how ast I can work. I’m just an users on CoFoundersLab, most o whom come rom oronto, a one-man guy,” he said. “I need someone to ocus on a dierent Montreal and Vancouver Vancouver.. One in our users will make contact with aspect o the site.” a candidate within the rst week. Like D’Angelo, more start-up bachelors and bachelorettes are Having reviewed hundreds o proles, Kaviani said including a taking their matchmaking endeavour online to complement the video with a personal message in the prole is one o the most esearch or business partners, and the algorithm-based cupid comes ective ways to attract views. Users should also balance their prole with its own etiquettes and challenges. descriptions with both visions and concrete evidence, such as their D’Angelo Angelo describes his h is ideal business partner, preerably an art- education and experience — the more details, the better better.. Having a ist or a game designer, as someone who enjoys playing games and real photo and using a real name wouldn’t wouldn’t hurt, either. can draw or program. Afer that, he is not picky. o encourage prole completeness, CoFoundersLab will soon “Passion is number one,” one,” he said. “It will be a coounder relation- give preerred placement to users with ully completed proles. ship. We will be best buddies.” Another upcoming eature will match users based on their persono help his uture coounder understand who he is, the recent alities, goals and complementary skill sets. Humber College graduate o a game program has been building While the one-year-old start-up continues to improve its algohis web presence with online resumes, such as a complete Linke- rithms to nd the perect ormula or a successul business partdIn prole, an active witter account and several online portolios nership, Kaviani reminded entrepreneurs the old-ashioned coee showcasing his coding skills. He has also been reaching out to oo- date is an eective ollow-up. ronto start-up blogs or advice, but ew o them replied. “Online dating is more pervasive and you can look or more D’Angelo Angelo also signed up or three other business partner par tner match- people that way. But we encourage people, once they discovered making sites, but all o them seem to oer the same candidate pool, someone online, to get together in person,” said Kaviani, who rst as he kept running into the same names and prole photos rom met his co-ounder at a local Coounders Wanted Wanted event. the oronto area. While the search or his “best buddy” continues, D’Angelo reAnother challenge or the young entrepreneur is the imbalance cently took a developer job at a oronto company to “get more between candidates with ideas and those who have the desire to experience and meet more people.” But working on his start-up team up with them. website with a wingman remains his goal. “Tere are not enough people looking to join a start-up,” D’An“I’m pretty young, so this is pretty new to me,” he said. “Right gelo said. “Everyone is looking or someone to join theirs.” now it’s an experiment, but I think it will work out.” Tis is an area CoFoundersLab’s CEO Shahab Kaviani acknowl-Sunnie Huang WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
17
HOW TO
B
Before the Beginning of Everything
eore Oakley Chan, a right people because be cause you don’t 24-year-old oronto entrewant to suer emotional backpreneur, established his company drops,” Goyal said. Tranquil Capital Corporation in Goyal said they do see some 2010, or days, he repeatedly called companies run by one perPreparations Preparatio ns for Launching a Business great up the webpage on which he could son but they do not see many o get his business registered, clicked everything on the page and closed them. He strongly recommends that a team should be put together it beore completing the nal stage o the registration process-making when building a start-up. James Zuo, president and ounder o Canasia Capital Consultthe payment-because he did not eel certain about launching his business. ing Inc., a oronto-based company established in 2010, doesn’t see “Everyday… “Everyday … I opened that page, and thought i I should register the need or a team behind him. my company but [then] I thought ‘Not yet. I don’t know enough [to “In my case, I am really just a single proessional with a business enlaunch this business] yet’. Ten I closed it,” Chan remembers. titlement […] I’m working by mysel and I outsource whatever I need For entrepreneurs like Chan, the preparation beore launching to proessionals […] But as my business grows, I will need a secretary a business may involve a lot o work such as conducting market and [hire] some in-house employees. Tat makes more sense,” he said. research, checking the law and relevant legislation, and guring out Another reason to open a company is that it gives him a more how a certain type o company operates. ocial title when doing business and meeting pe ople. Between the time Chan came up with the idea o launching this “So when I talk to someone, instead o saying ‘Hi, I’m James. I am investment company and the time he had it registered, he spent a consultant who is oating around independently doing my own our months researching and getting himsel re ady ady.. things’, I’d say ‘I’m James, president o the company’ and what we do, ranquil Capital Corporation now has two branches-the invest- no matter how many people I have in my rm, is…the exactly the ment company that Chan operates privately in the orm o an in- same thing that I would have said i I were independent,” he said. vestment club and a printing and advertising company company,, ranquil Equipped with experience and a network and having already Printing & Advertising, which was launched about a year later. dipped his toes in the business, Zuo said launching his own rm But research is not enough. Building a unctional team is crucial did not require substantial market research. to starting up a company, according to Nilay Goyal, associate di“As ar as market research […] not much was needed but I did rector o the Creative Destruction Lab at Rotman , University of kind o inquire among my peers, similar companies, o what would Toronto. be a successul business model or people providing similar ser“When you’re you’re building a team it is very important to choose the vices, vices,”” he said. — Jennifer Pang
Four secrets for success
N
ow that you know how to launch a start up, the trick is to keep it running. Between one-hal and two-thirds o Ontario startups ail within three years o launching, according to 2009 estimates by the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation. ONset spoke with three Ontarians about how young entrepreneurs can avoid becoming a statistic. Do your market research oronto native Vlad Barshai co-launched setNight in 2010, a website or users to rate venues and plan soirées.
18
“You can’t just build [a product] and expect that people will come,” said Barshai. Mark Evans, a marketing consultant who writes an entrepreneurship or the Globe and Mail , agrees. “Probably the biggest two causes o ailure or start-ups are that they’re not solving a problem, or they’re creating a eature and not a product,” he says. “You’re “You’re operating in a silo i you don’t speak with people who would use your product.” Stay positive “We strongly encourage people that sometimes (ailure) can be a good thing,” said
Mike Kirkup, director o the VeloCity incubation program at the University of Waterloo. “It’s a way o rsthand rsth and learning learn ing that can be a key to success.” Tough Canadians can be hesitant to admit ailure, the vibe is much much more lax in Silicon Valley. Valley. San Francisco hosts hos ts FailCon, an annual one-day event where entrepreneurs share their ailures and seek advice rom industry experts. Try, try again Barshai’s team took what they learned rom setNight to launch Reachli, a social media aggregation tool that tracks marketing on sites like Pinterest. Tey ound a strong market and now have
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
a 65,000-client waiting list. “You have to keep shipping,” he said. “A lot o stu you ship won’t work but i you develop a sense o what wh at works better, you can make it.” Seek advice “When a start-up is ailing, the best thing an entrepreneur can do is be honest and realistic about their situation,” says Evans. Tat includes investors and advisors, who Kirkup says can ofen see when a start-up is close to success. “It’s going to be one o the most tricky parts o being an entrepreneur. You’re going to get contradictory eedback and you can’t do both,” said Kirkup.
EDUCATION
A StarT-up Is...
start-up \ˈstärt-ˌəp\ noun
1. a fedgling business enterprise Matt Braga
2. the act or instance o seting in operation or motion
Freelance tech journalisT
Courtesy of Merriam-Webster Dictionary
START-UP:: RETHINKING THE TERM:
I
nstagram: a photo-sharing app used by more than 100 million users and acquired by Facebook or $1 billion despite virtually having no revenue. Buferbox : a one-year-old Waterloo-based company oering temporary parcel pick up stations or packages ordered online. It was bought by Google last November. Color: another photo-sharing app that initially raised $41 million in unding in 2011 and pivoted to a video-sharing app only to announce its closure aer ailing to catch traction. Tough all dierent, the one thing these companies have in common is they’re still oen reerred to as start-ups — something that drives reelance journalist Matt Braga insane. “People use the term startup interchangeably and it’s not always necessarily correct,” says Braga, who has written or publications like Ars Technica echnica,, Tested , the Globe and Mail , and National Post among others. “Sometimes, mysel included, i I’m writing about a company and I’m not super up to date on its history, the term ‘start-up’ is a catchall that works.” One thing that almost everyone in the industry agrees on, according to him, is the vision o a start-up as two or three people working in a garage at their
parent’s house night and day, ceaselessly perecting a mobile, internet or tech product. But outside o that, there are lots o other denitions and even more gray areas. o OMERS Ventures Managing Director Derek Smyth, a start-up is a company unable to und itsel or be sel-sucient. “Start-ups they need outside unding because their business is not yet ueling itsel,” he says. Smyth adds that most startups — 8 out o 10 — are are rarely able to generate their own cash even past the 5–10 year mark. Once they hit all these points, they can successully become a ull-fedged business. Alan Lysne, Ryerson Digital Media Zone’s Director o Programming describes start-ups as companies that have yet to develop a business model. Because it’s airly early in its inception, a start-up usually lacks long-term planning and the time and capital invested in older companies. He says once a start-up has less nancial risk, it’s only then that they can become a successul business. “When a ounder can step away or a period o time — like a 2-week vacation — and know that their business will continue without them there, it means they have the proper inrastructure in place,” he says.
Another good indication o what a start-up is, according to Lysne, is the kind o employees the company’s hiring. Start-ups would usually hire people or essential positions like designers and soware de velopers but once hiring ocuses on other aspects like human resources and legal aid, it’s a sign that a start-up is maturing. Due to their leanness, Braga adds that start-ups usually ocus on developing one product. “Facebook on its early days was just about connecting people to their riends but now it has 20 products just dedicated to advertising,” he says. Despite all sorts o the inormal descriptions being thrown around, Lysne says there is no one denition o a start-up. “It’s really just a bit o a mindset and ollows no ne set o rules,” he says. But is this a problem? Braga says it shouldn’t be, as not having a unied denition aptly captures the ever-changing nature o start-ups. “Te term ‘start-up’ is a culmination o a bunch o circumstances,” he says. “I’m not sure i it’s the most precise language but I don’t know i it matters.” Besides, he adds, “in this industry, you can’t just put everyone inside a box.”
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
— Sarah Taguiam
r a
company that ocuses on
developing one product r
a company with a small
number o employees who work in either a small oce or at home
ALAN LYSNE RYERSON DMZ DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING
r a
company that has yet to
practice long-term planning and develop a business model r a
company that has a lot o
year-term fnancial risk r
a company that doesn’t
have inrastructure in place that allows a ounder to step away or a period o time rom the business with the knowledge that it can still thrive r
a company that only hires
the essential tech personnel
DEREK SMYTH OMERS VENTURES MANAGING DIRECTOR
r
a company that isn’t sel-
sucient and needs outside unding to stay aoat r
a company that’s been in
the industry or a short time
19
Entrepreneurship centres Building your business with your school’s help Student leader, leader, college dean, entrepreneurship centre manager, and business owner. Jennifer Pang fnds out how schools take students’ entrepreneurial entrepreneurial dreams under their wings.
W
hen the topic o successul innovative entrepreneurs is brought up, names like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are almost always dropped. Te most requently mentioned aspect o their success is the act that the Microsof and Apple ounders managed to rise to the top without nishing college. But beore you decide schools are useless, can I have 15 minutes o your attention to share how schools are working towards helping young entrepreneurs to build businesses? Let’s check out some o Ontario’s post-secondary resources tailored to serve student entrepreneurs.
“We keep an open door policy, so we ensure that anyone who is interested tereste d [can] come by and discuss anything related to [REI] .” — Curtis Yim According to Entrepreneurship and the Canadian Universities: Report of a National Study of Entrepreneurship Education: 2009, 2009 , in 2004, there were 27 university-based entrepreneurship centres, aer 2009 there are now 39, eleven centres are located in Ontario. I you haven’t haven’t visited any o these thes e centres or checked their services yet, let us start our trip by meeting Curtis Yim, a ourth year Ryerson student, majoring in marketing and minoring in nance. Yim, 22, is the president o Enactus Ryerson, ormerly SIFF (Students in Free Enterprise) Ryerson, and the ambassador or Ryerson Entrepreneur Institute (REI). 20
REI is a student-led entrepreneurship centre. I you walk in REI’ REI’ss oce located at 575 Bay Street with your business idea, you’ll see Yim, a clean cut c ut young man wearing a pair o square shaped glasses and a shiny earring, sitting in ront o his MacBook, ready to help you start your venture. “We keep an open door policy, so we ensure that anyone who is interested [can] come by and discuss anything related to [REI] with us,” Yim said. According to Yim, the institute connects entrepreneurs with other available resources to help them urther their goals and provides education and unding. REI works with other groups and organizations like the Digital Media Zone (DMZ) at Ryerson University, a workspace designated to supporting startup entrepreneurs and Ryerson Angel Network . Once REI has helped you connect with the resources you need, you maybe better prepared to move orward with your business venture. Yim recognizes the act that being a student-entrepreneur means you have to deal with schoolwork while you build your business “Te advantages o being a youth is that you have that time, you have opportunities and you have those resources. As students, you have ree resources out there such as REI, such as these programs here, [and] aculty that can help you out on dierent aspects and give you ree resources you wouldn’t receive [otherwise],” he said. Being heavily involved in the entrepreneurship world, Yim says the spirit o enWWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Jennif er r P Pang / ONset t M Magazine
Cu r r tis Y im trepreneurs inspires him. “A really cool quote I love to say is ‘Like the sun, whenever I all, I will rise again’. And that’s what lie is all about,” he said. “I came up with that quote just going through the experience o entrepreneurs, working with entrepreneurs, going through ailures, trying dierent initiatives, trying dierent projects, and helping spread [the entrepreneurship culture].” Te story o Damn Heels Now let’s hear the story o Hailey Coleman, 24, a ormer business management student at Ryerson. Coleman rst attended REI’s StarMeUp program in 2009 and has become the owner and ounder o Damn Heels, a company that designs and sells easily portable women’s fats.
to where I am today,” Coleman said. Centre o Entrepreneurship at Centennial But the good news did not stop College located at 941 Progress Avenue. there. Te prize opened another door “Te centre was established 20 years ago, or her. it evolved over time, but undamentally we “One o the good things about win- provide the advisory support and tools to ning the business plan competition is people who have good a business idea,” said that you are also eligible to get und- Sharon Mooney , manager o the Centre. ing rom the Canadian Youth BusiOne o the programs oered by the colness Foundation, so I did pursue lege is the Student Business Incubator that. And in [their] program they (SBI), a program that provides student-enalso set you up with a mentor. So trepreneurs with services designed to dethat’s where I would say I got a lot o velop their entrepreneurial skills. Sta nadditional support,” she said. ished its most recent intake in Sept. 2012. zine a g a M t e s N /ON /O g n a P fer Jenni fe All this is an old story to Cole“We just did another intake, we had 30 man now. Aer the business took businesses come out and present. We narHailey o in 2009, Coleman discovered rowed it down to about 12 o them. Tey Coleman that she did not love the product are just unbelievably good ideas, solid she originally launched. She then thinking, and passionate people,” Mooney spent a year and a hal to redesign said, “And most o these kids are in their Te pain caused by wearing heels in- it. nal year or rom the alumni.” spired Coleman to develop a product that “I just lunched a new product at the gives women a break rom their best (or beginning o October,” she said, “It’s still Why is education important? worst) riends: heels. Damn Heels. It’s just a dierent style.” One o the common obstacles encoun“I ound mysel hobbling home in bare tered by people who work with Ryerson’s eet aer a night in heels, and I was like, Colleges are ready to help, too REI is that the absence o essential business ‘Why do we all do this to ourselves? I wish While attending university means cam- skills creates roadblocks on their way to somebody could do something or us,’” pus lie can even be a doorway do orway to the entre- success. Coleman said, “And “And then I was kind o like, preneur world, here is the even better news: “Oen times when people come in, they ‘I can do that.’” entrepreneurship centres are not exclusive have an idea but they don’t have structure She presented her idea at StarMeUp Ry- to universities. or a model,” Yim said. Mooney has heard stories o people who erson Idea Consultation. “When I rst started thinking o jump into the business world unprepared, this idea, I initially went and pitched which eliminated their chances o getting this idea to […] a panel o experts nancing. [and] they provided eedback,” ColeIn the past couple o months, she talkman said. ed to small business bankers. One shared “So that’s that’s how I got started and they that in a weekly basis, he usually sees nine said, ‘It’s time to stop thinking about it out o ten applications that are unreadable. and actually do it’,” she added. “Tey’re not in good English and there’s Coleman, o course, did not let the not enough inormation or him to make a idea pass by. It took her less than a decision.,” Mooney commented. year to launch her creation, Damn With that in mind, Mooney said educaHeels. tion is really important. “I went to the idea consultation in Avoiding education mostly likely will the beginning o 2009. And I worked not make you the next Bill Gates or Steve to develop the business plan, [...] I Jobs, who both Vourakes and Mooney Jennif er hired a designer, I had to search or called anomalies. r P Pang / ONset t M Magazine actories, and then I launched in “rue entrepreneurs look at people, and S h a r o n December o 2009. And then I did they say, ‘Where is their need, where can I M o o n e y the business plan competition in t into the liestyle o what people are do2010.” ing?’” Vourakes said. In the ollowing year, Coleman com“Tere are lots o opportunities but enpeted at the Slaight Communications “Most post-secondary institutions trepreneurs need the tenacity and the abilBusiness Plan Competition, an annual have a place [or entrepreneurship]”, said ity to capitalize on them,” he added. event organized by Enactus Ryerson, and Michael Vourakes, dean o the school o brought home a $25,000 prize. business at Centennial College in oronto. — Jennifer Pang “Te unding helped me denitely to get Tis becomes evident when you visit the WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
21
CAREER GUIDE TO VIDEO GAME WRITING Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine
Like some of the elaborate stories crafted for video games, the route to become a game writer is far from linear. Sunnie Huang takes a behind-thescene look at the career of a narrative designer
I
n the early 2000s, Dan Vader, a recent university graduate rom rom Ryerson University’s lm program, was working as a truck driver or a oronto oronto document recycling company when he came across a pad o blank graphing paper that was about to be thrown away. He kept it or himsel. Eight years later, the same pad — or what’s what’s le o it — is tucked comortably under the keyboard on Vader’s desk at his Capybara Games’ ofce in Downtown oronto, slightly wrinkled with curled corners. Te tabloid-sized paper is where Vader, now a narrative designer at the independent game studio, makes undecipherable doodles and scribbles, gives birth to characters and creates ctional universes. “For me, getting a job in video games was as improbable as going to Hollywood,” said Vader, 33. As video games become more story driven, game studios are realizing the importance o employing writers in the creative process. But like some o the elaborate stories craed by game writers, the route to a career in game writing is ar rom linear. Despite sharing his last name with the Star Wars antagonist, Vader’s undergraduate studies in lm didn’t didn’t turn into a career in lm writing. “Working on a lm set cured me o my desire to work or lm,” he said. Instead, he turned his interest in screenwriting rom the silver screen to the smaller and much more interactive screens o game consoles and smartphones. As game writers look to animation, V and lms or inspiration, the narrative skills between these screen-based products are oen transerable. For example, Vader said, it is not uncommon or heavyweight game studios to hire acclaimed screenwriters rom the lm industry to become the ace o their upcoming releases. “Te gaming industry as a whole is taking good writing and good story more seriously, seriously, so they are looking to other mediums to bring pedigree,” Vader said.
N
avid Khavari, a narrative designer at game juggernaut Ubisof’s oronto ofce and the writer behind the latest instalment o Splinter o Splinter Cell , also worked on V and lm projects during university. university. Aer completing his degree in history and political science at the University o oronto, oronto, Khavari made his break into the gaming industry with Bedlam Games in 2009, where he worked on Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale among other gigs. “Te beautiul thing about game is it has the most eclectic group o individuals you’ll nd. Tere’s no one direct path. You can be coming rom anywhere,” he said. “What’s common amongst everyone is you are always writing. You just have to love doing it.” Depending on the budget and scope o the project, Khavari added, game studios oen employ contract reelancers in conjunction with in-house writers.
22
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
“It doesn’t have to be either or,” he said. “Tere’s so much opportunity or stories in game. It’s It’s an unbelievably exciting time. ”
F
rom the back o Kimberley Sparks’ rst-year game writing class at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, students’ laptop screens displayed math lecture slides, graphic design programs and comic strips, while they waited or the lecturer to start. Te university’s our-year game development and entrepreneurship program allows students to experiment with a wide range o courses rom linear algebra and animation to accounting or I and entrepreneurship entrepreneurship.. Sparks, who has been a screenwriter or more than a decade, started her class by showing the opening scene o action-adventure game Unchartered 2 and asking students to write down what they see. Instead o letting students come up with original writing right o the bat, it is easier to do the reverse, Sparks explained. Although this class is mandatory, Sparks ound many students are more interested in the other aspects o game development. “I always ask at the beginning [o the semester] how many o them actually want to be writers,” said the so-spoken teacher. “I'm lucky i I get about 10 per cent.”
“The problem is everybody thinks they can write, but it is a skill and it takes a lot of practice. You You don’t necn ecessarily have to go to school for it, but it takes some degree of talent and a lot of practice.” -Kimberly Sparks
Source: The Ministry of Training Training,, Colleges and Universities
“What's happening is more video games need to be story based to engage the player and stand out in a very crowded market place,” place,” said Kelly Lynne Ashton, director o policy at WGC. As more members are dabbling in video game — which pumps $1.7 billion into the Canadian economy every year — and other orms o digital writing, WGC has published digital guidelines based on industry statistics and actual contracts. Unlike the Guild's other collective agreements, the digital guidelines do not set out minimums — ees are negotiable between producers and screenwriters — but they contain suggested rates and conditions to guide them through this process. One o the challenges the Guild aces is the nascence o video game writing and the muddles that come with it. For e xample, like many other careers in gaming, there is no standardization o minimums or accreditation. In her book Writing book Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games, Games, author Christy Marx 's 's list o possible titles or writers includes story writer writer,, scenario scenar io writer, scriptwriter, dialogue writer, content designer, designer, story designer and narrative designer. Tis is urther complicated when writers take on the role o designers. “Te guidelines ... are our advice or what's appropriate and we try to keep those up to date,” Ashton added.
B For students who have a keen interest in writing or games, Sparks suggests a creative writing program might be more suitable than a ull-edged game development program that delves urther into the technical aspects o video game. Nonetheless, writers should amiliarize themselves with the work o programmers and artists. “You “Y ou will understand what's involved in their jobs and how you can make their jobs easier, or not make it harder,” said Sparks, who is learning programing in her spare time.
A
lso jumping into the growing trend o video game enthusiasts is the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) , a union representing proessional writers, which has sponsored panels on game writing and organized networking sessions with video game companies.
ack at Vader's desk overlooking Spadina Av Avenue, enue, he sits quietly in ront o his comput computer, er, surrounded by his colleague's impressive collection o action gures. Vader describes himsel as the laughing stock o the ofce compared to his technologically shrewd colleagues. “Google Docs is as tech-savvy as I get,” get,” he jokes. But despite constantly being accused o naively clicking on phishing links and causing ofce-wide virus inections, Vader Vader sees see s the benets b enets o being an on-site writer. “It's absolutely crucial to be right there with the team. You'll always know the course o the game, and that inorms the writing,” he said, adding that his colleagues' opinions and interests oen get ltered into his work. During ofce-wide meetings, Vader said music and low-budget movies would be playing simultaneously in the background, while the team discusses projects over b eer. And what happens when writer's block strikes? “I switch the album,” he said.
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
23
m o c . g a m t e s o n f a ac c e e b bo o o o k k. c o om / m O O N Ns s e e t t
Ma g g a az z i i n ne e
[email protected]
S E T Inspiring and informing Ontario’s young tech entrepreneurs
ON se t M Ma a g
ne nsse t ma ga z i ne o n
@ON setMag
Magazine
Inspiring and informing Ontario’ Ontario’s s
CAREER GUIDE TO VIDEO GAME WRITING DEFINING START-UP: Where to draw the line BREAKING THE BOYS CLUB: How women are making a name in tech ’ ’
HOW I MET MY CO-FOUNDER? CO-FOUNDER? What start-up bachelor(ette)s need to know about co-founder matchmaking
young tech entrepreneurs
HAMILTON: The next Waterloo? Brennan McEachran, 22 CEO of HitSend/Red Bull Drinker/DMZ-er/Multitasker Bryan Xu, 29 Managing Director Director of IdeaNotion Coffee Add Addict ict//Multitasker
ROCK LIKE A ONE-MAN BAND: How start-up entrepreneurs multitask
PREMIERE ISSUE WINTER 2012 $3.75
Editorial
Table of C ntents Briefs 3-4 Community Your start-up is growing, what’s next? 5 Hamilton: The next Waterloo 6-7 Breaking the boys’ club 8 Tech T ech brain drain: drain: A Canadian Canadian problem? 9 Money Why Ontario’s can’t use KickStarter 10 Learn the ropes: How do investment work in the start-up world? 11 Lifestyle Designing by utility 12-13 How to Rock like a one-man band 14-15 Q&A: Can friends be business partners? 16 What start-up bachelor(ette)s need to know about co-founder matchmaking? 17 Before the beginning of everything: Preparations for launching a business 18 Four secrets for success 18 Education Start-up: Rethinking the term 19 Entrepreneurship Entrepren eurship centres: Build your business with your school’s help 20-21 Career guide to video game writing 22-2 22-23 3
2
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Editor 's Word From the BlackBerry’s birthplace o Waterloo to Toronto classrooms developing lie-changing medical apps, Ontario is a hub o technological innovation. Start-ups — a trendy term or technology-ocused businesses that are trying to make it big — are attracting thousands o young people to the heart o the province’s economy. ONset Magazine covers Ontario’s start-up culture, oering young entrepreneurs a publication that inorms, inspires and empowers them in the knowledge economy as they vie or success. We dig deep into technology and business issues and develop Canadian and Ontario-specifc news angles. We tell our readers in plain language about training programs,, laws, government grants available in the programs province and in the country and ways to fnd investors. We also highlight success stories to inspire readers, and appeal to groups underrepresented in the industry, including women and immigrants immigrants.. Please join us as we explore Ontario’s startup community in the next 24 pages. Sincerely, ONset Magazine editorial team
Editorial Team
Dylan C. Robertson
Jennifer Pang
Sarah Taguiam
Sunnie Huang
Briefs HOW-TO
Pitching: your verbal verbal business card car d
O
Nset Magazine talked to two panellists on ’s weekly show Te Business News Network ’s Pitch to compile a demo day survival guide. Te hal-an-hour show where entrepreneurs pitch in ront o investors has eatured anything rom anti-bacterial towel to intimacy toy gi boxes. Dr. Leslie Roberts, president and ounder o GoForth Institute, a small business training company, said she can’t stress enough to entrepreneurs how important it is to always have a sound pitch ready to go. “All entrepreneurs should be rehearsing a oneto two-minute pitch in their head, so they could pull it out o their pocket like a good business card and deliver it,” said the entrepreneurship specialist. “Tose could be game changing some time. “Whether you are actually raising money or you are just being introduced to somebody at a cocktail party, you have to be prepared or those moments, because opportunities can be lost i you are not able to communicate what is so g reat about the business you are running, running,”” she said. Tat doesn’t doesn’t come naturally or tech te ch entrepreneurs, however, according to Dr. Roberts.
“echnology entrepreneurs are some o the worst pitchers I have ever heard, because the only thing they know is the technology. “Tey are not clear, concise and slow communicators. Tey get lost in the technical jargon. And that o course loses the investors.” Jacoline Loewen, director o corporate nance rm Loewen & Partners, said the communication gap between entrepreneurs and investors can be best explained by John Grey ’s 1992 relationship advice mega-bestseller. mega-b estseller. “Finance people are rom Mars and entrepreneurs are rom Venus. You have to speak their language,” she said. Metaphor aside, to Loewen, pitching is more like an art than science. She looks or clues that reveal young entrepreneurs’ commitment. It is not uncommon or the once-enthusiastic pitchers to leave behind their ideas and work or more prestigious companies, leaving their investors empty-handed. “I’m looking at the idea, but I’m really looking at the person,” she said. s aid. — Sunnie Huang
Pitching tips Prepare diferent versions o your pitch. Be ready to pitch on TV, to a live audience, or at a cofee shop to an investor who is ready to sign a cheque. Pitch oten. The more opportunities you have to tell the story, the better. Dress or success. Although costumes and props might help investors remember you better, proessional attire is imperative. Don’t be over-optimistic. Use real numbers. No kittens or rainbows. Rehearse,, rehearse, rehearse. Rehearse I you pitch on T V, the ootage can be recycled on your website as a virtual pitch. pitch. Some humour and a smile go a long way.
TECH CULTURE
Caffeine + stress = app success? We followed a 48-hour hackathon. A full story and video are posted online, but here’s a taste
H
unched in ront o his laptop, Abhishek Gupta sis through hundreds o lines o code, guring how best to x a small programming glitch. It’s 1:30 a.m. and the oronto student is spending his Saturday night at Ryerson University’s innovation lab overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square. his late September weekend, hundreds o post-secondary students like Gupta are pulling allnighters across Canada. Tey’re participants in the two-day Great Canadian Appathon. “I think I slept three hours,” says Gupta, pushing his hair back with one hand while con-
Dylan C. Robertson/ONset Magazine
tinuing to type. His eyes don’t leave his screen. “Tat’s aer he passed out acerst on the beanbag,” chimes in teammate Brandon Perkins. Te two pause or a brie laugh, then go back to coding. Tey’re trying to win the third edition o the appathon, dubbed GCA³. eams o up to our students have been invited to build a mobile game app rom scratch in just 48 hours
or cash prizes, geek stardom and much more. A spectacled student in a neon-green giveaway -shirt is splayed out on a bench in a dark corner. About 25 students are silently tapping away on their keyboards. One just phones in an order o Chinese ood. One team has built a pyramid made o the 25 cans o giveaway Red Bull they consumed. By Sunday at 5 p.m., 518 stu-
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
dents in each province will have spent a weekend at one o the participating 39 colleges and universities. When Gupta’s team kicked of at 5 p.m. Friday, they were upbeat and ready or a challenge, “stoked” as Perkins put it, to build a game that mixes chess with this year’s theme: retro design. But the clock’s ticking, as team leader Budd Royce Lam is well aware. “We’re on schedule, we just have to keep it that way,” says Lam, who’s working on just ve hours o sleep. Tough he doesn’t want to get ahead o himsel, Lam has his eye on the $25,000 top prize. His team, Whiskey ango Foxtrot (WF), is competing or a spot in Canada’ Canad a’s competitive but understafed game industry industry... ... — Dylan C. Robertson 3
Briefs WELCOMING THE WORLD
Canada to launch launch start-up star t-up visa in 2013
W
hen a Vancouver incubatior head put out a worldwide call or talent, he never knew he’d end up driving to Detroit. Danny Robinson welcomed two promising Romanian wunderkinds to launch a start-up. But with no visa or companies that have yet to launch, the group ended up in a two-year bureaucratic saga o denied applications, quixotic drives across the U.S. border and red tape. “Te experience put in concrete terms how hard it is to launch a start-up while getting a visaa in vis in Cana Canada, da,” say sayss Boris Wertz, a longtime colleague o Robinson’s. Te two launched an advocacy organization o tech employers and entrepreneurs, petitioning or a start-up visa similar to ones in New Zealand, the U.K., Ireland and Chile. Te petition generated enough pressure that Minister o Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenny announced a start-up visa in April, at a press conerence with CBC’s Dragon’s Den Den star Kevin O’Leary . CIC anticipates opening 2,750 spots in a
pilot project starting in 2013. Te visa is set to ollow the conventional path o requiring applicants to secure unding beore arriving. Te industry petition called or a $150,000 requirement, a third more than an ongoing U.S. proposal and double the U.K.’s ’s amount. Some blogs have criticized the government’s requirement or venture unding, saying that entrepreneurs who gain unding through crowdsourcing are excluded, while venture capitalists are given an undue amount o power. But CIC ocials believe it could prevent raud. “I we want to succeed as a country we need to attract the best companies to Canada,” says Wertz, who was born in Germany. “Te visa is not the whole solution, but I think it can be a pillar.”
Jason Kenney
Kevin O’Leary
Courtesy of CIC Media Centre
There’s much There’ much mor more e to the visa story story,, includi including ng an ongoing project to launch an innovation hub on a boat just outside U.S. jurisdiction… Catch the full story at www.onsetmag.com
— Dylan C. Robertson
HEALTH
Start-ups compete against age-old methods Start-ups aimed at people with health needs face off against some unconventional rivals
O
ne way to make sense o a company’s vision and goal is to look at its competitors. But orget about market share and price wars, or now. GaitTronics Inc., an Ottawabased company that designs a robotic device that helps patients to move around, is in the battle with a much more established competitor. “Our real competitor is the status quo where you have three or our sta helping the patient get out o bed and walking them down the hallway so they can get the exercise they need aer the surgery,” said Richard Beranek , president and co-ounder o Gaitronics.
4
Gaitronics was established in April, 2012 by Beranek and other two owners. “[Te] technology that we’re developing is a robotic patienthandling device. So the concept is that we can bring some automation and some productivity
support the patient, so the main thing with that is the risk o injury or both patient and the nurses is signifcantly reduced.” As a recently established company, Gaitronics still needs sucient time to realize its vision.
develops iPhone and iPad applications that help people with speech disabilities to communicate eectively, is also competing against a strong competitor. But MyVoice’s competitor has been around or centuries. “We sometimes joke that our number one competitor is paper, “Our real competitor is the status quo which is a sort o a unny thing where you have three or four staff helping but it’s actually true i you look at justt the sheer number jus number o people, people, the patient get out of bed.” — Richard Beranek the most common communication aid in the world right now increases to nurses and hospitals “I think our fnal product prob- are paper boards,” said Alex Levy , so that [they can] get patients ably won’t won’t be launched until 2015 CEO o MyVoice Inc. up and walking right aer a sur- or 2016. It’s gonna be in some He explained that even though gery with the whole help o only orm o product development in papers are commonly used to asone sta,” Beranek said. the next a couple years. I think th ink we sist people with speech disabiliBeranek also explained that will be in the position to start sells ell- ties, they are not very eective. their device has an “automatic ing beta versions or early versions “Tere is less that you can all detection system”, which o it into the research market do to anticipate a user’s needs. “allows the device to catch the sometime in 2014,” 2014,” Beranek Ber anek said. [And] somebody has to watch patient automatically rather Similar to Gaitronics, them, them,”” he said. than having the nurse there to MyVoice Inc., a company that — Jennifer Pang WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
COMMUNITY
In New York, a desk at a typical coworking space costs about $600 a month and comes with phone lines and Internet access.
Chris Sukornyk
Courtesy of Chango Inc.
Your start-up is growing, gr owing, what’s what’s next? Globe-trotting CEO Chris Sukornyk shares some advice on running multiple ofces
F
our oces and our kids later, Chris Sukornyk is still going strong. Te CEO and ounder o Chango Inc., a real-time ad targeting company, company, announced on Nov. 21 that his start-up has secured an additional $12 million in unding with existing investors, making it one o the astest growing marketing technology companies in the world. Along with 50 new positions, Chango will also open three more oces in Detroit, London and Chicago, adding to the impressivee lineup o oces in Los Angeles, impressiv San Francisco, New York and oronto. “Tese are great cities to visit,” said Sukornyk, 32, rom his oronto oce. “But I spend a lot o time on Skype.” While communications technology is breaking down the connes o oce walls, start-up entrepreneurs still rely on their undamental judgement, keen observation and business instinct when it comes to launching and running multiple oces. Chango’s U.S. oces usually start with one person who works rom home. As lo-
cal clients grow, additional employees are brought in and the company proceeds to rent desks at coworking spaces. “You only get your own oce once you have an established growth plan and you want to get out o the desk-by-desk situation,” Sukornyk said. With the announcement o the most recent round o unding, Chango’s revenue has grown more than 600 per cent over the past two years. When a start-up is growing so rapidly, Sukornyk said it’s sometimes dicult to gauge how many oces or how much space is needed. Entrepreneurs need to strike a balance between over-commitment and underestimation — sometimes using gut instinct. “As a start-up, you really do want to be absolutely busting up the scenes beore you commit to anything that’s xed big cost,” Sukornyk said. One o the strategies to mitigate uncertainty, Sukornyk suggested, is to negotiate a exible lease with landlords who are exWWW.ONSETMAG.COM
ible. Chango’s oronto team, or example, will soon take over another oor o its King Street West oce complex. While setting up new oces south o the border, Sukornyk also learnt to tailor employee benets to regional dierences. Whereas most o his Canadian employees don’t see benets as the deciding actor o taking on a job, their American counterparts place great emphasis on health care coverage. “You play by ear and gure out as you go,” Sukornyk suggested, adding that hiring local lawyers to draf contracts is essential. Sukornyk also said the culture in each oce can be subtly dierent. Te oronto oce houses mostly developers, who Sukornyk describes as introverted. Te U.S. oces, which are marketing-ocused, are homes to sales specialists who are more outgoing.
R
ob Mitchell, assistant proessor at th Richard Ivey School of Business who specializes in entrepreneurship, agreed that culture is valuable to start-ups, but it doesn’t have to be consistent throughout all locations. CEOs can either encourage competition among dierent oces or teams, or reward them collectively or collaborated work. “It’s not necessarily one or the other is better, it depends on what [the CEOs] are trying to accomplish,” Mitchell said. One o the biggest challenges or a company with multiple locations, according to Mitchell, is the missed opportunity o inormal encounters, such as hallway conversations and lunch-time talks. echnology such as video conerencing and live chat can shorten the virtual distance, but cannot replace the ace-to-ace interaction. “Entrepreneurship is inherently uncertain. Having multiple oces is just one element o uncertainty [entrepreneurs] are acing,” Mitchell added. For Sukornyk, no matter where his oce takes him, one thing is certain. “I’m not CEO o multiple oces, I’m CEO o one company,” he said. “When you are expanding into new cities, it means your company is growing and that’s exciting.” — Sunnie Huang 5
COMMUNITY
In 2011, Hamilton’s population was 520,000; that’s a fth o Toronto’s 2,600,000. Waterloo counts 98,700 people.
HAMILTON The Next Waterloo? A con concer certed ted ef effor fortt is is stee steerin ring g The Hammer from a grimy steel town into an innovation hub for medical technology. Dylan C. Robertson explores how one city is pivoting its industry through start-ups
Godreault is good at contests. In May, Mohawk College sent him to Vancouver, to compete and win the e-Health 2012 Apps Challenge. Te $3,500 competition required entrepreneurs to pitch their app to health soware proessionals. Judges grilled all nine teams, and Godreault says he was ready because his instructors prepared him or it. “We learned how to pitch and get people interested and paying attention. I knew nothing about pitching,” he says. “I’m a guy with an idea. Tey showed me how to make it work.”
K
evin Browne is on a mission to change the ace o Hamilton. As a 29-year-old computer science PhD c andidate at McMaster University, his decade-long career has included a 16-month stint in Waterloo, Ontario’s tech mecca. “[Waterloo’s] a nice place to live; good place to raise a amily,” Browne says. “But Hamilton is home to me. And we have so much to oer.” Despite Hamilton’s low cost o rent, vibrant art scene and sizable ohawk College sits atop Hamilton Mountain. A platorm down downtown, it wasn’t enough to keep his tech colleagues in town. the street overlooks the city’s aging steel mills and industrial Browne says “it was very personally rustrating” to see riends leave downtown. or jobs in oronto, Waterloo, New York and Silicon Valley. In 2010, In the heart o the main campus, past its wind turbines and glass aer years o the usual rotation, he asked a riend why he was leaving. walls, Jerad Godreault, 21, types sporadically on his Macbook. He sits “He said you need a community; you need events and networks,” on an IKEA couch at iDeaWORKS, the college’s innovation hub that Browne recalls. reca lls. “You “You can’t just create this out o thin air.” takes bright students with ideas and equips with them resources and Determined to stop the brain drain, Browne gathered his riends know-how. together and launched Hamilton’s frst DemoCamp in March 2011. Godreault, a soware development student, co-ounded the medi- Te event attracted 100 people, including unamiliar aces. cal app Imaginauts with his brother Leo, a nursing graduate. Teir Tings snowballed. Within a year, Hamilton Hamilton had multiple monthly and app tracks a patient’s prescription compliance by reminding them to annual events, rom networking and competitions to employee-employer employee-employer take their drugs, and logging when they do. Doctors can monitor the matchmaking sessions. data, which can suggest when in the day a prescription works best. In early October 2012, the city held its second annual Lion’ Lion’ss Lair L air A born-and-raised Hamiltoevent, a take on Dragon’s Den nian, Godreault is enthusiastic that sees 10 entrepreneurs comabout his city’s “nurturing, suppete or $100,000 in investment portive community.” He’s also a and contracts. Both events sold test case in a concerted eort to out, with over 500 guests and transrom this municipality o plenty o media coverage. 520,000 rom a steel town to a hub Browne’s initiative is only part o medical tech innovation. o the story. Local colleges, uniTe iDeaWORKS lab is a con versities, city planning departcrete-walled room with tables o ments and employers are taking computers, multiple whiteboards an all-hands-on-board approach and binders o inormation on coto making new technology a key op placements. Tree-dimensionpart o Hamilton’s Hamilton’s economy. ec onomy. al cardboard fgures rom video “We’re all on the same page games hang rom the ceiling, inand it’s not an issue to say ‘Hey, cluding a Zelda logo and the Super I’m doing this event, do you Dylan C. Robertson/ONset Magazine Mario Ma rio question-mark cube. have anyone who could help me Godreault is sending mesout?’” says Carolynn Reid o the Jerad Godreault sages to people he met at recent networking events. He’s asking or city’ city’ss economic development department, which oers consulting, votes in Startof Hamilton, a city-wide, month-long contest where unding and promoti promotion. on. start-ups pitch their idea to Hamiltonians, who vote or the best At least one tech patent is fled rom Hamilton each week, and the idea. Te contest, with $150,000 at stake, has attracted 27 teams. city’s digital ootprint is displayed through the hundreds o stickers or Stickers with 8-bit graphics promoting the long competition are October’s Hamilton Starto competition, as well as the 17,000 unique peppered across the city city.. voter vo ters. s. CBC chose the city or its frst digital-only branch this spring.
M
6
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Jam es Street
Business Dis tr ict
Gore Park
With Victorian stone houses, a bustling business district and wide streets, Hamilton mixes a city and town feel. See more photos online at onsetmag.co onsetmag.com m
A big orce behind this shi toward new technologies has been non-prot,, provincially unded organization Innovation Factory , a non-prot that connects start-ups with investors and resources. It even mirrors the tech industry’s penchant or unconventional spelling: iF iF.. In less than two years, iF counts 350 start-up clients, hal o which work in inormation and communications technology. Tat gives Hamilton’s tech industry roughly a ourth the he o Waterloo, a city the province started investing in as a tech hub in the 1960s. I building a tech base rom scratch is a challenge, ghting negative impressions impressions is no cakewalk. ca kewalk. “I never thought o living in Hamilton until I actually explored the city. It diered in every way rom my rst impression,” says Keanin Loomis, iF’s chie advocate who lived in Waterloo and Washington, DC. “People are riendly and really down-to-earth. I ell or the city.” Start-ups have ollowed a similar path, like REfcient, an online marketplace where businesses can buy and sell surplus inventory across seven countries. Founded in Mississauga, the company moved to Hamilton last year to save 30 per cent o their business costs and rent, and hasn hasn’t ’t looked back.
cardigans are in vogue tonight, as is pumpkin-favoured beer. It’s the one-year anniversary ann iversary o StartUpDrinks, an inormal monthly evening where ideas, business cards and cra draught fow. “I can’t think o a reason to leave the city,” says Steve Veerman, a soware developer or Postmedia who was raised in Hamilton. “You have events like tonight, and a bunch o stu that Kevin [Browne] got going and some sort o tech culture here.” Outside his day job, Veerman is working on Eventity , an app that maps out social media on events around the city. onight, he’s also hawking or votes or the online Starto Hamilton competition. Over the course o an evening, two strangers will come up with an idea or an app and write it on a napkin, a young entrepreneur will land a job interview intervie w and almost everyone will discuss the city’s monthly outdoor outdoor art crawl that happened earlier that week. “From what I can see, we’re blossoming as a city,” says Duane Hewitt , a biologist by trade who’s hoping to expand his consulting work into mobile health technology. “Hamilton’s sort o the best place or health-ocused work.” Many o the projects discussed at this month’s StartupDrinks have a medical ocus. Hamilton is where most North American “Steel’s important to our economy and our eHealth records systems are designed, and the city hosts medical identity, but we’re so much more. People have competitions like Apps or Health. Healthcare has long been the city’s second industry aer steel, to come and see the city for what it is.” he alth research rom McMaster, the prov— Carolynn Reid propelled by decades o health ince’s largest medical school. Trough new technology start-ups, But Loomis says Hamilton can be dwared by its proximity to health is remerging as Hamilton’s raison d’être. oronto, and long-held perceptions linger. Te city’s switch to health innovation echoes the path travelled beore “When people rom Southern Ontario hear Hamilton, they see by Kitchener and Waterloo, two cities that pivoted rom insurance compathe steel mills along the QEW,” says Loomis. nies and manuacturing to mobile innovation over the past two decades. Te other route into Hamilton is through Hwy. 403, which passCommunitech, a Waterloo non-prot similar to Hamilton’s iF, es by the McMaster Innovation Park , a red-brick building where estimates that 30,000 people are now employed in more than 1,000 researchers and entrepreneurs share workspaces and ideas. tech rms in the Kitchener-Waterloo Kitchener-Waterloo area, with new ones popping “Steel’s important to our economy and our identity, but we’re so up at a rate that doubles every ever y year. much more,” says Reid, o the city’s economic development departJust as Waterloo start-ups steered the city to mobile innovation, ment. “People have to come and see the city or what it is.” Hamilton start-ups are looking to make waves in medical technology. “A lot o my clients have health-related businesses. I guess health is t’s a windy Tursday night in October and Te Winking Judge, a sort o our bridge into the tech world,” says im Miron, an accounmicrobrewery pub operating in a Victorian house, is bustling. tant who works with many start-up clients. He points across the bar to Upstairs, a group o about 30 techies is chatting big ideas. Some are some entrepreneurs he’s been chatting with, all in their 20s. in their 20s, but most are mid-aged. Almost all are male. Unbuttoned “We’ll get there through these guys.”
I
Dylan C. Robertson/ONset Magazine WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
iDeaWORKS at Mohawk College
7
COMMUNITY
e i i r u a L h c u a R
In Canada, 25 per cent o the tech sector is made up o women. Only 16 per cent o them hold leadership roles.
BREAKING THE BOY’S CLUB
Sarah Taguiam/ONset Magazine
L
aurie Rauch is ond o words. Aer weathering the recession, she never imagined she’d still be writing — but with new languages like HML and CSS. “I was always ascinated with web developing but … it was just something a lot o women at the time didn’t do,” Rauch said. aking a giant leap, she learned the necessary skills or a tech career and now owns web developing company Code Diva. Rauch is part o the glaringly small 25 per cent o women working in Canada’s tech sector — a number that has puzzled industry proessionals or decades. “Wee have this potential to … impact just “W about every business but we aren’t taking up that challenge,” said University of Toronto computer comput er science s cience proessor Kelly Lyons. “I don’t understand why we’re still not 50 per cent o tech.” Tough no one knows the exact reason, Lyons, Lyo ns, who joined j oined previously worked as an IBM program director beore joining U o in 2008, said there are theories explaining the situation like the stereotype that tech is a boy’s club. CanWIT executive director Emily Boucher ound that most women see tech companies as “a room ull o men working in a dark room coding in the wee hours.” 8
A 2007 Ryerson University Diversity Institute study ound the notion that tech jobs
ter one month aer raising unding or her luxury home decor sales site, Pulver acutely are ocused on coding contributed to a de- elt the pull o motherhood. cline in emale enrollment in tech univer“Tere have denitely been some meetsity programs. Te place where women are ings where I’m more pre-occupied with my most scarce, however, is boardrooms. kids and what they’re doing than what’s beIn Canada, only 16 per cent o women ing discussed on the table,” table,” she agreed. agree d. hold leadership roles in the corporate secBut Pulver said it’s possible to balance it tor and only 14 companies had women in as long as you have a good support system. executive ranks in Deloitte’s list o 50 astest In Ontario, several industry organizagrowing technology rms. tions and initiatives are put in place to assist women who are already working in the “There have defnitely been industry or looking to enter it. CanWit and Wired Woman ofer mensome meetings where I’m more torship programs that pair new proessionpre-occupied with my kids and als with leaders in the eld, while oronto what they’re doing than what’ what’ss incubator Driven Accelerator Group provides training and support to startups being discussed .” — Aliza Pulver led by women and people o colour. Te group Girls in Tech Toronto hosts socials Facebook CEO Cheryl Sandberg a- eaturing women tech speakers, while Lamously deconstructs the phenomenon in a dies Learning Code acilitate introductory 2012 ED alk, saying that rearing children workshops on like HML and CSS. and managing a household on top o havTough these initiatives are airly new, ing a job cause some women to quietly shy they have already grabbed the attention o away rom the career enhancement. the Ontario’s Ontario’s tech world — a possible sign oronto-based Homesav.com CEO, and o better things to come or women. mother o two, Aliza Pulver is all too amil“Lie ‘s moving and women have to evolve iar with this scenario. with it and I think we are,” are,” Pulver said. Aer giving birth to her second daugh— Sarah Taguiam WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
According to a 2012 Pricewat PricewaterhouseCoopers erhouseCoopers report, nding and keeping great talent is the biggest problem o most Canadian start-up CEOs.
COMMUNITY
Tech brain bra in drain: dra in: a Cana Can a dia dian n prolem?
E
ven in his teens, teens, Albert Lai always knew that ih wanted to make a name or himsel in tech, he had to go to San Francisco. Driving or the rst time down Interstate 280 during the late 90’s, the 33-year-old oronto native recalled looking out his window, seeing green lawns anked by giant brick and steel campuses the size o miniature cities thinking, “I’ve ound my place.” Like him, hundreds o Ontarians ock to San Francisco’s Bay Area yearly — joining 350,000 Canadians, who according to Te Globe and Mail , reside and work within the region— eager to try their ortune in the world’s largest tech mecca. But the huge inux o Canadian employees leaving this country has created a gaping hole in the industry, creating a worrying tech brain drain.
nding more reasons to stay in Canada such as: the increase o start-up unding, the prestige associated to being in a a local startup and the large amount o high-prole start-ups that have spawned and been acquired in the country. Aer co-ounding ve start-ups, and exhausted rom living out o a suitcase, “People fock to Silicon Valley Lai decided to set up his sixth start-up and though that can be very Big Viking Games in London. “Te cost o living’s lower, talent rom inspiring to be around, it also hotbeds like University o Waterloo and means it’s very loud here .” Sheridan College is good and tax credits — Atlee Clark or building games are impressive,” he said. According to a 2012 PricewaterhouseCAtlee Clark , director o C100, an orgaoopers (PwC) report, nding and keeping nization o inuential Canadians in Silicon great talent is the biggest problem or most Valley, said that Canadian companies also Canadian start-up CEOs. Sixty-two per have the ability to ocus on their products cent o the CEOs interviewed said nding away rom the pressure o competition. qualied tech personnel has been harder, “People ock to Silicon Valley and as Silicon Valley companies scoop the m up. though that can be very inspiring to be One o the reasons behind this, accord- around, it also means it’s very loud here,” ing to University of Toronto organization- Clark said in an interview rom her San al behavior proessor Samantha Montes, is Francisco oce. that the younger generation, who are mostTunezy CEO Derrick Fung agreed, sayly employed in start-ups, is seeking chal- ing that being a big sh in a smaller pond lenges instead o long-term job security. can help propel start-ups into success. “Te new cohort’s more interested in At the same time, Fung, 26, who oundgetting experience that make them more ed his oronto-based music-sharing commarketable and i they’re not getting it, they pany 10 months ago, acknowledges that may leave,” Montes said. “big boys” like Facebook and Google can Lai agreed but said brain drain has been easily steal away elite employees and ofer a smaller problem Canada in recent years. them more attractive pay. According to him, tech employees are ech employee salaries tend to be higher highe r WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Sarah Taguiam/ONset Magazine
in San Francisco where entry-level incomes start around $60,000–80,000 CDN, while oronto employees are paid around Canadian $40,000–60,000 CDN, Lai said. However, companies like Fung’s and Lai’s stay competitive in hiring in several ways. As a newer start-up, Fung said ostering a more relaxed oce culture through exible work hours, stock options, a “mini-Google “mini-Google”” setup and ofering medical benets makes his start-up more attractive to employees. Lai recognizes that while there will always be “talented and curious” employees who can’t can’t be held back ba ck rom wanting to experience working in a tech centre like the Bay Area, there are others that are “talented, but apathetic about location.” Regardless o location, C100 director Clark said Canadians should support each other. Instead o adapting an “us-againstthem” mentality, Canadians, should encourage their peers who come down to the Valley to work, because bec ause aer all, “the Internet know no borders.” — Sarah Taguiam 9
MONEY
The Beacon bike light, launched launched through a KickStarter page, can now be ound at bike stores in Toronto and beyond: www.beaco www.beaconbikelights.com nbikelights.com
Why Ontarians can’t use KickStar KickStarter ter Archaic Archai c regu regulat lation ion law laws s are are hol holdin ding g entr entrepr epren eneur eurs s back from crowdfundin crowdfunding g initatives
E
ric Migicovsky had a good idea. He just needed money. It was spring o this year and the 26-year-old engineering student rom Vancouver had developed Pebble, a multi-purpose watch that connects wirelessly to smartphones. He invented the watch while a student at the University o WaterWaterloo’s innovation lab. la b. But when he couldn’t get a venture capitalist on board to make it big, he turned to the Internet. Websites like KickStarter acilitate crowdunding: pitch your idea globally and ask or small bits o investment on a site that takes a 5 per cent cut. U.S. crowdunding rm Massolution estimates that $1.5 billion was raised through online campaigns worldwide last year. Migicovsky launched a KickStarter page this May, oering a Pebble watch to people donating over $100. He thought he was being ambitious, asking strangers to cough up $100,000. In ve weeks, almost 70,000 people donated a total o $10 million — the most successul donation in the U.S.-based site’s three years. For Migicovsky, it was “the chance o a lietime” to ulll his dream. But he’d need a U.S. banking account to receive unds through KickStarter, even though contributions can come rom any country. It wasn’t a problem or Migicovsky, who moved Pebble’s operations to Silicon Valley aer rustration with a lack o Canadian venture capita capital.l. It’s It’s ar rom the rst start-up to migrate south or unds. Tis summer, the ederal government said it was alarmed by the requency o Canadian entrepreneurs moving abroad, and contributed $400 million to help the oen-lamentedkj lack o private investment. According to an October study by Ottawa crowdunding rm Ideavibes hal o Canadian start-ups rate riends and amily as their top source o unding. aking on debt was the second most popular. Lack strong personal credit records, young entrepreneurs oen max out credit cards and pester relatives or cash. Crowdunding could be a debt-ree option, but red tape means Ontarians can only reach so ar.
S
teve Tam is a orontonian who got sick o having thieves yank the lights o his bike. So he launched Beacon, a company that designs a $15 bike light that’s that’s almost impossible to steal. ste al. The Canadian Media Fund published the report “Crowdunding in a Canadian Context” in August. Listing 461 crowdunding sites by country host, Canada ranked a modest eighth place. US 191 UK 44 Netherlands 29 France 28 10
Brazil Germany Spain Canada
21 20 18 17
Beacon was started through a KickStarter page this May, linked to the bank account o an American employee. In six weeks, the B eacon bike light page raked in double their goal o $5,000 “It was un to watch it grow,” said am, 24, who opened the page ollowing the press boom generated by Migicovsky’s $10 million success. Echoing most crowdunding projects, Beacon oered small gis to donors — stickers, -shirts, battery packs. Like Migicovsky’s Pebble, the Beacon team sold the product being developed, at a raction o the market price, to people who pitched in. am regularly posted updates on his progress, a common crowdunding technique to orm a captive audience o potential clients clie nts and show investors where their the ir contribution’ contribution’s going. In total, his start-up attracted 250 backers through KickStarter.
“The trafc you get on KickStarter isn’t even comparable to other sites.” — Steve Tam
Te Canadian Media Fund has counted a total o 17 active Canadian crowdsourcing websites, websites, none o which come close to the top U.S. sites — killer or sites that run entirely on buzz. For am, other sites like Indiegogo — the most popular site that allows entrepreneurs to register with Canadian bank accounts a ccounts — weren’t weren’t even a question. “Friends who had started businesses all said the trafc you get on KickStarter isn’t even comparable to other sites,” sites,” he said. Beacon has made the bike lights, shipped them to donors and put them on shelves in oronto and beyond. But not all crowdunding projects go smoothly. Tousands o Migicovsky’s backers have yet to receive their promised Pebble watches aer the company missed its original September deadline, attracting a host o negative press. In June, American tech site App site AppsBlogge sBlogger r studied studied 60,000 KickStarter projects and ound that only 30 per cent o projects meet their goal, o which 25 per cent deliver their results on time. Success tends to be hit-or-miss, with projects either reaching only a third o their goal, or bypassing it by more than double. It’s because o this lack o accountability that oering equity in the company — a common way to seduce investors and prove project leaders take their company seriously — is illegal in Canada. As an added headache, each province has its own regulatory bodies that set rules on crowdunding. Industry groups are lobbying the Canadian government to implement a national policy, as the U.S. did in 2011 through its Ju its Jumps mpstart tart Our Bus Busine iness ss Start Startups ups (JOB (JOBS) S) Act Act . Te Ontario Securities Commission limits those who can invest in unregistered private companies to what they call accredited investors: people with a salary o $200,000 or a net worth o $1 million. Te regulator announced it was studying opening exemptions to allow JOBS Act-style investment, launching consultations this year. Meanwhile, KickStarter opened shop in the UK in October, welcoming British bank accounts and pounds sterling. A spokesperson would only say other countries are being studied. Until private unders, regulators or KickStarter ofcials step up, young entrepreneurs are le bugging Mom and Dad or cash until they can move down south.
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
— Dylan C. Robertson
MONEY
Learn the Rope$ How do investments work in the start-up world?
Some young entrepreneurs starting out in the tech industry are usually eager to raise capital but unfamiliar with the concept of angel investors and venture capitalists. Jennifer Pang interviewed fve stakehold ers about the ins and outs of investments.
Rodgers,, director o Allen Lau Lau,, CEO and Jesse Rodgers co-ounder o Wattpad, University o Toronto’s Crean online community ative Destruction Lab at where people share and Rotman and co-ounder o - Te problem o not understanding the angel TribeHR, an Ontario-based capital or the dierence between angel and vc is read stories, says: company that develops hunot a problem restricted solely to young entrepreman resource management neurs, it’s something that we are dealing with as sofware, says: an organization right across the spectrum. - I you want to raise money, the process o - ypically the relationship between an angel going out and network- - It took almost two years to and the investee is that o a mentor. ypically ing has to start a little bit go rom a concept to where we were moving towards speaking, the way the angel model operates is that earlier. und raising. the angel takes a very active role in the development o the company and provides advice, input and helps the entrepreneur develop their skill set Sid Paquette, Paquette, Omers Venture senior associate, says: in the company at once. Yuri Navarro, Navarro, National Angel Capital Organization executive director, says:
Scott Bowman, Bowman, Canadian Youth Business Foundation, senior director, Ontario, says: - Investors
are investing in you and in your business, but it’s or a return. Tey are going to see i there’s a sales aspect to your business, what the cash fow is and what’s the revenue like.
- I you look at
North America, most venture capitalists are investing in traditional inormation and communications technology companies that deal with hardware, soware and their various combinations. However, over the last ew years, you see a lot o venture venture capital being moved into lie sciences and clean tech.
-
Venture capitalists will be looking or things like potential or growth. -
VCs generally meet with a lot o companies over the course o a year so getting a warm intro rom them is very benecial. b enecial. Tis gives you an indication i you can get some time with a VC to talk about your idea. -
- In
Tey would want to see measurable impacts, where their money’s going and how their money will be spent, as well as how their money is going to come back in terms o success. -
order to get this warm intro, try to actor any way you can use your network, gure out which people in your network knows that VC and see i they can introduce you.
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
11
S
tep into web consulting start-up Nascent Digital’s shared oce space with ad agency Rethink and you’ll be greeted by sparse white walls, neatly lined desks overlooking oronto’s cityscape and a pearl white ama drum kit and re engine red chairs sitting atop astrotur astrotur in the middle o a wide open space. Te place has all the trappings o a modern tech oce: clean yet unky with a buzz o creative energy. But asked about the philosophy behind his oce’s design, Nascent Digital CEO Shawn Konopinsky chuckles. “I wish there was a more romantic story, but it’s a design by utility,” he says. Along with his partner, par tner, Konopinksy Konopinksy says they chose designs that met their needs as a growing start-up — and that seems to be a philosophy most tech start-ups ollow. “Our design concepts are built around having a place that has transparency, openness and most importantly, collision,” says onya Surman, CEO o Centre or Social Innovation (CSI), which ofers shared spaces, private oces and desks or entrepreneurs in oronto’s tech world.
PHOTOS BY SARAH TAGUIAM
o oster this type o ecosystem, ec osystem, Surman says CSI’s branches in Spadina, Annex and Regent Park are outtted with glass walls. “Everyone is always able to watch and keep an eye on what’s going on,” she says. Another way to create an environment like this is by having an open-concept oce according to Konopinsky. “I we were to section people of, we won’t get that serendipitous communication that’s so vital in this business,” business,” he says. Te positive efect o having an open and interactive atmosphere can be seen through CSI where Surman says 85 per cent ce nt o members have collaborated with each e ach other. Another theme common in most startup spaces is purchasing cheaper u rniture. Konopinsky Konop insky recalls sitting down with his partner and pouring over an Ikea catalogue to gure out what urniture to use. According to him, a custom workstation costs $1,200–1,800 per person but they spent only $400 per station in Nascent. “As our company gets bigger, we might outgrow our urniture so we wanted to make sure that it won’t be painul to throw
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
things out,” Konopinsky says. Te ever-changing nature o start-ups dictate that companies have to nd cost-eective ways to do expensive things like, in Nascent’s case, soundproong. o x their boardroom’s loud echo, Nascent dotted their walls with astrotur insteadto dampen the sound. Tis ability to be resourceul and use unky materials is another vital characteristic o start-up spaces: having a un and relaxed atmosphere, says Lux Design interior designer Laura McLellan, who has helped design tech oces like Climax Media. According to her, since start-ups employ a younger generation o people, the oce has to cater to their needs. “Tey believed in having un while working so we accommodated that,” she says. In designing Climax Media, McLellan had to pencil in a lounge where employees can play video games and movies. “Each oce should be tailored to the people it’s housing and though tech spaces don’t usually ollow the layout o traditional oces, it still works,” McLellan says.
13
DESIGNING BY UTILITY Sarah Taguiam explores how interactivity, relaxation and Ikea furniture play into a tech office’s design
12
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
PHOTOS BY SARAH TAGUIAM
ROCK LIKE A ONE-MAN BAND Jennifer Pang explores how start-up entrepreneurs multi-task and balance their day-to-day activities
“What multi-tasking really means is allocating the tasks [according to] the overall time you have and being able to fnish one thing at a time. ” — Bryan Xu
U
nlike most I guys, Byan Xu, a 29-year-old oronto entrepreneur, is a morning person. Hsu usually gets up at 7 a.m. Aer doing some exercises, he heads o to his oce in Markham. During the day day,, Xu takes care o all aspects o his company’s company’s daily operation: sending out bills, replying to emails, trying to push orward the application or government unds, and conducting project work. Xu works at IdeaNotion, a soware consulting company he established in 2010 with his partners. It’s currently run by a team o fve. Xu’s usually the frst person who arrives at the oce. “I get to the oce at around 8. I respond to all my emails. Some o the guys will come in [later],” Xu said. Aer, his team kicks o the new day with a daily scrum meeting. “Most o my people will be more ocused [on specifc work]. For me it is more or less struggling through multiple things all the time,” he said. Experts say it’s typical or start-up entrepreneurs 14
like Xu to multi-task in order to get their company running. “Entrepreneurs end up being multi-taskers because there are so many things to do,” said Drew Smylie, coordinator o the business administration program and entrepreneurship program at Centennial College in oronto. When explaining what it’s it’s like to start up a business, Smylie calls ca lls up a You ouube ube video. In the video, an acrobatics perormer quickly runs back and orth tr ying to make more than a dozen plates spin at the same time. “Starting up a business and getting it running is like plate spinning,” Smylie said. “Even i there [are] two people or ten people [in the company], there are dierent business systems that have to be kept in motion all the time.” Xu’s strategy o spinning all his plates is to break his work into pieces and tackle each one o them with a ocused mind. “[Multi-tasking] doesn’t mean you do multiple things at one time. Tat doesn’t get things done,” Xu said. “What multi-tasking means is allocating the tasks according ac cording to the overall time you have and being able to fnish one thing at a time. Not fve minutes this, fve minutes that, and then fve minutes o that.” Xu is not the only person battling the challenges created by multi-tasking. Brennan McEachran, 22, a student working towards a Ryerson BComm degree, is the CEO o oronto start-up company HitSend. Like Xu, McEachran also highlights the importance o ocusing on a single task when managing to get multiple things done. “o me, eective multi-tasking is a mix o time management and honesty. Optimize your routines and make sure you’ you’ve ve allotted enough time or each task,” he tells ONset Magazine in an email interview, “I you need to do work that can be done by yoursel, do it at night when there are no distractions.” McEachran started working on a management application SoapBox when he was in his second year at Ryerson. SoapBox is an app that aggregates ideas based on popularity. Backed by community members, these ideas — or example, increasing bike sharing in oront oronto o — are then sent to stakeholders,
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Brennan McEachran
Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine
who have the ability to instill change. own boss instead o waiting or instructions McEachran decided to become a night- rom others. schooler, saving the day or his business. “I’m constantly working through a prob“As the project grew into a company, I lem in my head or doing research on what dedicated more time into it and less time we could be doing next,” he said. “I think into school. As we started booking meet- like most entrepreneurs, I work signifcantings, we needed to be available during the ly more than the average worker.” day. At that point I switched my courses As intense as his work can be, McEachran over to night school,” he said. credited his girlriend or helping him balAs a student and entrepreneur, ance between work and lie. McEachran’s day is particularly long. He “Without “Witho ut my girlriend I would be burnt wakes up at 8 a.m. and then walks to work. out. She helps me ocus on lie every once At about 10 a.m., McEachran becomes lost and a while,” he said. in a whirlwind o sales meetings, business o maximize their abilities to run their meetings and fnally, lunch. Aer, he con- businesses, both Xu and McEachran spend tinues work and goes straight to school. extra hours on learning new knowledge. Te length o his working hours is not the While McEachran chooses to attend night only challenge. At work, McEachran needs school, Xu is working on several things into switch roles according to the tasks that cluding developing his sales skills. need to be accomplis ac complished. hed. “I have been working with a couple o “[Te most challenging aspect o my sales [people] rom the industry, they have work is] managing both development and been coaching me on sales,” sales,” Xu said. sales/business and constantly switching When running start-ups, trying to learn rom one to the other,” he said. everything about the business all by oneBesides working long hours and attend- sel, however, may not be the most eective ing night school, McEachran, like many way to keep the company unctioning. other entrepreneurs, also needs to be his Both Xu and McEachran value the team
eort when it comes to dealing with things that are outside o their feld o exper tise. McEachran thinks a team can fll the knowledge gap. “First, you have to be honest with yoursel. Tere are only so many hours in a day and so much you can know. I nothing else, know what you’re bad at and ask or help. Find a team that balances itsel,” McEachran said. Xu has a similar strategy. “One thing is to keep trying, and the other thing is to fnd smarter people and hire them, allow them to do it,” he said. By the time the sun rises and lightens up the busy streets, Xu and McEachran, as well as many other start entrepreneurs, get ready to head o to their companies. It’s probably going going to be another day flled with meetings, phone calls, and project work. But like them, don’t be discouraged, because you are bringing ideas into reality and creating jobs. So don’t be over overwhelmed whelmed when there’s too much on your plate. Just go and make your plates spin. — Jennifer Pang
Multi-taskers’
TOOL BOX
here are some available tools that can be utilized to help eciently
track tasks and manage time. Proessor Smylie suggested two tools he described as boring, but that worked well or him. One is a day-timer. Te second thing is a to-do list. “I work rom a to-do list all the time where I’ve got little things
that are somewhere between a minute and an hour to do,” do,” he said, “As I get them done, I check them o.” Xu and McEachran also use some digital tools to help their perormance. “I use Google Calendar, rello, Github, and tools we’ve made internally to track everything, everything,”” McEachran said. Xu, on the other hand, uses an iPhone app called Errands.
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
15
PEOPLE
ROXI is not Je Tchadjeu and Chris Spoke’s frst business. The duo started an airbrush T-shirt company in high school.
Q&A
Jeff Tchadjeu
Can friends be business partners? Chris Spoke
Jeff Tchadjeu met Chris Spoke at high school. A decade later, their friendship is as strong as their start-up company ROXI
chadjeu, 25, and Spoke, 26, co-ounded ROXI, a nightlie brokerage app that replaces promoters and connects partygoers with night clubs. Tey sat down with editor Sunnie Huang in their Queen Street oce, just minutes away rom the limelights o the Entertainment District, and shared their decade-long riendship and business adventure. How was the transition from friends to business partners? JT: It was very easy. Our personalities
match really well. I know Chris is ver y procient in where I need help and vice versa. It’s unspoken respect we have or each other. We We are all looking lo oking or the same s ame thing. He was a good pick. CS: We were riends beore we were business partners. We have a relationship that makes it very easy to be objective. We could both be passionate about the project, but dispassionate when putting our opinions across. We also recognize that we each bring separate skill sets. Why did you decide to get a third founder to join the team? CS: Neither o us are technical. Tat’s an obvious gap. So we plug that gap by rst bringing on a technical co-ounder. Why not go with the classic two-founder model like most start-ups? CS: Tere is no real ormula. You nd what works or you. Te main issue with bringing on more co-ounders is you dilute your own equity stake, but at this point we are
round
16
What happens when disagreements arise? people. I we JT: Chris and I are the rational people. disagree, we disagree, and that’s it. CS: We know that being a tech start-up, we can iterate and change course very quickly, so it’s more important that we are decisive than always right. Sometimes it’s better to shoot rst and aim later. You could be paralyzed with indecisiveness and constantly argue over every minor detail. What do you guys think of online dating for co-founders? JT: What?! Tat’s interesting. I haven’t had to use it yet. Now you mention it, I might use it to nd my match. CS: It’s not ideal, but it’s a solution. It gives you the benet o not just nding out who the technical people are, but technical people that are specically interested in starting a business. And o course because you are meeting through this medium, there is very little baggage, so you can be more ob jective. Ten years and still going strong. What advice would you give to other start-up co-founders to maintain a healthy relationship? JT: It’s important to be transparent. I you have an issue, just voice it. Don’t keep it in. As long as you share the same vision, it
Who is more bossy? JT: It’s a synergy. CS: Neither. Our dynamic is more cooperative. g
Rapid fre
more concerned with building a good product, launching it and creating a successul business than how much we can maximize our own share.
Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine
should work out. CS: You need to be able to compartmentalize your business and riendship. You have to stay objective and very rational. Make use o data as much as possible when making decisions so it’s not just conicting assumptions. I you see a lot o disagreements that arise, develop a systematic method to work through them. Do you guys hit the clubs a lot because of what you do? JT: We are over the whole clubbing scene, as weird as that sounds. It’s strictly business. CS: Less than you’d think. More so in the past, and we understand the business having gone through that. Do you guys still play basketball together JT: Maybe when we have time. It’s getting cold. Who’s better at basketball? CS: I’ll give it to Jef. I’m taller but he’s more athletic.
g Beer or wine? Favourite club? JT: There’s a sick lounge with a JT: I’m a an an o both, but beer cultural twist called Zam. wins i I had to choose. CS: I play pool at Spacco’s as it’s CS: Beer by a slight margin. cool and near where I live. g
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
HOW-TO
Did you know: CoFounde CoFoundersLab rsLab was launched on Nov. Nov. 11, 2011 (11/11/11). Founder Shahab Kaviani attributes the curious date to his ascination with the number.
How I Met My Co-found er What start-up bachelor(ette)s need to know about online co-founder matchmaking sites
B
edges and would like to address. It is common or business developers to seek partners with technical skills, such as programmers or designers, to join their venture and polish their ideas, but the site has a shortage o such candidates. For that, CoFoundersLab recently acquired its competitor, techcofounders.com, to better match people with complementary business and technical skills. Although many businesses originate as an idea, Kaviani said having the right team is more crucial.
en D’Angelo’s black-and-white portrait makes him stand out among “You are going to take so many dierent turns tur ns other aceless online along the way, it doesn’t really matter what proles. Te young orontonian is seen the initial idea is. It’s more important that you sporting a plaid shirt, fnd the right person who can help you naviwith a genial smile gate the market, refne the product and bring complementing his Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine it to market.” curly locks. His brie — Shahab Kaviani yet punchy biography reads, “I have been programming online ash games since high school and college. I have read all the classic programming books and can’t get enough o it.” Te advantage to online matchmaking, according to Kaviani, is But D’Angelo is not looking or a romantic partner. it exposes entrepreneurs to a larger pool o candidates than their For the past our months, the 21-year-old has been on the Mary- own network o riends and business connections. land-based matchmaking site CoFoundersLab — dubbed as the “Strong teams need diversity. Tey need people rom dierent eHarmony or entrepreneurs — searching or a business partner industries, dierent age groups and cultural backgrounds,” backgrounds,” he said. s aid. or his start-up website Trow the Game, a platorm where users “Te more diverse the team is, the more eective it is.” is.” can create, share and play games. According to Kaviani, there are currently 300 to 500 Canadi“[Trow the Game] is outgrowing how ast I can work. I’m just an users on CoFoundersLab, most o whom come rom oronto, a one-man guy,” he said. “I need someone to ocus on a dierent Montreal and Vancouver Vancouver.. One in our users will make contact with aspect o the site.” a candidate within the rst week. Like D’Angelo, more start-up bachelors and bachelorettes are Having reviewed hundreds o proles, Kaviani said including a taking their matchmaking endeavour online to complement the video with a personal message in the prole is one o the most esearch or business partners, and the algorithm-based cupid comes ective ways to attract views. Users should also balance their prole with its own etiquettes and challenges. descriptions with both visions and concrete evidence, such as their D’Angelo Angelo describes his h is ideal business partner, preerably an art- education and experience — the more details, the better better.. Having a ist or a game designer, as someone who enjoys playing games and real photo and using a real name wouldn’t wouldn’t hurt, either. can draw or program. Afer that, he is not picky. o encourage prole completeness, CoFoundersLab will soon “Passion is number one,” one,” he said. “It will be a coounder relation- give preerred placement to users with ully completed proles. ship. We will be best buddies.” Another upcoming eature will match users based on their persono help his uture coounder understand who he is, the recent alities, goals and complementary skill sets. Humber College graduate o a game program has been building While the one-year-old start-up continues to improve its algohis web presence with online resumes, such as a complete Linke- rithms to nd the perect ormula or a successul business partdIn prole, an active witter account and several online portolios nership, Kaviani reminded entrepreneurs the old-ashioned coee showcasing his coding skills. He has also been reaching out to oo- date is an eective ollow-up. ronto start-up blogs or advice, but ew o them replied. “Online dating is more pervasive and you can look or more D’Angelo Angelo also signed up or three other business partner par tner match- people that way. But we encourage people, once they discovered making sites, but all o them seem to oer the same candidate pool, someone online, to get together in person,” said Kaviani, who rst as he kept running into the same names and prole photos rom met his co-ounder at a local Coounders Wanted Wanted event. the oronto area. While the search or his “best buddy” continues, D’Angelo reAnother challenge or the young entrepreneur is the imbalance cently took a developer job at a oronto company to “get more between candidates with ideas and those who have the desire to experience and meet more people.” But working on his start-up team up with them. website with a wingman remains his goal. “Tere are not enough people looking to join a start-up,” D’An“I’m pretty young, so this is pretty new to me,” he said. “Right gelo said. “Everyone is looking or someone to join theirs.” now it’s an experiment, but I think it will work out.” Tis is an area CoFoundersLab’s CEO Shahab Kaviani acknowl-Sunnie Huang WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
17
HOW TO
B
Before the Beginning of Everything
eore Oakley Chan, a right people because be cause you don’t 24-year-old oronto entrewant to suer emotional backpreneur, established his company drops,” Goyal said. Tranquil Capital Corporation in Goyal said they do see some 2010, or days, he repeatedly called companies run by one perPreparations Preparatio ns for Launching a Business great up the webpage on which he could son but they do not see many o get his business registered, clicked everything on the page and closed them. He strongly recommends that a team should be put together it beore completing the nal stage o the registration process-making when building a start-up. James Zuo, president and ounder o Canasia Capital Consultthe payment-because he did not eel certain about launching his business. ing Inc., a oronto-based company established in 2010, doesn’t see “Everyday… “Everyday … I opened that page, and thought i I should register the need or a team behind him. my company but [then] I thought ‘Not yet. I don’t know enough [to “In my case, I am really just a single proessional with a business enlaunch this business] yet’. Ten I closed it,” Chan remembers. titlement […] I’m working by mysel and I outsource whatever I need For entrepreneurs like Chan, the preparation beore launching to proessionals […] But as my business grows, I will need a secretary a business may involve a lot o work such as conducting market and [hire] some in-house employees. Tat makes more sense,” he said. research, checking the law and relevant legislation, and guring out Another reason to open a company is that it gives him a more how a certain type o company operates. ocial title when doing business and meeting pe ople. Between the time Chan came up with the idea o launching this “So when I talk to someone, instead o saying ‘Hi, I’m James. I am investment company and the time he had it registered, he spent a consultant who is oating around independently doing my own our months researching and getting himsel re ady ady.. things’, I’d say ‘I’m James, president o the company’ and what we do, ranquil Capital Corporation now has two branches-the invest- no matter how many people I have in my rm, is…the exactly the ment company that Chan operates privately in the orm o an in- same thing that I would have said i I were independent,” he said. vestment club and a printing and advertising company company,, ranquil Equipped with experience and a network and having already Printing & Advertising, which was launched about a year later. dipped his toes in the business, Zuo said launching his own rm But research is not enough. Building a unctional team is crucial did not require substantial market research. to starting up a company, according to Nilay Goyal, associate di“As ar as market research […] not much was needed but I did rector o the Creative Destruction Lab at Rotman , University of kind o inquire among my peers, similar companies, o what would Toronto. be a successul business model or people providing similar ser“When you’re you’re building a team it is very important to choose the vices, vices,”” he said. — Jennifer Pang
Four secrets for success
N
ow that you know how to launch a start up, the trick is to keep it running. Between one-hal and two-thirds o Ontario startups ail within three years o launching, according to 2009 estimates by the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation. ONset spoke with three Ontarians about how young entrepreneurs can avoid becoming a statistic. Do your market research oronto native Vlad Barshai co-launched setNight in 2010, a website or users to rate venues and plan soirées.
18
“You can’t just build [a product] and expect that people will come,” said Barshai. Mark Evans, a marketing consultant who writes an entrepreneurship or the Globe and Mail , agrees. “Probably the biggest two causes o ailure or start-ups are that they’re not solving a problem, or they’re creating a eature and not a product,” he says. “You’re “You’re operating in a silo i you don’t speak with people who would use your product.” Stay positive “We strongly encourage people that sometimes (ailure) can be a good thing,” said
Mike Kirkup, director o the VeloCity incubation program at the University of Waterloo. “It’s a way o rsthand rsth and learning learn ing that can be a key to success.” Tough Canadians can be hesitant to admit ailure, the vibe is much much more lax in Silicon Valley. Valley. San Francisco hosts hos ts FailCon, an annual one-day event where entrepreneurs share their ailures and seek advice rom industry experts. Try, try again Barshai’s team took what they learned rom setNight to launch Reachli, a social media aggregation tool that tracks marketing on sites like Pinterest. Tey ound a strong market and now have
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
a 65,000-client waiting list. “You have to keep shipping,” he said. “A lot o stu you ship won’t work but i you develop a sense o what wh at works better, you can make it.” Seek advice “When a start-up is ailing, the best thing an entrepreneur can do is be honest and realistic about their situation,” says Evans. Tat includes investors and advisors, who Kirkup says can ofen see when a start-up is close to success. “It’s going to be one o the most tricky parts o being an entrepreneur. You’re going to get contradictory eedback and you can’t do both,” said Kirkup.
EDUCATION
A StarT-up Is...
start-up \ˈstärt-ˌəp\ noun
1. a fedgling business enterprise Matt Braga
2. the act or instance o seting in operation or motion
Freelance tech journalisT
Courtesy of Merriam-Webster Dictionary
START-UP:: RETHINKING THE TERM:
I
nstagram: a photo-sharing app used by more than 100 million users and acquired by Facebook or $1 billion despite virtually having no revenue. Buferbox : a one-year-old Waterloo-based company oering temporary parcel pick up stations or packages ordered online. It was bought by Google last November. Color: another photo-sharing app that initially raised $41 million in unding in 2011 and pivoted to a video-sharing app only to announce its closure aer ailing to catch traction. Tough all dierent, the one thing these companies have in common is they’re still oen reerred to as start-ups — something that drives reelance journalist Matt Braga insane. “People use the term startup interchangeably and it’s not always necessarily correct,” says Braga, who has written or publications like Ars Technica echnica,, Tested , the Globe and Mail , and National Post among others. “Sometimes, mysel included, i I’m writing about a company and I’m not super up to date on its history, the term ‘start-up’ is a catchall that works.” One thing that almost everyone in the industry agrees on, according to him, is the vision o a start-up as two or three people working in a garage at their
parent’s house night and day, ceaselessly perecting a mobile, internet or tech product. But outside o that, there are lots o other denitions and even more gray areas. o OMERS Ventures Managing Director Derek Smyth, a start-up is a company unable to und itsel or be sel-sucient. “Start-ups they need outside unding because their business is not yet ueling itsel,” he says. Smyth adds that most startups — 8 out o 10 — are are rarely able to generate their own cash even past the 5–10 year mark. Once they hit all these points, they can successully become a ull-fedged business. Alan Lysne, Ryerson Digital Media Zone’s Director o Programming describes start-ups as companies that have yet to develop a business model. Because it’s airly early in its inception, a start-up usually lacks long-term planning and the time and capital invested in older companies. He says once a start-up has less nancial risk, it’s only then that they can become a successul business. “When a ounder can step away or a period o time — like a 2-week vacation — and know that their business will continue without them there, it means they have the proper inrastructure in place,” he says.
Another good indication o what a start-up is, according to Lysne, is the kind o employees the company’s hiring. Start-ups would usually hire people or essential positions like designers and soware de velopers but once hiring ocuses on other aspects like human resources and legal aid, it’s a sign that a start-up is maturing. Due to their leanness, Braga adds that start-ups usually ocus on developing one product. “Facebook on its early days was just about connecting people to their riends but now it has 20 products just dedicated to advertising,” he says. Despite all sorts o the inormal descriptions being thrown around, Lysne says there is no one denition o a start-up. “It’s really just a bit o a mindset and ollows no ne set o rules,” he says. But is this a problem? Braga says it shouldn’t be, as not having a unied denition aptly captures the ever-changing nature o start-ups. “Te term ‘start-up’ is a culmination o a bunch o circumstances,” he says. “I’m not sure i it’s the most precise language but I don’t know i it matters.” Besides, he adds, “in this industry, you can’t just put everyone inside a box.”
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
— Sarah Taguiam
r a
company that ocuses on
developing one product r
a company with a small
number o employees who work in either a small oce or at home
ALAN LYSNE RYERSON DMZ DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMMING
r a
company that has yet to
practice long-term planning and develop a business model r a
company that has a lot o
year-term fnancial risk r
a company that doesn’t
have inrastructure in place that allows a ounder to step away or a period o time rom the business with the knowledge that it can still thrive r
a company that only hires
the essential tech personnel
DEREK SMYTH OMERS VENTURES MANAGING DIRECTOR
r
a company that isn’t sel-
sucient and needs outside unding to stay aoat r
a company that’s been in
the industry or a short time
19
Entrepreneurship centres Building your business with your school’s help Student leader, leader, college dean, entrepreneurship centre manager, and business owner. Jennifer Pang fnds out how schools take students’ entrepreneurial entrepreneurial dreams under their wings.
W
hen the topic o successul innovative entrepreneurs is brought up, names like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are almost always dropped. Te most requently mentioned aspect o their success is the act that the Microsof and Apple ounders managed to rise to the top without nishing college. But beore you decide schools are useless, can I have 15 minutes o your attention to share how schools are working towards helping young entrepreneurs to build businesses? Let’s check out some o Ontario’s post-secondary resources tailored to serve student entrepreneurs.
“We keep an open door policy, so we ensure that anyone who is interested tereste d [can] come by and discuss anything related to [REI] .” — Curtis Yim According to Entrepreneurship and the Canadian Universities: Report of a National Study of Entrepreneurship Education: 2009, 2009 , in 2004, there were 27 university-based entrepreneurship centres, aer 2009 there are now 39, eleven centres are located in Ontario. I you haven’t haven’t visited any o these thes e centres or checked their services yet, let us start our trip by meeting Curtis Yim, a ourth year Ryerson student, majoring in marketing and minoring in nance. Yim, 22, is the president o Enactus Ryerson, ormerly SIFF (Students in Free Enterprise) Ryerson, and the ambassador or Ryerson Entrepreneur Institute (REI). 20
REI is a student-led entrepreneurship centre. I you walk in REI’ REI’ss oce located at 575 Bay Street with your business idea, you’ll see Yim, a clean cut c ut young man wearing a pair o square shaped glasses and a shiny earring, sitting in ront o his MacBook, ready to help you start your venture. “We keep an open door policy, so we ensure that anyone who is interested [can] come by and discuss anything related to [REI] with us,” Yim said. According to Yim, the institute connects entrepreneurs with other available resources to help them urther their goals and provides education and unding. REI works with other groups and organizations like the Digital Media Zone (DMZ) at Ryerson University, a workspace designated to supporting startup entrepreneurs and Ryerson Angel Network . Once REI has helped you connect with the resources you need, you maybe better prepared to move orward with your business venture. Yim recognizes the act that being a student-entrepreneur means you have to deal with schoolwork while you build your business “Te advantages o being a youth is that you have that time, you have opportunities and you have those resources. As students, you have ree resources out there such as REI, such as these programs here, [and] aculty that can help you out on dierent aspects and give you ree resources you wouldn’t receive [otherwise],” he said. Being heavily involved in the entrepreneurship world, Yim says the spirit o enWWW.ONSETMAG.COM
Jennif er r P Pang / ONset t M Magazine
Cu r r tis Y im trepreneurs inspires him. “A really cool quote I love to say is ‘Like the sun, whenever I all, I will rise again’. And that’s what lie is all about,” he said. “I came up with that quote just going through the experience o entrepreneurs, working with entrepreneurs, going through ailures, trying dierent initiatives, trying dierent projects, and helping spread [the entrepreneurship culture].” Te story o Damn Heels Now let’s hear the story o Hailey Coleman, 24, a ormer business management student at Ryerson. Coleman rst attended REI’s StarMeUp program in 2009 and has become the owner and ounder o Damn Heels, a company that designs and sells easily portable women’s fats.
to where I am today,” Coleman said. Centre o Entrepreneurship at Centennial But the good news did not stop College located at 941 Progress Avenue. there. Te prize opened another door “Te centre was established 20 years ago, or her. it evolved over time, but undamentally we “One o the good things about win- provide the advisory support and tools to ning the business plan competition is people who have good a business idea,” said that you are also eligible to get und- Sharon Mooney , manager o the Centre. ing rom the Canadian Youth BusiOne o the programs oered by the colness Foundation, so I did pursue lege is the Student Business Incubator that. And in [their] program they (SBI), a program that provides student-enalso set you up with a mentor. So trepreneurs with services designed to dethat’s where I would say I got a lot o velop their entrepreneurial skills. Sta nadditional support,” she said. ished its most recent intake in Sept. 2012. zine a g a M t e s N /ON /O g n a P fer Jenni fe All this is an old story to Cole“We just did another intake, we had 30 man now. Aer the business took businesses come out and present. We narHailey o in 2009, Coleman discovered rowed it down to about 12 o them. Tey Coleman that she did not love the product are just unbelievably good ideas, solid she originally launched. She then thinking, and passionate people,” Mooney spent a year and a hal to redesign said, “And most o these kids are in their Te pain caused by wearing heels in- it. nal year or rom the alumni.” spired Coleman to develop a product that “I just lunched a new product at the gives women a break rom their best (or beginning o October,” she said, “It’s still Why is education important? worst) riends: heels. Damn Heels. It’s just a dierent style.” One o the common obstacles encoun“I ound mysel hobbling home in bare tered by people who work with Ryerson’s eet aer a night in heels, and I was like, Colleges are ready to help, too REI is that the absence o essential business ‘Why do we all do this to ourselves? I wish While attending university means cam- skills creates roadblocks on their way to somebody could do something or us,’” pus lie can even be a doorway do orway to the entre- success. Coleman said, “And “And then I was kind o like, preneur world, here is the even better news: “Oen times when people come in, they ‘I can do that.’” entrepreneurship centres are not exclusive have an idea but they don’t have structure She presented her idea at StarMeUp Ry- to universities. or a model,” Yim said. Mooney has heard stories o people who erson Idea Consultation. “When I rst started thinking o jump into the business world unprepared, this idea, I initially went and pitched which eliminated their chances o getting this idea to […] a panel o experts nancing. [and] they provided eedback,” ColeIn the past couple o months, she talkman said. ed to small business bankers. One shared “So that’s that’s how I got started and they that in a weekly basis, he usually sees nine said, ‘It’s time to stop thinking about it out o ten applications that are unreadable. and actually do it’,” she added. “Tey’re not in good English and there’s Coleman, o course, did not let the not enough inormation or him to make a idea pass by. It took her less than a decision.,” Mooney commented. year to launch her creation, Damn With that in mind, Mooney said educaHeels. tion is really important. “I went to the idea consultation in Avoiding education mostly likely will the beginning o 2009. And I worked not make you the next Bill Gates or Steve to develop the business plan, [...] I Jobs, who both Vourakes and Mooney Jennif er hired a designer, I had to search or called anomalies. r P Pang / ONset t M Magazine actories, and then I launched in “rue entrepreneurs look at people, and S h a r o n December o 2009. And then I did they say, ‘Where is their need, where can I M o o n e y the business plan competition in t into the liestyle o what people are do2010.” ing?’” Vourakes said. In the ollowing year, Coleman com“Tere are lots o opportunities but enpeted at the Slaight Communications “Most post-secondary institutions trepreneurs need the tenacity and the abilBusiness Plan Competition, an annual have a place [or entrepreneurship]”, said ity to capitalize on them,” he added. event organized by Enactus Ryerson, and Michael Vourakes, dean o the school o brought home a $25,000 prize. business at Centennial College in oronto. — Jennifer Pang “Te unding helped me denitely to get Tis becomes evident when you visit the WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
21
CAREER GUIDE TO VIDEO GAME WRITING Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine
Like some of the elaborate stories crafted for video games, the route to become a game writer is far from linear. Sunnie Huang takes a behind-thescene look at the career of a narrative designer
I
n the early 2000s, Dan Vader, a recent university graduate rom rom Ryerson University’s lm program, was working as a truck driver or a oronto oronto document recycling company when he came across a pad o blank graphing paper that was about to be thrown away. He kept it or himsel. Eight years later, the same pad — or what’s what’s le o it — is tucked comortably under the keyboard on Vader’s desk at his Capybara Games’ ofce in Downtown oronto, slightly wrinkled with curled corners. Te tabloid-sized paper is where Vader, now a narrative designer at the independent game studio, makes undecipherable doodles and scribbles, gives birth to characters and creates ctional universes. “For me, getting a job in video games was as improbable as going to Hollywood,” said Vader, 33. As video games become more story driven, game studios are realizing the importance o employing writers in the creative process. But like some o the elaborate stories craed by game writers, the route to a career in game writing is ar rom linear. Despite sharing his last name with the Star Wars antagonist, Vader’s undergraduate studies in lm didn’t didn’t turn into a career in lm writing. “Working on a lm set cured me o my desire to work or lm,” he said. Instead, he turned his interest in screenwriting rom the silver screen to the smaller and much more interactive screens o game consoles and smartphones. As game writers look to animation, V and lms or inspiration, the narrative skills between these screen-based products are oen transerable. For example, Vader said, it is not uncommon or heavyweight game studios to hire acclaimed screenwriters rom the lm industry to become the ace o their upcoming releases. “Te gaming industry as a whole is taking good writing and good story more seriously, seriously, so they are looking to other mediums to bring pedigree,” Vader said.
N
avid Khavari, a narrative designer at game juggernaut Ubisof’s oronto ofce and the writer behind the latest instalment o Splinter o Splinter Cell , also worked on V and lm projects during university. university. Aer completing his degree in history and political science at the University o oronto, oronto, Khavari made his break into the gaming industry with Bedlam Games in 2009, where he worked on Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale among other gigs. “Te beautiul thing about game is it has the most eclectic group o individuals you’ll nd. Tere’s no one direct path. You can be coming rom anywhere,” he said. “What’s common amongst everyone is you are always writing. You just have to love doing it.” Depending on the budget and scope o the project, Khavari added, game studios oen employ contract reelancers in conjunction with in-house writers.
22
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
“It doesn’t have to be either or,” he said. “Tere’s so much opportunity or stories in game. It’s It’s an unbelievably exciting time. ”
F
rom the back o Kimberley Sparks’ rst-year game writing class at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, students’ laptop screens displayed math lecture slides, graphic design programs and comic strips, while they waited or the lecturer to start. Te university’s our-year game development and entrepreneurship program allows students to experiment with a wide range o courses rom linear algebra and animation to accounting or I and entrepreneurship entrepreneurship.. Sparks, who has been a screenwriter or more than a decade, started her class by showing the opening scene o action-adventure game Unchartered 2 and asking students to write down what they see. Instead o letting students come up with original writing right o the bat, it is easier to do the reverse, Sparks explained. Although this class is mandatory, Sparks ound many students are more interested in the other aspects o game development. “I always ask at the beginning [o the semester] how many o them actually want to be writers,” said the so-spoken teacher. “I'm lucky i I get about 10 per cent.”
“The problem is everybody thinks they can write, but it is a skill and it takes a lot of practice. You You don’t necn ecessarily have to go to school for it, but it takes some degree of talent and a lot of practice.” -Kimberly Sparks
Source: The Ministry of Training Training,, Colleges and Universities
“What's happening is more video games need to be story based to engage the player and stand out in a very crowded market place,” place,” said Kelly Lynne Ashton, director o policy at WGC. As more members are dabbling in video game — which pumps $1.7 billion into the Canadian economy every year — and other orms o digital writing, WGC has published digital guidelines based on industry statistics and actual contracts. Unlike the Guild's other collective agreements, the digital guidelines do not set out minimums — ees are negotiable between producers and screenwriters — but they contain suggested rates and conditions to guide them through this process. One o the challenges the Guild aces is the nascence o video game writing and the muddles that come with it. For e xample, like many other careers in gaming, there is no standardization o minimums or accreditation. In her book Writing book Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games, Games, author Christy Marx 's 's list o possible titles or writers includes story writer writer,, scenario scenar io writer, scriptwriter, dialogue writer, content designer, designer, story designer and narrative designer. Tis is urther complicated when writers take on the role o designers. “Te guidelines ... are our advice or what's appropriate and we try to keep those up to date,” Ashton added.
B For students who have a keen interest in writing or games, Sparks suggests a creative writing program might be more suitable than a ull-edged game development program that delves urther into the technical aspects o video game. Nonetheless, writers should amiliarize themselves with the work o programmers and artists. “You “Y ou will understand what's involved in their jobs and how you can make their jobs easier, or not make it harder,” said Sparks, who is learning programing in her spare time.
A
lso jumping into the growing trend o video game enthusiasts is the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) , a union representing proessional writers, which has sponsored panels on game writing and organized networking sessions with video game companies.
ack at Vader's desk overlooking Spadina Av Avenue, enue, he sits quietly in ront o his comput computer, er, surrounded by his colleague's impressive collection o action gures. Vader describes himsel as the laughing stock o the ofce compared to his technologically shrewd colleagues. “Google Docs is as tech-savvy as I get,” get,” he jokes. But despite constantly being accused o naively clicking on phishing links and causing ofce-wide virus inections, Vader Vader sees see s the benets b enets o being an on-site writer. “It's absolutely crucial to be right there with the team. You'll always know the course o the game, and that inorms the writing,” he said, adding that his colleagues' opinions and interests oen get ltered into his work. During ofce-wide meetings, Vader said music and low-budget movies would be playing simultaneously in the background, while the team discusses projects over b eer. And what happens when writer's block strikes? “I switch the album,” he said.
WWW.ONSETMAG.COM
23
m o c . g a m t e s o n f a ac c e e b bo o o o k k. c o om / m O O N Ns s e e t t
Ma g g a az z i i n ne e
[email protected]
S E T Inspiring and informing Ontario’s young tech entrepreneurs
ON se t M Ma a g
ne nsse t ma ga z i ne o n
@ON setMag
