.:justwerks software:.

I sat down last week with the folks at Hop Studios and Venn Communications to talk about their upcoming Expression Engine Roadshow training event.

First off, what is Expression Engine (or EE as it is fondly known), and why should you care?

Briefly, EE is a content management system (CMS). OK, there are lots of those. Next up, it’s a “beyond blogging” publishing platform. I use the term beyond blogging as a general system for flexible platforms that manage dynamic content beyond posts or pages – flexible data structures that can be created and updated from within such a beyond blogging platform. I spoke at length about the 3 stages of CMS at Web Directions North 08.

This type of functionality is invaluable for prototyping – or even running – many types of web applications. Drupal (with its content construction kit) is the only other widely used system that I know of which has this type of functionality. This is especially important for less technical founders: you can potentially put together the skeleton of a web app which does a lot more than a Powerpoint presentation in showing what kind of site/product/technology you’re trying to put together. EE should definitely be in your kit of potential startup tools.

Who should go to this event? Well, I have a fair amount of experience with the CMS marketplace. My view is that EE is perfect for design-centric web shops that want a supported, commercial product that can be used to build sites that go beyond content management. If you’re a web shop or aspiring designer that fits that description, you should go to this training event and get up to speed on Expression Engine. The event is on Friday, September 26th (right before BarCamp Vancouver kicks off) and tickets are $50. Register here »

Lastly, EE and I have a long history. Back when I was living in Ottawa is when I started blogging. I started with pMachine, the precursor to Expression Engine. I also started talking to Rick Ellis, CEO of Ellis Labs, the makers of Expression Engine. I doubt he remembers it, but I started trying to negotiate one click installs of pMachine for a hosting company I was working with. Small world

P.S. Yes, I’m known as a frothing-at-the-mouth open source and Drupal evangelist. And really, I firmly believe that Ellis Labs could make Expression Engine open source and not change a single piece of their business model. They sell piece of mind, not bits.

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Guy Kawasaki was the first real entrepreneur I ever met.  I was so green, but had a full head of passion, and nothing was going to stand in my way.  He played an instrumental role in helping me to channel my passion into execution.  I’m sure he doesn’t even know how much of an impact he had on me.  He’s an author of bunch of must read books for aspiring entrepreneurs Art of the Start and Rules for Revolutionaries.  And he just sold his company Alltop to Vancouver’s NowPublic.

This morning he Tweeted the URL of his guest blog post on sun.com entitled Five most important lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur.  Check it!

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I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but Techvibes doesn’t suck anymore.  We all know that they’ve done an fantastic job covering the local tech scene on their blog for the past year or so, but the main site had a bit to be desired.  This is not news to anyone, especially Boris W and Rob.

They’ve consolidated and organized tech communities around a main site, which includes at the forefront, their Blog, plus Events, Directories, Jobs, and Forums.  Then you can slice it by geographic areas, including Vancouver, Seattle, Kitchener-Waterloo, among others.  I can see how this can spread like Craigslist which doesn’t surprise me since everything that Boris touches seems to turn to gold.

Feature requests:  Dare I say, a few LinkedIn features would be nice?  And, at Bootup Labs we’d like to avoid reinventing the wheel, so a Crunchbase style API would be quite useful for us.

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My brain is still a little melted today from participating in the New Ventures BC mentor panel yesterday. 9am to 5pm, 8 presentations, 30 minutes for lunch, and short breaks between presentations. Wow.

For starters, let me say that this highlights the activity that is going on in Vancouver. Regardless of the specifics of the particular business model or idea, I was impressed by the way all the founders presented their companies and discussed their ideas.

As well, I really enjoyed hearing the varied feedback from the entire room of mentors. Everybody came from varying backgrounds, so it was great to hear the different perspectives that people had. One issue that came up a couple of times was the slippery slope of business feedback vs. presentation feedback (the mentors started riffing on the business). At the end of the day, the New Ventures BC program is a competition, and this event was to help the founders tune their investor presentations. Explaining your product or service succinctly and in an exciting, believable way, with the dollars and cents to back it up and show investor value.

The room I was in (there were three in total) had a technology / web focus. There were quite a few familiar faces presenting, but also some that were completely new to me. I’m trying to encourage new companies that I come across to enter themselves in StartupIndex.ca (we also have a company directory which we’re trying to figure out how to tune: the current list of companies are ones that we’ve spoken to the founders at length, and have extra information in our private Extranet).

Without further ado, here are the companies that presented to us:

1. ClicVue: a home theater video aggregator — hardware plus a software based remote
2. Project Opus: a revamped spin on the album — digital artist subscriptions for fans (I’m not getting this quite right, but I don’t know how public this is…I’m excited by this concept)
3. CrowdTrust: personal identity and knowledge management
4. QCDocs: the small business ERP (Sean the founder is our accountant, and we are going to be using QCDocs for all the startups that come through Bootup)
5. AdHack: eBay for advertising, DIY advertising — disrupting the ad industry
6. CloudTel: fully hosted business VoIP
7. DreamBank: give dreams, not stuff
8. Adventure Engine: a booking engine for adventure travel operators

The complete list of 30 finalists is on the NVBC blog. Aside from the official blog, Diaries of a Suburban Startup has been posting great content related to the competition, the startups, and the founders involved.

I spent some time posting commentary to my personal Twitter account. Unfortunately, my favourite Twitter tracker Twemes was affected by Twitter API breakage, so this Twitter search will have to do as an archive. Two of my favourite quotes are James Sherrett from AdHack mentioning the phrase “return on attention“, and David Gratton from Project Opus stating that the new “[music] album is a living document rather than an artifact”.

NVBC is definitely a great event that provides real value to the local entrepreneurial community. I myself participated in it 4 years ago when I came back to Vancouver, not to launch a company, but to go to the various seminars and meet the local community. NVBC should be on every entrepreneur’s list to attend. Thanks to Bob de Wit for asking us to participate.

Finally, special thanks to Andrew Kumar for loaning me an SFU wireless login so I could research companies and their competitors as they presented.

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Today we’ve got 5 students from the Shad Valley program joining us at Bootup. What valuable life skills will they be learning about startup life? Putting together their own IKEA desks, of course!

Alex Shipillo showing off his IMPACT interns

Joking aside, we’re happy to have the students join us in the office: they’re an example of the sort of working environment that we’re trying to foster. The students aren’t interning with Bootup, just borrowing some office space while they work with IMPACT, another great organization encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit in young people.

With the VEF Momentum crew starting out soon as well, there look to be a lot of opportunities for young people interested in this space over the coming months. Stay tuned, we’ve got something to coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Week (mid November) in the works.

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Very interesting to see what can be done by one person in very short period of time in the Search space: http://bossy.appspot.com/qa?query=When+did+Bootup+Labs+start+it%27s+blog%3F

With all of the interest from Microsoft to acquire search technologies, you can see how the fight for search domination is far from over.  In fact, I doubt it will ever end.  There’s simply too much at stake for Google to be complacent, or for us to be ignorant that they can maintain their dominance indefinitely.

Example: Netscape opened sourced their browser, and Firefox was born.  As we all know, Firefox is taking quite a bite out of IE’s market-share.  Yahoo launches Boss (Build your Own Search Service) and interesting applications are starting to pop up.  Although, my feeling is that this may backfire for Yahoo.  Microsoft will simply buy any company who has built anything interesting, and injure Google as much as possible, who is about to be Yahoo’s sugar daddy.

Searching for links for this post, I ran across this article in the Washington Post: Yahoo Boss Is So Open, It Runs on Google’s App Engine

Anyway, Food for thought: If you’re any sort of search technology, then you’re probably ripe for the picking.

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Disclaimer: I’m going off of memory, so I apologize in advance to anyone or organization I forgot.  Please leave your link in the comments and I’ll make sure to add it the list.  Please note that I purposely left out Bio-tech and Clean-tech because we don’t work in those areas.  And, I realize that my video gaming links are weak, so I could use some help there if anyone has any good online resources or funds (Paul Lee?).

Networking Events

• VEF
• BarCamp
• DemoCamp
• Launch Party
• VC RoadTrip
• Canadian Financing Forum
• New Ventures BC
• Founders and Funders
• VidFest
• Northern Voice
• Massive Tech Show

Online resources

• www.bctechnology.com
• StartupIndex
• Startup North
• AngelBlog
• TechVibes.com
• BC Innovation Council
• Vancouver Economic Development
• InvestBC
• FundFindr
• Maple Leaf 2.0

Government

• SRED
• NRC/IRAP
• Telefilm New Media Fund
• EBC*
• Renaissance Capital Fund

Local VCs

• Growthworks
• Ventures West
• BDC
• Lions Capital (BC Advantage Fund)*
• Pender Financial*
• Yaletown Venture Partners
• Discovery Capital*
• W Media Ventures
• VenCorps

Renaissance Capital Fund VCs

• ARCH Venture Partners
• Celtic House Venture Partners
• Kearny Venture Partners
• VantagePoint Venture Partners
• Ventures West Management Inc.
• Walden Venture Capital

Eastcoast VCs

• Rho
• JLA

Angel Networks and Angel Funds

• Angel Forum
• VanTec
• WUTIF Angel Fund*
• Fundamental Technologies

Associations

• BCTIA
• NewMedia BC
• WinBC
• MobileMuse

* These have been granted tax credits by the government under the Venture Capital Corporation “VCC” or Eligible Business Corporations “EBC” program.  If you’re an investor and you invest in a VCC or EBC, you’re entitled to a 30% refund from the government of BC.  You can amplify those savings by using investing in VCCs or EBCs using money from your RRSP.

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It’s official, BarCamp Vancouver is set for September 27th. This is the third annual occurrence of this event, and we’re pushing it out a little farther than its traditional late August so we can have enough time to organize it.

For starters, it’s going to be larger. We’ve got (free) registration currently capped at 225 people: please do sign up now to let us know that you’re planning on attending. Last year’s event had 80 people on the waiting list…just sayin’.

BarCamp Vancouver will also be playing host to two “sub camps” — specifically, WordPressCamp and PhotoCamp. Please do check off the appropriate item in the registration form if you’re interested in those events, so we can help estimate numbers. We’re going to reserve space and time for dedicated sessions around those two topics.

Lastly, there are a bunch of other events happening around the same time. The Thursday before — September 25th — is National Digital Media Day. Maura is planning a Launch Party for Vancouver that evening to coincide with the day, and potentially coordinated across the country. September is going to go off with a bang…

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Those who know me would probably not describe me as an overly wordy person, but when I read Jevon’s post and had so much to say that it wouldn’t all fit in the comments section, so I decided to write it up here.

“The title is “Why Startups Will Save Canadian Venture Capital”, and it doesn’t let anyone off the hook. It isn’t a criticism, but instead it is an analysis and a call to action for both Angels, VCs and Entrepreneurs. Things are pretty busted up right now and it is time to start talking about what we need to do to make a difference.” – Jevon MacDonald on July 16th, 2008

I, for one, am ready to stand behind you Jevon, and accept your call to action.  It’s up to us, the Canadian tech community, to fix this.  Nobody else is going to do it for us.

I just got back from a tech event in LA called Twiistup.  It’s very similar to our Vancouver based event, Launch Party.  I met all sorts of VCs, Angels, and Entrepreneurs from the LA tech community there.  Surprisingly, they reminded me more of Vancouver than I had expected.  They are a small, tightly connected and highly supportive group who shared the same exact problems as we do.  What I learned is that just because they’re in California, doesn’t make them part of Silicon Valley.  I spoke with one person at great length about the exact issues that we are experiencing as a small, non-valley, aspiring tech center.  It was as though I was a shrink and just articulated his frustrations with LA as if I was reading his mind.  I explained to him our model for Bootup Labs and how I feel it’s a big step toward solving these problems.  His response was simple, but so simple that it helped to clear my mind “It’s time to stop talking about it and just DO IT!”

That’s the attitude shift that needs to occur within our community as well, but the good news is that I feel it happening already.

So, Let’s get started…  First, we’ll break down the problem:

Problem (where we are)

From where I stand, in the trenches, I can see the problem very clearly.  The problem is that there aren’t enough new entrepreneurs starting companies because they need money, and there isn’t money because there isn’t enough entrepreneurs who can get far enough along to interest investors.  To be clear, the problem is not at the later stages, it’s at the very earliest stage, as explained so well by Jevon’s presentation.  I’m eager to hear any comments from anyone who disagrees with this assertion.

Desired results (where we want to be)

To have created the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine of new tech deal flow.  At first, it spits out many small fundable companies which can exit in the $20M-$80M range.  These are wins for Founders and wins for VCs. Hey a win-win!  Those founders then re-enter the ecosystem, personally flush with cash and ready to, both, be an inspiration to new entrepreneurs, and also take a bolder risk on that $100M-$1B idea.  Some will leave after being acquired by a US company, which is great!  We haven’t taxed or created any regulatory barriers that would prevent companies from leaving our Province. Because of this and the high quality deal flow, our eco-system attracts entrepreneurs and investors from all over the world to build their company in our supportive environment.  We gain more than we lose.  Our community competes on a global stage with ease.

Strategy (Solution to the problem)

So, now that we understand where we are, and where we want to be, we can focus.  We need to start by breaking the catch 22.  We accomplish this by feeding the bottom of the food chain — cultivating it.  VCs and Angels should invest in their deal flow, and government and universities have a lot to gain by helping as well.  Startups have always supported the VC industry, and the VCs reciprocate, albeit secondarily.  Startups are first and will always be first; It’s our role, and how we earn the title “Entrepreneur.”  So, doesn’t that make the VC dependent to Startups?  Let’s face it, if entrepreneurs stopped starting companies, VCs would eventually die off, but if VCs stopped funding entrepreneurs, it wouldn’t stop companies from being started, it just may slow it down.  Point and case: PlentyOfFish, Club Penguin, Elastic Path are just a few examples of Vancouver based Internet companies who haven’t taken a dime of VC money and are only three of the west coast’s biggest and most recent success stories.  It’s simply where VCs exist in the food chain, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  Investors are starting to realize that supporting, enhancing, and cultivating deals at the earliest of stages is in their own best interest.  Doing so will enable them to play to their strengths, which is to invest only after the companies have achieved a certain level of maturity and need a larger amount of money to grow.  In fact, it just may be what saves the Venture Capital industry.  And these days it’s a CHEAP hedge.

Next, we need to celebrate failures and re-up our investment in founders with the passion and will to try, try, try again.

Finally, we need to start the perpetual motion machine.  We do this by investing in the community around us, encouraging smart people who have great ideas to give it a shot.  Also, we reach out to our networks in Silicon Valley, Europe, and other parts of the world and offer support to come to Canada to build their companies.

Tactical plan (Executing on the solution) Break the catch 22

1. Create a facility that allows ideas to be tested and formed into fundable companies. - DONE
2. Raise money from angels, institutions and governments who benefit from such a facility.  (Share in the risk.) - IN PROCESS

Start the perpetual motion machine

1. Assist first time founders with business model formulation, and basic business operation skills. - IN PROCESS
2. Test idea in the marketplace.  Get customers. Prove it.
3. Introduce the company to the investor community for larger growth financing.
4. Distribute excess proceeds to shareholders.
5. repeat

(Hopefully it’s obvious by now that I’m explaining a lot about what Bootup Labs’ does.  But, we’d absolutely welcome some competition.  The more people help to build the local ecosystems, the better it is for everyone.  And we’re really competing against other areas of the world anyway.)

This plan does require a bit of a paradigm shift in the way we think:

It requires some changes to the common definition of what it takes to be an entrepreneur.  The entrepreneur should be able to build something first and then ask for money later.  That’s what separates the founders who will do whatever it takes, from the less committed, thereby reducing the risk for the investor.  Right?  Maybe not.  Maybe a person’s ability to take a personal financial risk is not a prerequisite to building a valuable company.  Maybe the person who tests the idea doesn’t have to be the risk taker.  If the product is accepted by customers/users, isn’t that all that matters?  One VC I worked with used a term “founderitis” which I interpreted as a founder who thinks they know it all, isn’t willing to take advice, and makes poor decisions based on of fear of losing control.  Maybe we can avoid founderitis by removing the old process of natural selection and replacing it with a new one.

SIDE NOTE: It should be noted, that the last thing I want to do is create any more animosity between founder and funder than there already is.  VCs play a vital role in boosting our economy and helping our tech community compete on the global stage!  But, It’s a relationship that requires mutual respect and balanced terms.  Both entrepreneurs and investors need to master these skills, and if you’re one of these people, and the first thing you wanted to do when you read this was forward it to your investors or founders, respectively, then you’re the problem!  Look to yourself and make sure you are helping the other side succeed.  Make sure there is enough incentive left on both sides to stay engaged.  Don’t “control” something out of fear that the other side is going to screw up.  After all, you will get what you focus on.

The old VC model is simply broken for companies in the digitally distributed technology sector of tech.  The problem though is that there are still huge exits in that space, and will be for the foreseeable future.  Internet, casual gaming, mobile and new enterprise 2.0 deals no longer require the capital that they used to.  VCs simply couldn’t manage the size of their portfolio if they only invested $100k into each company.  It also means it’s easier to get companies off the ground and tested, and much harder for VCs to pick the one who will win.  But, one thing that will never change is that VCs will always compete over really great deals, or said differently, Startups who are fundable will always be able to pick and choose who they take money from.  That’s why the added services that a VC can offer, (connections, credibility, advice, etc) will make or break if they get good deals.  This is how we we will attract the Tier 1 VCs out of the valley to syndicate with the local investors which juices the ecosystem at the upper end of the food chain and just makes everyone happy.

Go!

Anyway… I don’t see failure.  It’s not even a possibility.  I am diligent about pushing doubts out of my mind anytime I’m tempted to consider them.  I have no time or patience for anyone who is skeptical.  Vancouver WILL be a globally recognized tech center.  It’s a fact! “It’s time to stop talking about it and just DO IT!” together.

–

If that’s not enough.  We’re actually late to this game.  Other regions have already figured this out and have working models running.  TechStars based in Boulder, Colorado (~12% the size of Vancouver), for example, started up last year and helped 10 companies get started.  8 out of 10 have already closed subsequent VC rounds.  How about not being late for once Canada?  It’s time to show some leadership.

Website: launchboxdigital.com Location: Washinton, District of Columbia, United States Founded: December 1, 2007 Funding: $250k

LaunchBoxDigital is a Washington, D.C. based startup incubator that launched in early 2008. It has a similar model to Y Combinator - they invest at the earliest stages of an idea, and take a… Learn More

Website: ycombinator.com Location: Mountain View, California, United States Founded: April 1, 2005

Y Combinator is a venture fund which focuses on seed investments to startup companies. It offers financing as well as business advice and other opportunities to 2-4 person companies looking to take a great idea to a product. Y Combinator looks for… Learn More

Website: seedcamp.com Location: London, United Kingdom

Seedcamp is a week long event in London, September 3-7, 2007 for twenty young entrepreneurs to showcase their early-stage strategies and product concepts. The idea is similar to the early stage startup programs… Learn More

Website: techstars.org Location: Boulder, Colorado, United States Founded: August 1, 2007

With the motto “the geeks shall inherit the earth”, TechStars is truly motivated to getting good ideas off the ground. TechStars is a seed fund similar to Y Combinator. It offers $5,000 per founder to companies that make its list for up to 3… Learn More

Information provided by CrunchBase

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One of the things we’re doing at Bootup is to gather together best practices that we can share with startups and founders. The goal is to get the most bang for your buck, from spending money to spending your time.

When Danny and I decided on the name for Bootup, we had basic systems up and running in something like 3 hours: domain registered at NameCheap, configured for Google Apps for Domains to get email, calendaring, and docs up, and a basic website / blog at WordPress.com.

Even if you have technical people that can setup and run some of these things, your goal is to build your technology / grow your company. For instance, talking to AdHack, I quickly put them on to Unfuddle, a hosted SVN and ticket tracking system. Below are two tools that I love, and that are on the list of sites we encourage startups here to use.

I’ve been organizing a couple of events recently – VinoCamp is coming up August 16th, and BarCamp Vancouver is going to be either September 13th or 27th (you can help decide which date here). For both, I’m using Eventbrite to do registration and sell tickets. I’m evening considering using Eventbrite’s ticket functionality to “sell” sponsorships through their PayPal integration. Gathering registrant information? check. Affiliate links? check. Tracking links? check (Miss604 and TechVibes are neck and neck in sending traffic, BTW). In all, a really great tool for doing free as well as for pay events, although there are a few little changes that I wouldn’t mind seeing.

Which brings me to my next tool: how are you gathering feedback? feature requests? beefs or bugs with your product or service? Seeing a blog post by Vince at Pennyminder reminded me about Get Satisfaction. It provides a way to implement everything from bug reporting to forum discussions about your company or even specific products. While you certainly want to keep in close contact with your early users and respond directly via email, Twitter, blog posts, etc., you can promote Get Satisfaction as a more structured way. For example, a suggestion via email might get the response “Great idea, I’ve added it as a suggestion to our Get Satisfaction page - please tell other people about it if they also think it’s a good idea”. I just added Bootup Labs - you should probably at least claim your company name and monitor it, even if you don’t plan to use it directly.

What other tools can you recommend, and how have you used them? I know there are local Vancouver startups that would fit this bill, like ScribbleWiki.

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Today, DreamBank launched!

DreamBank connects Dreamers and supporters to help create positive change by giving dreams, not stuff.

Very cool idea.  I still think the charity aspect confuses the message though.  I was forced to choose one to create a dream, and I didn’t know why.  Also, people will “dream” for “stuff” too.  I guess the slogan is to just discourage consumption, but not restrict it.

Good luck Dawn!

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From all the coverage that Rogers has got about how bad they treat us Canadians, I’m sure it’s got the marketing geeks heads spinning.  They’re probably wondering if all this bad press is going to get them more subscribers or less, because it’s not obvious.  They’re probably asking themselves, what would have happened if they just priced the data at $30/6GB up front.  Would they have avoided the controversy, or would everyone have been just as unhappy with that plan.  What if they waited for all the crazy early adopters to wait in line and pay a premium for being first, and then reduce the price a couple months later.  What if they did nothing at all?  I’m not sure, but there are some facts.  Canada has some the highest priced cell phone plans in the world.  Part of the reason is a “System Access Fee” that we all pay.  David McGuinty, Member of Parliament, Ottawa South, is looking for support for his bill C-555 which will do away with the System Access Fee.  If you agree, sign the petition.

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