By Alexandra Reid
Throughout his career, both in Canada and the U.K., Bryan J. Watson has been a champion of entrepreneurship as a vector for the commercialization of advanced technologies. As demonstrated by his concurrent roles as executive director of a number of non-profit emerging-growth venture-fostering organizations including the National Angel Capital Organization, CEO of Fusion and a director of Precarn Inc. and the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, Bryan takes an active role in the entire entrepreneurial spectrum from idea-generation to financing to liquidity event.
How are entrepreneurs currently using social media to get their startups noticed by angels?
In general, entrepreneurs are using social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for outreach both to angels and to the wider community. More specifically, they are using these channels to share information about their ventures and to generate buzz. Mostly, it is the web-based companies that are the early adopters of social media as an outreach tool, I find.
For startups, social media encompasses a wider range of online platforms, such as AngelList, Tech Crunch’s CrunchBase, and StartupIndex. These platforms are social in that they allow entrepreneurs to share information about their ventures with investors. On the investment-opportunity-intake side of things, sites like AngelSoft, unlike widely used social media platforms, are secured and closed systems involving only individuals in the angel capital community. Entrepreneurs and investors are using these platforms to share and receive business information and manage deal flow.
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By Linda Forrest
Francis kicked off the launch of this blog by listing to some of the more common objections made by technology companies about why they’re not investing in marketing. One of these straw man arguments, an all-too-common refrain, is a lack of budget. From that first post:
“Lack of budget is the next most common excuse for not engaging in marketing. This one has more legitimacy but it also betrays a failure by marketers. If we can’t get the funds we need to do the job we believe needs to be done, it’s because we have failed to adequately plot the line between cause and effect, between marketing outflow and revenue income. What rational person would decline to invest a second and third dollar into a marketing program that has proven that the first dollar actually produced the revenue we said it would?”
We’ve long said that marketing is an investment, rather than a cost centre, and that’s absolutely the case. A business that views marketing merely as an expenditure rather than a tool to increase market share and revenue is doomed to failure. Marketing requires investment of money, time and resources to be successful. To borrow a line from a Canadian bank’s advertising campaign, “you’re richer than you think” when it comes to having “budget” for marketing. And here’s why.
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This is the fourth article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in the go-to-market ecosystem in the United States, Canada and Britain. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
In his book, Making Technology Happen, Denzil Doyle makes the valid point that “technology” is not found only in research laboratories or other establishments that form part of what is commonly known as the “knowledge industry.”
“A farmer who develops an add-on device for a piece of farm machinery is not only creating technology, but is advancing it along the innovation chain by turning it into a useful product,” Doyle wrote. “If a few neighbours buy it and they find it a useful product, it has been taken through the entire length of the innovation chain, from the idea stage to the distribution stage. The farmer has simply not formalized the innovation process by writing a proper business plan, raising some investment capital and starting a business.”
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This is the first contribution to this blog by Associate Peter Hanschke, an Ottawa-based product management specialist.
By Peter Hanschke
Congratulations! You finally got some money to hire one or more developers or you found enough time to start developing your product on your own. You look at the list of features and capabilities that your product needs to satisfy the needs of your target market and it is huge. You do some rough calculations and unfortunately the number of hours to implement everything is well beyond your financial runway or your market opportunity window. So how do you pick which features to do first?
Let’s first define a Minimum Viable Product. An MVP is simply the minimum set of features that provide the initial value to the user of your product. It is crucial that this first incarnation of your product must show your value differentiation. In other words, not only must it provide that initial functionality for your first users, it also needs to show off why your product is different or unique in the market place.
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By Francis Moran
Although I am utterly persuaded of the efficacy of new and social media as potent marketing, communications, outreach and customer service channels, I am also utterly persuaded that far too many so-called social media marketers are, quite simply, drowning in the Kool-Aid.
An early indication of this social media myopia became apparent in a conversation I had a year or so back with one of these self-styled new media gurus. She and I got into a discussion one evening about the value of social media channels. Her argument was that any and every new media channel trumped any and every so-called old media channel; that this new media model had completely disrupted the old media model.
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Pitching in the new media world
February 17, 2011 by Linda Forrest
Late last year, PRNewswire gave a presentation at PubCon that shared its data about pitching in the new media world, what modes journalists were using in 2010 and in what numbers. The results were as follows:
84 percent of journalists like to get pitched via email. In addition to email, these journalists also use Facebook (79 percent), LinkedIn (64 percent), and Twitter (58 percent) to search out potential stories […]
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Top 12 lies angels tell
February 16, 2011 by Frank Peters
“That was a good presentation!”
I have to say something positive, but you’re not getting me to write a cheque. The fact is, most funding pitches are terrible; they’re more product pitches with an appeal for money tacked on at the end. Passion, yes; every entrepreneur has heard by now they must show great enthusiasm for their endeavor, but show me how I can get my money back someday, too.
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The new risk capital reality: What now?
February 15, 2011 by Francis Moran
In our previous post, we explored the massive changes that have occurred in North America and Europe that have led to a contraction of traditional venture capital investment […]
These long-term trends have left early-stage companies in a tight spot. They must become increasingly creative […]
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Authenticity trumps cheap
February 14, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
Sometimes, a dash of painful irony is enough to provoke a serious discussion.
I flew to Vancouver this past week to reunite with my Dad and two brothers who have all moved to opposite areas of the planet over the last few years. My younger brother, Austin, who flew in from China, promised his Chinese girlfriend a Starbucks mug with “Canada” on it […]
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Creative, emotional, evocative: Getting the attention of overwhelmed consumers
February 11, 2011 by Leo Valiquette
Do you remember that Knorr commercial about how it had reduced sodium in its packaged side dishes?
Global advertising agency DDB Worldwide took a clever approach to promote a relatively humdrum message by portraying the perspective of that one individual unhappy about sodium reduction. […]
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Just let me pay for it
February 10, 2011 by Alayne Martell
The Internet. Love it or hate it, most of us need it. And with it comes many debates. Most recently the controversy is growing over the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) recent ruling regarding usage-based-billing (UBB). […]
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Flow-through shares for technology companies
February 09, 2011 by Denzil Doyle
During the past three or four decades, Canadian policy makers at both the federal and provincial levels have tried just about every trick in the book to finance technology companies, particularly those that are at an early stage in their development. In the early 1980s, we had the Scientific Research Tax Credits (SRTCs) that allowed technology companies that were not yet profitable to predict in advance what their R&D expenditures […]
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The new risk capital reality: What’s happened to VC?
February 08, 2011 by Francis Moran
This is the second article in a continuing series that examines the state of the ecosystem necessary to successfully bring technology to market. Based on dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business leaders, academics, tech-transfer experts and policy makers, this series looks at what is working and what can be improved in […]
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The Future of A&R – Walabe : [...] http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/top-10-questions-every-strategic-communicator-should-ask... [...]
Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]