By Alexandra Reid
As co-founder of Startup Canada, the country’s first-ever entrepreneur-led national movement celebrating Canadian entrepreneurship, Victoria Lennox is a bona fide startup champion.
At her core, Victoria is a social entrepreneur, and you could say her relationship with the startup ecosystem approaches the romantic. She is excited about the opportunities that come from starting new businesses, not only from an economic standpoint, but for their potential to empower individuals with the motivation to think bigger, rediscover their dreams and be creative.
“Entrepreneurship is a mindset, a lifestyle, a way of thinking. That’s why I’m part of this movement in Canada,” said Victoria. “It isn’t just about creating entrepreneurs, but inspiring Canadians to think in entrepreneurial ways. I’ve seen entrepreneurship transform people. It’s about a personal experience, and if that leads to healthier communities, that’s a great byproduct.”
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This is the fifth article in a continuing monthly series chronicling the growth path of Genevolve Vision Diagnostics, a life sciences startup based in Albuquerque, NM that is commercializing cutting edge genetic research to develop new diagnostic tests and gene therapies for colour blindness.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
It’s been a busy couple of months for Matt Lemelin, CEO of Genevolve Vision Diagnostics, as he hustles across the U.S. to raise Genevolve’s profile and, ideally, its bank account.
A year ago he made the mistake of letting his fundraising efforts lose steam after he secured a short-term investor. But those funds quickly ran out and he found himself scrambling without any fresh prospects in the pipeline. In our last post, we also talked about how Genevolve’s plans for a big launch at the annual meeting of the American Academy for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus in March had been derailed by delays in the lab.
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By Francis Moran
I have shamelessly adapted the headline of this post from a Wall Street Journal article I read on the weekend that reviewed two excellent books tracking the ascendancy of Africa over the past decade and predicting that the continent’s rise as an economic force to be reckoned with would continue in similar fashion for the next decade. Acknowledging the structural problems many African countries face on the political front, one of the reviewed authors was quoted as writing, “there is no magic recipe for turning countries around, only good cooks.”
The sharp application of the sentiment to the founding of companies was immediately and forcefully impressed upon me. There is no magic recipe for a successful company. There are only good cooks.
When I founded inmedia Public Relations at the height of the telecom boom in late 1998, I used to say our template client was “three engineers, a brilliant idea and $10 to $15-million in U.S. venture capital.” We were seeing these companies form at the rate of several a month, and I thought they were all going to succeed.
Boy, was I wrong.
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Introducing Jeff Campbell
Jeff just can’t seem to get enough of us. He’s twice been a client. He’s long been one of our go-to guys whenever we needed a solid reference. And now, he likes our company so much he’s decided to join as an associate. And we’re delighted to have him.
Jeff is a serial CEO and entrepreneur with a lengthy record of achievement in securing investment, building international sales and business-development channels, and accelerating the commercialization of new technology. With more than 30 years spent in companies both large and small – from the Microsofts and EDS Systemhouses of the world to fast-growth startups like AssetMetrix and PerspecSys – Jeff has a thoroughly rounded perspective on exactly what it takes to bring technology to market.
Jeff will be making regular contributions to our blog, starting with today’s post, below. He will be writing about how to build effective sales and business-development capacity to drive revenue, as well as how to position for investment, strategic partnerships and acquisition. And he represents us in the Waterloo region that he calls home and is a valued team member addressing the sales and channel-development requirements of our strategy clients.
By Jeff Campbell
It is at once intimidating and encouraging to be invited to blog with Francis Moran and Associates. Intimidating because I hold Francis and the folks who work with him in such high esteem, particularly as writers, editors and communicators. Me? I write like I talk. That means a blatant disregard for grammar, structure and spellin’, and a propensity to over use superlative adjectives and adverbs. It is encouraging for this reason (high-quality editing) and because of the collaboration that will ensue. Francis and the band of associates are a team of accomplished individuals with whom I very much look forward to sharing ideas, experiences and learnings in the coming months.Why am I blogging here? What interesting things can I share? Well, with more than 30 years of experience, I have a lot of stories. There are stories just screaming to get told, stories that result from selling a company to Microsoft, stories about commercializing innovative products, stories about building a business with a business model very few people understood at the time, stories about fundraising and stories about building channels and the relationships that make them effective.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a regular weekly feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are TechCrunch, Fast Company, Forbes, ReadWriteWeb and MarketingProfs.
Why startups should pay attention to skyrocketing patent prices
As large companies increasingly look to protect their revenue streams through IP risk mitigation, startups with strong patent holdings will become increasingly valuable because they provide an opportunity to remove dual potential threats to the potential acquirer’s revenue stream — as a competitor and as a patent threat. Author Leonid Kravets explains that startups that are able to position themselves as part of an acquirer’s IP risk-mitigation strategy make themselves more attractive targets for acquisition.
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What’s going on in Waterloo?
April 19, 2012 by Francis Moran
Regular readers of this blog will know that I spend a fair bit of time in the Waterloo region where both the buzz and the substance of the startup scene seem to get louder and more solid every day. (And before folks in Ottawa think I’m ignoring my hometown, let me […]
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What an entrepreneur can learn from a literary conference
April 18, 2012 by Leo Valiquette
Back in March I blogged about the striking similarities between an entrepreneur who is trying to bring technology to market and a writer who is attempting to publish a novel. I referenced the fact that I would soon be attending a literary conference, Ad Astra, as part […]
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Social media strategy: Why meeting in the ‘real world’ matters
April 17, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
I’m a huge advocate of social media and how it helps bridge new relationships and strengthen existing ones, but I think it’s bad practice to rely on it as a sole means of communicating with others […]
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Innovation and the budget
April 16, 2012 by Denzil Doyle
It was encouraging to see the emphasis that was placed on innovation in the recent budget and in subsequent discussions with the federal finance minister, Jim Flaherty. On the other hand, it was discouraging to read the cover of Maclean’s […]
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The importance of developing a social media image strategy
April 13, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
Humans have used images to tell stories for millennia, beginning with the rock art, tree carvings, and even tattoos of our ancient ancestors. Since the birth of the practice about 100 years ago, marketers have used images as a powerful communications […]
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Learning how to deal with the unexpected
April 12, 2012 by Francis Moran
When we last checked in with Screenreach, the company was in the midst of tweaking the new version of its Screach application for a March 7 launch. The team was well on track and seemed to have all of its ducks in a row. They had found out what their market […]
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Are we getting value for all the money we’re spending on patents?
April 09, 2012 by David French
“How can we find out whether we’re getting value for all the money that we’re spending on patents within the company?” This is a question I’ve heard before, and it’s a tough one to answer […]
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How to municipimp your municipality
April 05, 2012 by Alexandra Reid
Introduced at Social Media Breakfast as the guy Klout calls “authority on shoes,” Ottawa Tourism’s director of digital marketing, Nick Iannitti, is attempting to do what my fellow Ottawans might consider the impossible: change the perception that our beloved city […]
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As co-founder of Startup Canada, the country’s first-ever entrepreneur-led national movement celebrating Canadian entrepreneurship, Victoria Lennox is a bona fide startup champion.
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