Badges, we need stinkin’ badges
The Founders & Funders event is a social event . Our goal is to help connect the people who fund web and emerging technology companies with those that start them. The first part of these efforts is to host an event. Well the first Founders & Funders - Toronto event is happening January 21, 2008. The next part is to help the attendees connect to each other at the event.
Here is the first attempt to design a name tag to improve the connections between attendees at the event. These badges are based on the badge design concepts by Mike Davidson. The goals of the initial design are:
- Name - As Dan Saffer says “First Name. BIG! I don’t want to have to stare at people’s badges any longer than I need to. A rapid glance should boldly display the wearer’s first name, often to just refresh my memory or as a cue if I’m looking for someone I haven’t met but want to.”
- Company - I want to know who you work for, but this is secondary to who you are.
- Founder or Funder - As designated by both the icon and the color. The color (for those of us that aren’t colour blind) should allow you to identify the basic composition from a distance. The icon is a secondary method for identifying the role.
We want to make it easier for attendees to connect with each other. Other things I’m thinking about for the badges:
- Including a list of attendees, email addresses, company description, URL and stage. This would be a foldout in the back of the badge.
- Holder for business cards. This is not the most important thing, but at conferences I always put my cards and cards I receive in the badge holder, if they fit.
One thing I host that all Founders provide us is a 2 page summary sheet. The team at StumbleUpon provides a Fact Sheet which summarizes the business. We could then distribute this information to each of the Funders attending so they’d have a great way to follow up with the attendees they meet and more relevant details than provided by a business card.
- Problem solved - “help people discover interesting or informative web content that they wouldn’t have thought to search for.”
- Company history - “Originally launched in Calgary in 2002″
- Why it works - “Stumbling is so easy that through word-of-mouth alone, nearly one million people have installed the StumbleUpon toolbar extension, stumbling an average of 20 times per day”
- Revenue model - “Free membership is supported by a unique, targeted advertising model which guarantees relevant audiences and elicits community feedback. Members who opt to pay an annual fee never have to see an ad.”
- Founders - “StumbleUpon was founded by three Canadians: Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, and Justin LaFrance. The three recently relocated to San Francisco.”
- Funding - “Until March 2006, StumbleUpon was completely self-funded and fully bootstrapped. Growth was achieved solely via word of mouth. To accelerate growth, the Company has attracted private investment from leading technology investors and entrepreneurs”
- Board of Advisors
- Contact Information
If you can’t summarize your business using a format like this, you’d better be Microsoft or General Electric.
First round of Founders
Founders & Funders is about helping to connect the founders of early-stage, venture fundable web and technology companies with the funding community in Canada. We’ve asked all founders to describe their company and the stage they are current at using a short format.Name, Company
Please describe your Company if explained in a single twitter post (140 characters max)
If asked to describe what “stage” your startup is at in 10 words or less
You can follow the Tweets at http://twitter.com/foundersfunders
We’re assembling a great group of founders.
- Michael Garrity, CommunityLend
Funded and prepping for Beta Launch
Peer to Peer Lending Service for Canada - George Favvas, SmartHippo
Public beta; very early revenue
SmartHippo is the first ever site that uses the power of the community to help people find the best rates and save money. Based in Montreal. - Craig Fitzpatrick, DevShop
Commercialization
A project management application that gets to know the team members’ behavior to predict & insulate projects from risk. - Ali Asaria, Well.ca
Early-stage Startup
Well.ca is a Canadian online health & beauty store and a leader in the online Canadian retail health market. We’re also super friendly. - Scott Brooks & Bernie Aho, ConceptShare
Growth Phase poised for expansion.
ConceptShare has developed a web application that allows users to easily share, discuss and mark-up designs for review over the web. - Kevin Thomason & Ilya Grigorik, AideRSS
An early stage ready to dominate the RSS filtering market
AideRSS helps you breakthrough RSS information overload and read what matters. - Stephen Benson, Innovation Exchange
revenue generating
IX is a platform corporations use to accelerate their ability to innovate by connecting them with a Global Community of innovative thinkers. - Sandy Ward, HomeZilla
Alpha!
HomeZilla is a one-stop shop for home buyers and agents to find neighbourhood information about a home. - Chris Ragobeer, Nametaggs
Beta and Unfunded
Nametaggs is a social media service that allows people with a domain name registered with their name on it to promote their content. - Christopher Golda, IPartee
Early-stage
IPartee provides the tools to plan, publish and promote events. Find events and venues you and your friends want to attend. - Ross Bennet, SlashID
Beta launch, boot strapped, looking for Angel investment
SlashID will increase the number of registrations your website receives, to improve your business.Solves the identity problem for your users
Sponsored
Apparently, this might be why my last couple of ventures failed. The price for tickets for Founders & Funder$ is $75/person. Unfortunately, the costs per person are greater tahn $75, just the meal at Monsoon is $83/person plus taxes and gratuities. This means that on the surface, I’m really, really bad at simple math. It also means that we need sponsors to help cover the costs with hosting the Founders & Funders event.
Microsoft Canada has agreed to help sponsor the event on one condition - that I take remedial mathematics help.We’re really excited to have Microsoft participating.
The Microsoft Canada team is working hard to bring the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program to Canada. The program is focused on startups in the US, UK, France and India. However we’re lucky to have Lynda Ting, from the Emerging Business Team in Silicon Valley (and a former early-stage Toronto VC) flying up to join us for the evening. Microsoft is committed to working with industry leaders, academic institutions, local policy makers, the venture capital community and others to build strong local commercial software industries. There are Partner Programs like the Empower, where you are building a product, you get free (or very close to free) access to almost every Microsoft tool and product.
Microsoft continues to host MIX, an intimate conference for cutting-edge technical, creative and business strategists to engage Microsoft in a conversation about the future of the web. MIX is a 72 hours conversation exploring the latest wave of opportunities and help redefine the boundaries between: content and commerce, PC and TV, Windows and the Web.
I was lucky enough to get invited to MIX07 and I’ll be at MIX08 where I know there will be a lot of very interesting technologies.
Founders and Funders - Toronto
Jevon MacDonald and David Crow are pleased to be hosting the first Founders & Funders dinner in Toronto. We heard about the success in Montreal with the first dinner hosted by Austin Hill and Patrick Lauzon, and figured that this needs to happen in Toronto.
Founders & Funders - Toronto
A evening of socializing and dinner for entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists
January 21, 2008
$75/person - Limited to 75 attendees
Private 3 course dinner at Monsoon Restaurant
There has been a lot of discussion about the needs of entrepreneurs in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Canada. It has been summarized very well, as,
“you only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub: rich people and nerds” – Paul Graham
This is our community-driven attempt to bring together the people who start tech companies and the people who fund tech companies in Toronto in a engaging, social environment.
There has been a buzz of activity in the web 2.0 community in Toronto. DemoCamp. StartupCamp. CaseCamp. TransitCamp. We often hear about a successful entrepreneur or an interesting startup, but it is incredibly difficult to find time to attend all the events and meet all the interesting people. The inaugural Founders & Funders Dinner Toronto is an effort to bring together the nerds and people with money in Toronto.
Interested in attending?
We’re looking for founders, entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists and others.
Contact us for an invitation - space pending, of course.
