ONsetMagazine Final

7/30/2019 ONsetMagazine Final

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Table of C ntents

2

Editorial

Editor's Word

SunnieHuang

JenniferPang

Editorial Team

Dylan C.Robertson

SarahTaguiam

From the BlackBerrys birthplace o Waterloo to To-ronto 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 at-

tracting thousands o young people to the heart o

the provinces economy.

ONset Magazine covers Ontarios start-up culture,

oering young entrepreneurs a publication that in-

orms, 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

province and in the country and ways to fnd inves-

tors. We also highlight success stories to inspire read-

ers, and appeal to groups underrepresented in the

industry, including women and immigrants.

Please join us as we explore Ontarios startup com-

munity in the next 24 pages.

Sincerely,ONset Magazine editorial team

Briefs 3-4

Community

Your start-up is growing, whats next? 5

Hamilton: The next Waterloo 6-7

Breaking the boys club 8

Tech brain drain: A Canadian problem? 9

Money

Why Ontarios cant use KickStarter 10Learn 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? 16What start-up bachelor(ette)s need to know

about co-founder matchmaking? 17

Before the beginning of everything: Prepara-

tions for launching a business 18

Four secrets for success 18

Education

Start-up: Rethinking the term 19

Entrepreneurship centres: Build your businesswith your schools help 20-21

Career guide to video game writing 22-23

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM


3/24

HOW-TO

TECH CULTURE

3

ONset Magazine talked to two panellists onBusiness News Networks weekly showTePitch to compile a demo day survival guide. Tehal-an-hour show where entrepreneurs pitchin ront o investors has eatured anything rom

anti-bacterial towel to intimacy toy gi boxes.Dr. Leslie Roberts, president and ounder

oGoForth Institute, a small business trainingcompany, said she cant stress enough to entre-preneurs how important it is to always have asound pitch ready to go.

All entrepreneurs should be rehearsing a one-to two-minute pitch in their head, so they couldpull it out o their pocket like a good business cardand deliver it, said the entrepreneurship special-ist. Tose could be game changing some time.

Whether you are actually raising money oryou are just being introduced to somebody at a

cocktail party, you have to be prepared or thosemoments, because opportunities can be lost iyou are not able to communicate what is so greatabout the business you are running, she said.

Tat doesnt come naturally or tech entrepre-neurs, however, according to Dr. Roberts.

echnology entrepreneurs are some o the worstpitchers I have ever heard, because the only thingthey know is the technology.

Tey are not clear, concise and slow commu-nicators. 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 com-munication gap between entrepreneurs andinvestors can be best explained by John Greys1992 relationship advice mega-bestseller.

Finance people are rom Mars and entrepre-neurs are rom Venus. You have to speak theirlanguage, she said.

Metaphor aside, to Loewen, pitching is morelike an art than science. She looks or clues thatreveal young entrepreneurs commitment.

It is not uncommon or the once-enthusiastic

pitchers to leave behind their ideas and workor more prestigious companies, leaving theirinvestors empty-handed.

Im looking at the idea, but Im really lookingat the person, she said.

Sunnie Huang

Hunched in ront o his lap-top, Abhishek Gupta sisthrough hundreds o lines ocode, guring how best to x asmall programming glitch.

Its 1:30 a.m. and the orontostudent is spending his Satur-day night at Ryerson Universi-

tys innovation lab overlookingYonge-Dundas Square.

his late September weekend,hundreds o post-secondary stu-dents like Gupta are pulling all-nighters across Canada. Teyreparticipants in the two-dayGreatCanadian Appathon.

I think I slept three hours,says Gupta, pushing his hairback with one hand while con-

tinuing to type. His eyes dontleave his screen.

Tats aer he passed out ace-rst on the beanbag, chimes inteammate Brandon Perkins.

Te two pause or a brielaugh, then go back to coding.

Teyre trying to win thethird edition o the appathon,dubbed GCA. eams o up toour students have been invitedto build a mobile game approm scratch in just 48 hours

or cash prizes, geek stardomand much more.

A spectacled student in aneon-green giveaway -shirt issplayed out on a bench in a darkcorner. About 25 students aresilently tapping away on theirkeyboards. One just phones inan order o Chinese ood.

One team has built a pyramidmade o the 25 cans o giveawayRed Bull they consumed.

By Sunday at 5 p.m., 518 stu-

dents in each province will have

spent a weekend at one o theparticipating 39 colleges anduniversities.

When Guptas team kicked ofat 5 p.m. Friday, they were up-beat and ready or a challengestoked as Perkins put it, to builda game that mixes chess with thiyears theme: retro design.

But the clocks ticking, asteam leader Budd Royce Lamis well aware.

Were on schedule, we just

have to keep it that way, saysLam, whos working on just vehours o sleep.

Tough he doesnt want toget ahead o himsel, Lam hashis eye on the $25,000 top prizeHis team, Whiskey ango Fox-trot (WF), is competing or aspot in Canadas competitive butunderstafed game industry...

Dylan C. Robertson

Pitching: your verbal business card

Briefs

Caffeine + stress = app success?

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 op

portunities 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

Dont be over-optimistic

Use real numbers. No kittens o

rainbows.

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearseI you pitch on TV, the ootage

can be recycled on your website

as a virtual pitch.

Some humour and a smile

go a long way.

We followed a 48-hour

hackathon. A full storyand video are posted

online, but heres a taste

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM

Dylan C. Robertson/ONset Magazine


4/24


5/24

Four oces and our kids later,Chris Su-

kornykis still going strong.Te CEO and ounder oChango Inc., a

real-time ad targeting company, announcedon Nov. 21 that his start-up has secured anadditional $12 million in unding with ex-isting investors, making it one o the astestgrowing marketing technology companiesin the world. Along with 50 new positions,Chango will also open three more oces inDetroit, London and Chicago, adding to theimpressive lineup o oces in Los Angeles,San Francisco, New York and oronto.

Tese are great cities to visit, said Su-kornyk, 32, rom his oronto oce. But Ispend a lot o time on Skype.

While communications technology isbreaking down the connes o oce walls,start-up entrepreneurs still rely on theirundamental judgement, keen observationand business instinct when it comes tolaunching and running multiple oces.

Changos U.S. oces usually start withone person who works rom home. As lo-

cal clients grow, additional employees arebrought in and the company proceeds torent desks at coworking spaces.

You only get your own oce once youhave an established growth plan and youwant to get out o the desk-by-desk situa-tion, Sukornyk said.

With the announcement o the most re-cent round o unding, Changos revenuehas grown more than 600 per cent over thepast two years. When a start-up is growingso rapidly, Sukornyk said its sometimesdicult to gauge how many oces or how

much space is needed. Entrepreneurs needto strike a balance between over-commit-ment and underestimation sometimesusing gut instinct.

As a start-up, you really do want to beabsolutely busting up the scenes beore youcommit to anything thats xed big cost,Sukornyk said.

One o the strategies to mitigate uncer-tainty, Sukornyk suggested, is to negotiatea exible lease with landlords who are ex-

ible. Changos oronto team, or examplewill soon take over another oor o its KingStreet West oce complex.

While setting up new oces south o

the border, Sukornyk also learnt to tailoremployee benets to regional dierencesWhereas most o his Canadian employeesdont see benets as the deciding actor otaking on a job, their American counter-parts place great emphasis on health carecoverage.

You play by ear and gure out as yougo, Sukornyk suggested, adding that hiringlocal lawyers to draf contracts is essential.

Sukornyk also said the culture in eachoce can be subtly dierent. Te orontooce houses mostly developers, who Su-

kornyk describes as introverted. Te U.Soces, which are marketing-ocused, arehomes to sales specialists who are moreoutgoing.

Rob Mitchell, assistant proessor at thRichard Ivey School of Business whospecializes in entrepreneurship, agreedthat culture is valuable to start-ups, but itdoesnt have to be consistent throughout allocations. CEOs can either encourage competition among dierent oces or teams

or reward them collectively or collaborated work.Its not necessarily one or the other is

better, it depends on what [the CEOs] aretrying to accomplish, Mitchell said.

One o the biggest challenges or a company with multiple locations, according toMitchell, is the missed opportunity o inormal encounters, such as hallway conversations and lunch-time talks. echnologysuch as video conerencing and live chatcan shorten the virtual distance, but cannoreplace the ace-to-ace interaction.

Entrepreneurship is inherently uncertain. Having multiple oces is just one element o uncertainty [entrepreneurs] areacing, Mitchell added.

For Sukornyk, no matter where his ocetakes him, one thing is certain.

Im not CEO o multiple oces, ImCEO o one company, he said. When youare expanding into new cities, it means youcompany is growing and thats exciting.

Sunnie Huang

COMMUNITY In New York, a desk at a typical coworking space costs abou$600 a month and comes with phone lines and Internet access

5

ChrisSukornyk

Your start-up isgrowing, whats next?Globe-trotting CEO Chris Sukornyk shares

some advice on running multiple ofces

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM

Courtesy of Chango Inc.


6/24

Mohawk College sits atop Hamilton Mountain. A platorm down

the street overlooks the citys aging steel mills and industrialdowntown.

In the heart o the main campus, past its wind turbines and glasswalls, Jerad Godreault, 21, types sporadically on his Macbook. He sitson an IKEA couch at iDeaWORKS, the colleges innovation hub thattakes bright students with ideas and equips with them resources andknow-how.

Godreault, a soware development student, co-ounded the medi-cal app Imaginauts with his brother Leo, a nursing graduate. Teirapp tracks a patients prescription compliance by reminding them totake their drugs, and logging when they do. Doctors can monitor thedata, which can suggest when in the day a prescription works best.

A born-and-raised Hamilto-nian, Godreault is enthusiasticabout his citys nurturing, sup-portive community. Hes also atest case in a concerted eort totransrom this municipality o520,000 rom a steel town to a hubo medical tech innovation.

Te iDeaWORKS lab is a con-crete-walled room with tables ocomputers, multiple whiteboardsand binders o inormation on co-op placements. Tree-dimension-

al cardboard fgures rom videogames hang rom the ceiling, in-cluding a Zelda logo and the Super

Mario question-mark cube.Godreault is sending mes-

sages to people he met at recent networking events. Hes asking orvotes in Startof Hamilton, a city-wide, month-long contest wherestart-ups pitch their idea to Hamiltonians, who vote or the bestidea. Te contest, with $150,000 at stake, has attracted 27 teams.Stickers with 8-bit graphics promoting the long competition arepeppered across the city.

Godreault is good at contests. In May, Mohawk College sent him toVancouver, to compete and win the e-Health 2012 Apps Challenge.

Te $3,500 competition required entrepreneurs to pitch their appto health soware proessionals. Judges grilled all nine teams, and Go-

dreault says he was ready because his instructors prepared him or it.We learned how to pitch and get people interested and paying at-

tention. I knew nothing about pitching, he says. Im a guy with anidea. Tey showed me how to make it work.

Kevin Browne is on a mission to change the ace o HamiltonAs a 29-year-old computer science PhD candidate at McMaster University, his decade-long career has included a 16-monthstint in Waterloo, Ontarios tech mecca.

[Waterloos] a nice place to live; good place to raise a amily, Brownesays. But Hamilton is home to me. And we have so much to oer.

Despite Hamiltons low cost o rent, vibrant art scene and sizabledowntown, it wasnt enough to keep his tech colleagues in town.

Browne says it was very personally rustrating to see riends leaveor jobs in oronto, Waterloo, New York and Silicon Valley. In 2010aer years o the usual rotation, he asked a riend why he was leaving

He said you need a community; you need events and networks,Browne recalls. You cant just create this out o thin air.

Determined to stop the brain drain, Browne gathered his riendstogether and launched Hamiltons frst DemoCamp in March 2011Te event attracted 100 people, including unamiliar aces.

Tings snowballed. Within a year, Hamilton had multiple monthly andannual events, rom networking and competitions to employee-employermatchmaking sessions.

In early October 2012, the city held its second annual Lions Lair

event, a take on Dragons Denthat sees 10 entrepreneurs compete or $100,000 in investmenand contracts. Both events soldout, with over 500 guests andplenty o media coverage.

Brownes initiative is only paro the story. Local colleges, uni-

versities, city planning departments and employers are takingan all-hands-on-board approachto making new technology a keypart o Hamiltons economy.

Were all on the same pageand its not an issue to say HeyIm doing this event, do youhave anyone who could help meout? says Carolynn Reid o the

citys economic development department, which oers consultingunding and promotion.

At least one tech patent is fled rom Hamilton each week, and thecitys digital ootprint is displayed through the hundreds o stickers orOctobers Hamilton Starto competition, as well as the 17,000 unique

voters. CBCchose the city or its frst digital-only branch this spring.

COMMUNITY

HAMILTONThe Next Waterloo?

A concerted effort is steering

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

6

In 2011, Hamiltons population was 520,000;

thats a fth o Torontos 2,600,000. Waterloo

counts 98,700 people.

Jerad Godreault

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM



7/24

A big orce behind this shi toward new technologies has beenInnovation Factory, a non-prot, provincially unded organizationthat connects start-ups with investors and resources. It even mir-rors the tech industrys penchant or unconventional spelling: iF.

In less than two years, iF counts 350 start-up clients, hal o which

work in inormation and communications technology. Tat givesHamiltons tech industry roughly a ourth the he o Waterloo, a citythe province started investing in as a tech hub in the 1960s.

I building a tech base rom scratch is a challenge, ghting nega-tive impressions is no cakewalk.

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,iFs 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 on-

line marketplace where businesses can buy and sell surplus inven-tory across seven countries. Founded in Mississauga, the company

moved to Hamilton last year to save 30 per cent o their businesscosts and rent, and hasnt looked back.

But Loomis says Hamilton can be dwared by its proximity tooronto, and long-held perceptions linger.

When people rom Southern Ontario hear Hamilton, they seethe steel mills along the QEW, says Loomis.

Te other route into Hamilton is through Hwy. 403, which pass-

es by the McMaster Innovation Park, a red-brick building whereresearchers and entrepreneurs share workspaces and ideas.

Steels important to our economy and our identity, but were somuch more, says Reid, o the citys economic development depart-ment. People have to come and see the city or what it is.

Its a windy Tursday night in October and Te Winking Judge, amicrobrewery pub operating in a Victorian house, is bustling.Upstairs, a group o about 30 techies is chatting big ideas. Some are

in their 20s, but most are mid-aged. Almost all are male. Unbuttoned

cardigans are in vogue tonight, as is pumpkin-favoured beer.Its the one-year anniversary oStartUpDrinks, an inormal month

ly evening where ideas, business cards and cra draught fow.I cant 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 thamaps out social media on events around the city. onight, hes alsohawking or votes or the online Starto Hamilton competition.

Over the course o an evening, two strangers will come up withan idea or an app and write it on a napkin, a young entrepreneurwill land a job interview and almost everyone will discuss the citymonthly outdoor art crawl that happened earlier that week.

From what I can see, were blossoming as a city, says DuaneHewitt, a biologist by trade whos hoping to expand his consultingwork into mobile health technology. Hamiltons sort o the best

place or health-ocused work.Many o the projects discussed at this months StartupDrinkshave a medical ocus. Hamilton is where most North AmericaneHealth records systems are designed, and the city hosts medicalcompetitions like Apps or Health.

Healthcare has long been the citys second industry aer steelpropelled by decades o health research rom McMaster, the provinces largest medical school. Trough new technology start-upshealth is remerging as Hamiltons raison dtre.

Te citys switch to health innovation echoes the path travelled beoreby Kitchener and Waterloo, two cities that pivoted rom insurance companies and manuacturing to mobile innovation over the past two decades.

Communitech, a Waterloo non-prot similar to Hamiltons iF

estimates that 30,000 people are now employed in more than 1,000tech rms in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, with new ones poppingup at a rate that doubles every year.

Just as Waterloo start-ups steered the city to mobile innovationHamilton start-ups are looking to make waves in medical technology

A lot o my clients have health-related businesses. I guess health issort o our bridge into the tech world, says im Miron, an accountant who works with many start-up clients. He points across the bar tosome entrepreneurs hes been chatting with, all in their 20s.

Well get there through these guys.

With Victorian stone houses, a bustling business district and

wide streets, Hamilton mixes a city and town feel. See more

photos online at onsetmag.com

Steels important to our economy and our

identity, but were so much more. People have

to come and see the city for what it is. Carolynn Reid

7WWW.ONSETMAG.COM iDeaWORKS at Mohawk College

James Street Business District Gore Park



8/24

Laurie Rauch is ond o words.Aer weathering the recession, shenever imagined shed still be writing butwith new languages like HML and CSS.

I was always ascinated with web devel-oping but it was just something a lot o

women at the time didnt do, Rauch said.aking a giant leap, she learned the nec-essary skills or a tech career and now ownsweb developing companyCode Diva.

Rauch is part o the glaringly small 25 percent o women working in Canadas techsector a number that has puzzled indus-try proessionals or decades.

We have this potential to impact justabout every business but we arent taking upthat challenge, said University of Torontocomputer science proessor Kelly Lyons. Idont understand why were still not 50 per

cent o tech.Tough no one knows the exact reason,

Lyons, who joined previously worked as anIBM program director beore joining U o in 2008, said there are theories explainingthe situation like the stereotype that tech isa boys club.

CanWIT executive director EmilyBoucher ound that most women see techcompanies as a room ull o men workingin a dark room coding in the wee hours.

A 2007 Ryerson University Diversity Insti-tute study ound the notion that tech jobsare ocused on coding contributed to a de-cline in emale enrollment in tech univer-sity programs. Te place where women aremost scarce, however, is boardrooms.

In Canada, only 16 per cent o womenhold leadership roles in the corporate sec-tor and only 14 companies had women inexecutive ranks in Deloittes list o 50 astestgrowing technology rms.

Facebook CEO Cheryl Sandberg a-mously deconstructs the phenomenon in a2012 ED alk, saying that rearing childrenand managing a household on top o hav-ing a job cause some women to quietly shyaway rom the career enhancement.

oronto-based Homesav.com CEO, andmother o two, Aliza Pulver is all too amil-iar with this scenario.

Aer giving birth to her second daugh-

ter one month aer raising unding or herluxury home decor sales site, Pulver acutelyelt the pull o motherhood.

Tere have denitely been some meet-ings where Im more pre-occupied with mykids and what theyre doing than whats be

ing discussed on the table, she agreed.But Pulver said its possible to balance ias long as you have a good support system

In Ontario, several industry organizations and initiatives are put in place to assist women who are already working in theindustry or looking to enter it.

CanWit and Wired Woman ofer mentorship programs that pair new proessionals with leaders in the eld, while orontoincubator Driven Accelerator Groupprovides training and support to startupsled by women and people o colour. Te

group Girls in Tech Toronto hosts socialseaturing women tech speakers, while La-dies Learning Code acilitate introductoryworkshops on like HML and CSS.

Tough these initiatives are airly newthey have already grabbed the attention othe Ontarios tech world a possible signo better things to come or women.

Lie s moving and women have to evolvewith it and I think we are, Pulver said.

Sarah Taguiam

COMMUNITY

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM8

rie

uch

BREAKINGTHE BOYS CLUB

There have defnitely been

some meetings where Im more

pre-occupied with my kids and

what theyre doing than whats

being discussed .Aliza Pulver

In Canada, 25 per cent o the tech sector is made up o

women. Only 16 per cent o them hold leadership roles

Sarah Taguiam/ONset Magazine


9/24

Even in his teens, Albert Lai always knewthat ih wanted to make a name or him-sel in tech, he had to go to San Francisco.

Driving or the rst time down Interstate280 during the late 90s, the 33-year-old o-ronto native recalled looking out his win-dow, seeing green lawns anked by giantbrick and steel campuses the size o minia-ture cities thinking, Ive ound my place.

Like him, hundreds o Ontarians ock to

San Franciscos Bay Area yearly joining350,000 Canadians, who according to TeGlobe and Mail, reside and work within theregion eager to try their ortune in theworlds largest tech mecca.

But the huge inux o Canadian employ-ees leaving this country has created a gap-ing hole in the industry, creating a worry-ing tech brain drain.

According to a 2012 PricewaterhouseC-oopers (PwC) report, nding and keepinggreat talent is the biggest problem or mostCanadian start-up CEOs. Sixty-two percent o the CEOs interviewed said ndingqualied tech personnel has been harder,as Silicon Valley companies scoop them up.

One o the reasons behind this, accord-ing to University of Toronto organization-

al behavior proessor Samantha Montes, isthat the younger generation, who are most-ly employed in start-ups, is seeking chal-lenges instead o long-term job security.

Te new cohorts more interested ingetting experience that make them moremarketable and i theyre not getting it, theymay leave, Montes said.

Lai agreed but said brain drain has beena smaller problem Canada in recent years.

According to him, tech employees are

nding more rea-sons to stay inCanada such as:the increase ostart-up unding,the prestige as-sociated tobeing in a alocal start-up and the

large amounto high-prolestart-ups thathave spawnedand been ac-quired in thecountry.

Aer co-ound-ing ve start-ups, and ex-hausted rom living out o a suitcase,Lai decided to set up his sixth start-upBig Viking Games in London.

Te cost o livings lower, talent romhotbeds like University o Waterloo andSheridan College is good and tax creditsor building games are impressive, he said.

Atlee Clark, director oC100, an orga-nization o inuential Canadians in SiliconValley, said that Canadian companies alsohave the ability to ocus on their productsaway rom the pressure o competition.

People ock to Silicon Valley andthough that can be very inspiring to bearound, it also means its very loud here,Clark said in an interview rom her San

Francisco oce.TunezyCEO Derrick Fungagreed, say-

ing that being a big sh in a smaller pondcan help propel start-ups into success.

At the same time, Fung, 26, who ound-ed his oronto-based music-sharing com-pany 10 months ago, acknowledges thatbig boys like Facebook and Google caneasily steal away elite employees and oferthem more attractive pay.

ech employee salaries tend to be higher

in San Francisco where entry-level incomes

start around $60,00080,000 CDN, whileoronto employees are paid around Cana-dian $40,00060,000 CDN, Lai said.

However, companies like Fungs and Laisstay competitive in hiring in several ways.

As a newer start-up, Fung said ostering amore relaxed oce culture through exiblework hours, stock options, a mini-Googlesetup and ofering medical benets makeshis start-up more attractive to employees.

Lai recognizes that while there will al-ways be talented and curious employeeswho cant be held back rom wanting to ex-

perience working in a tech centre like theBay Area, there are others that are talent-ed, but apathetic about location.

Regardless o location, C100 directorClark said Canadians should support eachother. Instead o adapting an us-against-them mentality, Canadians, should en-courage their peers who come down to theValley to work, because aer all, the Inter-net know no borders.

Sarah Taguiam

COMMUNITY According to a 2012 PricewaterhouseCoopers report, nd-ing and keeping great talent is the biggest problem o most

Canadian start-up CEOs.

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM 9

Tech brain drain:

a Canadian prolem?

People fock to Silicon Valley

and though that can be very

inspiring to be around, it alsomeans its very loud here .Atlee Clark

Sarah Taguiam/ONset Magazine


10/24

Eric Migicovskyhad a good idea. He just needed money.It was spring o this year and the 26-year-old engineering stu-dent rom Vancouver had developed Pebble, a multi-purpose watchthat connects wirelessly to smartphones.

He invented the watch while a student at the University o Water-loos innovation lab. But when he couldnt get a venture capitalist onboard to make it big, he turned to the Internet.

Websites like KickStarter acilitate crowdunding: pitch youridea globally and ask or small bits o investment on a site that

takes a 5 per cent cut. U.S. crowdunding rm Massolution es-timates that $1.5 billion was raised through online campaignsworldwide last year.

Migicovsky launched a KickStarter page this May, oering a Peb-ble watch to people donating over $100. He thought he was beingambitious, 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 sites three years. ForMigicovsky, it was the chance o a lietime to ulll his dream.

But hed need a U.S. banking account to receive unds throughKickStarter, even though contributions can come rom any country.

It wasnt a problem or Migicovsky, who moved Pebbles opera-

tions to Silicon Valley aer rustration with a lack o Canadian ven-ture capital. Its ar rom the rst start-up to migrate south or unds.Tis summer, the ederal government said it was alarmed by the re-

quency 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 rmIdeavibes hal o Canadian start-ups rate riends and amily as theirtop source o unding. aking on debt was the second most popular.

Lack strong personal credit records, young entrepreneurs oen maxout credit cards and pester relatives or cash. Crowdunding could be adebt-ree option, but red tape means Ontarians can only reach so ar.

Steve Tam is a orontonian who got sick o having thieves yank

the lights o his bike. So he launched Beacon, a company thatdesigns a $15 bike light thats almost impossible to steal.

Beacon was started through a KickStarter page this May, linked tothe bank account o an American employee. In six weeks, the Beaconbike light page raked in double their goal o $5,000

It was un to watch it grow, said am, 24, who opened the page ol-

lowing the press boom generated by Migicovskys $10 million success.Echoing most crowdunding projects, Beacon oered small gis

to donors stickers, -shirts, battery packs. Like Migicovskys Pebble, the Beacon team sold the product being developed, at a ractiono the market price, to people who pitched in.

am regularly posted updates on his progress, a common crowd-unding technique to orm a captive audience o potential clients andshow investors where their contributions going. In total, his start-upattracted 250 backers through KickStarter.

Te Canadian Media Fund has counted a total o 17 active Canadi-an crowdsourcing websites, none o which come close to the top U.Ssites killer or sites that run entirely on buzz. For am, other siteslike Indiegogo the most popular site that allows entrepreneurs toregister with Canadian bank accounts werent even a question.

Friends who had started businesses all said the trafc you get onKickStarter isnt even comparable to other sites, he said.

Beacon has made the bike lights, shipped them to donors and putthem on shelves in oronto and beyond. But not all crowdundingprojects go smoothly. Tousands o Migicovskys backers have yetto receive their promised Pebble watches aer the company missedits original September deadline, attracting a host o negative press.

In June, American tech siteAppsBloggerstudied 60,000 KickStarter projects and ound that only 30 per cent o projects meet theirgoal, o which 25 per cent deliver their results on time. Success tendsto be hit-or-miss, with projects either reaching only a third o theirgoal, or bypassing it by more than double.

Its because o this lack o accountability that oering equity in thecompany a common way to seduce investors and prove projecleaders take their company seriously is illegal in Canada.

As an added headache, each province has its own regulatory bod-ies that set rules on crowdunding. Industry groups are lobbying theCanadian government to implement a national policy, as the U.S. didin 2011 through itsJumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.

Te Ontario Securities Commission limits those who can invest in

unregistered private companies to what they call accredited investorspeople with a salary o $200,000 or a net worth o $1 million.

Te regulator announced it was studying opening exemptions toallow JOBS Act-style investment, launching consultations this year.

Meanwhile, KickStarter opened shop in the UK in Octoberwelcoming British bank accounts and pounds sterling. A spokes-person would only say other countries are being studied.

Until private unders, regulators or KickStarter ofcials step upyoung entrepreneurs are le bugging Mom and Dad or cash untithey can move down south.

Dylan C. Robertson

MONEY

Why Ontarians cant

use KickStarterArchaic regulation laws are holding entrepreneurs

back from crowdfunding initatives

10 WWW.ONSETMAG.COM

The Beacon bike light, launched through a KickStarter

page, can now be ound at bike stores in Toronto and

beyond: www.beaconbikelights.com

The trafc you get on KickStarter isnt even

comparable to other sites. Steve Tam

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

UK

Netherlands

France

Brazil

Germany

Spain

Canada

191

44

29

28

21

20

18

17


11/24


12/24

Step into web consulting start-up Na-scent Digitals shared oce space withad agency Rethink and youll be greetedby sparse white walls, neatly lined desksoverlooking orontos cityscape and a pearlwhite ama drum kit and re engine redchairs sitting atop astrotur in the middle oa wide open space.

Te place has all the trappings o a mod-ern tech oce: clean yet unky with a buzzo creative energy. But asked about the phi-losophy behind his oces design, NascentDigital CEO Shawn Konopinsky chuckles.

I wish there was a more romantic story,but its a design by utility, he says.

Along with his partner, Konopinksy saysthey chose designs that met their needs as agrowing start-up and that seems to be aphilosophy most tech start-ups ollow.

Our design concepts are built aroundhaving a place that has transparency, open-

ness and most importantly, collision, saysonya Surman, CEO o Centre or So-cial Innovation (CSI), which ofers sharedspaces, private oces and desks or entre-preneurs in orontos tech world.

o oster this type o ecosystem, Surmansays CSIs branches in Spadina, Annex andRegent Park are outtted with glass walls.

Everyone is always able to watch andkeep an eye on whats going on, she says.

Another way to create an environmentlike this is by having an open-concept oceaccording to Konopinsky.

I we were to section people of, we wontget that serendipitous communication thatsso vital in this business, he says.

Te positive efect o having an open andinteractive atmosphere can be seen throughCSI where Surman says 85 per cent o mem-bers have collaborated with each other.

Another theme common in most start-up spaces is purchasing cheaper urniture.

Konopinsky recalls sitting down with hispartner and pouring over an Ikea catalogueto gure out what urniture to use.

According to him, a custom workstation

costs $1,2001,800 per person but theyspent only $400 per station in Nascent.

As our company gets bigger, we mightoutgrow our urniture so we wanted tomake sure that it wont be painul to throw

things out, Konopinsky says.Te ever-changing nature o start-ups

dictate that companies have to nd cost-e-ective ways to do expensive things like, inNascents case, soundproong.

o x their boardrooms loud echo, Na-scent dotted their walls with astrotur insteadto dampen the sound.

Tis ability to be resourceul and useunky materials is another vital character-istic o start-up spaces: having a un and relaxed atmosphere, says Lux Design interiodesigner Laura McLellan, who has helpeddesign tech oces like Climax Media.

According to her, since start-ups employa younger generation o people, the ocehas to cater to their needs.

Tey believed in having un while working so we accommodated that, she says.

In designing Climax Media, McLellanhad to pencil in a lounge where employees

can play video games and movies.Each oce should be tailored to the

people its housing and though tech spacesdont usually ollow the layout o traditionaoces, it still works, McLellan says.

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM 13PHOTOS BY SARAH TAGUIAM


13/24

DESIGNING

BY UTILITYSarah Taguiam exploreshow interactivity, relaxationand Ikea furniture play into

a tech offices design

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM12 PHOTOS BY SARAH TAGUIAM


14/24

14

Unlike most I guys, Byan Xu,a 29-year-old oronto entre-preneur, is a morning person. Hsu

usually gets up at 7 a.m. Aer doingsome exercises, he heads o to hisoce in Markham. During the day, Xu

takes care o all aspects o his companysdaily operation: sending out bills, reply-ing to emails, trying to push orward theapplication or government unds, andconducting project work.

Xu works at IdeaNotion, a sowareconsulting company he established in2010 with his partners. Its currently runby a team o fve.

Xus 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 adaily scrum meeting.

Most o my people will be more ocused[on specifc work]. For me it is more orless struggling through multiple things allthe time, he said.

Experts say its typical or start-up entrepreneurs

like Xu to multi-task in order to get their company running.

Entrepreneurs end up being multi-taskers because there are somany things to do, said Drew Smylie, coordinator o the businessadministration program and entrepreneurship program at Centennial College in oronto.

When explaining what its like to start up a business, Smylie callup a Youube video. In the video, an acrobatics perormer quicklyruns back and orth trying to make more than a dozen plates spinat the same time.

Starting up a business and getting it running is like plate spin-ning, 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.Xus strategy o spinning all his plates is to break his work intopieces and tackle each one o them with a ocused mind.

[Multi-tasking] doesnt mean you do multiple things at onetime. Tat doesnt get things done, Xu said. What multi-taskingmeans is allocating the tasks according to the overall time you haveand being able to fnish one thing at a time. Not fve minutes thisfve minutes that, and then fve minutes o that.

Xu is not the only person battling the challenges created bymulti-tasking.

Brennan McEachran, 22, a student working towards a RyersonBComm degree, is the CEO o oronto start-up companyHitSend

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 youve allottedenough time or each task, he tells ONset Magazine in an emailinterview, I you need to do work that can be done by yoursel, doit 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 popularityBacked by community members, these ideas or example, in-creasing bike sharing in oronto are then sent to stakeholders,

ROCK LIKE A

ONE-MAN BAND

What multi-tasking reallymeans is allocating the tasks [ac-

cording to] the overall time you

have and being able to fnish

one thing at a time. Bryan Xu

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM

Jennifer Pang explores how start-up entrepreneurs

multi-task and balance their day-to-day activities


15/24

who have the ability to instill change.McEachran decided to become a night-

schooler, saving the day or his business.As the project grew into a company, I

dedicated more time into it and less timeinto school. As we started booking meet-ings, we needed to be available during theday. At that point I switched my coursesover to night school, he said.

As a student and entrepreneur,McEachrans day is particularly long. Hewakes up at 8 a.m. and then walks to work.

At about 10 a.m., McEachran becomes lostin a whirlwind o sales meetings, businessmeetings and fnally, lunch. Aer, he con-tinues work and goes straight to school.

Te length o his working hours is not theonly challenge. At work, McEachran needsto switch roles according to the tasks thatneed to be accomplished.

[Te most challenging aspect o mywork is] managing both development andsales/business and constantly switchingrom one to the other, he said.

Besides working long hours and attend-

ing night school, McEachran, like manyother entrepreneurs, also needs to be his

own boss instead o waiting or instructionsrom others.

Im constantly working through a prob-lem in my head or doing research on whatwe could be doing next, he said. I thinklike most entrepreneurs, I work signifcant-ly more than the average worker.

As intense as his work can be, McEachrancredited his girlriend or helping him bal-ance between work and lie.

Without my girlriend I would be burntout. She helps me ocus on lie every once

and a while, he said.o maximize their abilities to run theirbusinesses, both Xu and McEachran spendextra hours on learning new knowledge.While McEachran chooses to attend nightschool, Xu is working on several things in-cluding developing his sales skills.

I have been working with a couple osales [people] rom the industry, they havebeen coaching me on sales, Xu said.

When running start-ups, trying to learneverything about the business all by one-sel, however, may not be the most eective

way to keep the company unctioning.Both Xu and McEachran value the team

eort when it comes to dealing with thingsthat are outside o their feld o expertise.

McEachran thinks a team can fll theknowledge gap.

First, you have to be honest with yoursel. Tere are only so many hours in aday and so much you can know. I noth-ing else, know what youre bad at and askor help. Find a team that balances itsel,McEachran said.

Xu has a similar strategy.One thing is to keep trying, and the oth

er thing is to fnd smarter people and hirethem, allow them to do it, he said.By the time the sun rises and lightens

up the busy streets, Xu and McEachran, aswell as many other start entrepreneurs, getready to head o to their companies. Itsprobably going to be another day flled withmeetings, phone calls, and project work.

But like them, dont be discouraged, be-cause you are bringing ideas into realityand creating jobs.

So dont be overwhelmed when therestoo much on your plate. Just go and make

your plates spin. Jennifer Pang

here are some available tools thatcan be utilized to help ecientlytrack 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 secondthing is a to-do list.

I work rom a to-do list all the time where Ive got little things

that are somewhere between a minute and an hour to do, he said,As I get them done, I check them o.

Xu and McEachran also use some digital tools to help theirperormance.

I use Google Calendar, rello, Github, and tools weve madeinternally to track everything, McEachran said.

Xu, on the other hand, uses an iPhone app called Errands.

Brennan

McEachran

Multi-taskers

TOOL BOX

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM 15

Sunnie Huang/ONset Magazine


16/24

chadjeu, 25, and Spoke, 26, co-oundedROXI, a nightlie brokerage app thatreplaces promoters and connects partygo-ers with night clubs. Tey sat down witheditor Sunnie Huangin their Queen Streetoce, just minutes away rom the lime-lights o the Entertainment District, andshared their decade-long riendship andbusiness adventure.

How was the transition from friends to busi-

ness partners?

JT: It was very easy. Our personalitiesmatch really well. I know Chris is very pro-cient in where I need help and vice versa.Its unspoken respect we have or each oth-er. We are all looking or the same thing. Hewas a good pick.CS: We were riends beore we were busi-ness partners. We have a relationship thatmakes it very easy to be objective. We couldboth be passionate about the project, butdispassionate when putting our opinionsacross. We also recognize that we eachbring separate skill sets.

Why did you decide to get a third founderto join the team?CS: Neither o us are technical. Tats anobvious gap. So we plug that gap by rstbringing 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 whatworks or you. Te main issue with bring-ing on more co-ounders is you dilute yourown equity stake, but at this point we are

more concerned with building a good prod-uct, launching it and creating a successulbusiness than how much we can maximizeour own share.

What happens when disagreements arise?JT: Chris and I are the rational people. I wedisagree, we disagree, and thats it.CS: We know that being a tech start-up, we

can iterate and change course very quickly,so its more important that we are decisivethan always right. Sometimes its better toshoot rst and aim later. You could be para-lyzed with indecisiveness and constantlyargue over every minor detail.

What do you guys think of online datingfor co-founders?

JT: What?! Tats interesting. I havent hadto use it yet. Now you mention it, I mightuse it to nd my match.CS: Its not ideal, but its a solution. It givesyou the benet o not just nding out whothe technical people are, but technical peo-ple that are specically interested in start-ing a business. And o course because youare meeting through this medium, there is

very little baggage, so you can be more ob-jective.

Ten years and still going strong. Whatadvice would you give to other start-up

co-founders to maintain a healthy rela-tionship?

JT: Its important to be transparent. I youhave an issue, just voice it. Dont keep itin. As long as you share the same vision, it

should work out.CS: You need to be able to compartmental-ize your business and riendship. You haveto stay objective and very rational. Makeuse o data as much as possible when making decisions so its not just conicting as-sumptions. I you see a lot o disagreementsthat arise, develop a systematic method towork through them.

Do you guys hit the clubs a lot because o

what you do?JT: We are over the whole clubbing sceneas weird as that sounds. Its strictly businessCS: Less than youd think. More so in thepast, and we understand the business having gone through that.

Do you guys still play basketball togetherJT: Maybe when we have time. Its gettingcold.

Whos better at basketball?

CS: Ill give it to Jef. Im taller but hes moreathletic.

PEOPLE ROXI is not Je Tchadjeu and Chris Spokes frst business. Theduo started an airbrush T-shirt company in high school.

Q&A

Jeff Tchadjeu met Chris Spoke at high school. A decade later,

their friendship is as strong as their start-up company ROXI

16

JeffTchadjeu

gWho is more bossy?JT: Its a synergy.

CS: Neither. Our dynamic is

more cooperative.

gFavourite club?JT: Theres a sick lounge with a

cultural twist called Zam.

CS: I play pool at Spaccos as its

cool and near where I live.

gBeer or wine?JT: Im a an o both, but beer

wins i I had to choose.

CS: Beer by a slight margin.

Rapid fre

round

Can friends be business partners?

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM



17/24

Ben DAngelosblack-and-whiteportrait makes himstand out amongother aceless onlineproles. Te youngorontonian is seensporting a plaid shirt,with a genial smilecomplementing hiscurly locks. His brie

yet punchy biography reads, I have been programming online

ash games since high school and college. I have read all the classicprogramming books and cant get enough o it.

But DAngelo is not looking or a romantic partner.For the past our months, the 21-year-old has been on the Mary-

land-based matchmaking site CoFoundersLab dubbed as theeHarmony or entrepreneurs searching or a business partneror his start-up website Trow the Game, a platorm where userscan create, share and play games.

[Trow the Game] is outgrowing how ast I can work. Im justa one-man guy, he said. I need someone to ocus on a dierentaspect o the site.

Like DAngelo, more start-up bachelors and bachelorettes are

taking their matchmaking endeavour online to complement thesearch or business partners, and the algorithm-based cupid comeswith its own etiquettes and challenges.

DAngelo describes his ideal business partner, preerably an art-ist or a game designer, as someone who enjoys playing games andcan draw or program. Afer that, he is not picky.

Passion is number one, he said. It will be a coounder relation-ship. We will be best buddies.

o help his uture coounder understand who he is, the recentHumber College graduate o a game program has been buildinghis web presence with online resumes, such as a complete Linke-dIn prole, an active witter account and several online portoliosshowcasing his coding skills. He has also been reaching out to o-

ronto start-up blogs or advice, but ew o them replied.DAngelo also signed up or three other business partner match-

making sites, but all o them seem to oer the same candidate pool,as he kept running into the same names and prole photos romthe oronto area.

Another challenge or the young entrepreneur is the imbalancebetween candidates with ideas and those who have the desire toteam up with them.

Tere are not enough people looking to join a start-up, DAn-gelo said. Everyone is looking or someone to join theirs.

Tis is an area CoFoundersLabs CEO Shahab Kaviani acknowl-

edges and would like to address. It is common or business developers to seek partners with technical skills, such as programmersor designers, to join their venture and polish their ideas, but the sitehas a shortage o such candidates. For that, CoFoundersLab recent

ly acquired its competitor, techcofounders.com, to better matchpeople with complementary business and technical skills.

Although many businesses originate as an idea, Kaviani saidhaving the right team is more crucial.

Te advantage to online matchmaking, according to Kaviani, isit exposes entrepreneurs to a larger pool o candidates than theirown network o riends and business connections.

Strong teams need diversity. Tey need people rom dierenindustries, dierent age groups and cultural backgrounds, he saidTe more diverse the team is, the more eective it is.

According to Kaviani, there are currently 300 to 500 Canadi-an users on CoFoundersLab, most o whom come rom orontoMontreal and Vancouver. One in our users will make contact witha candidate within the rst week.

Having reviewed hundreds o proles, Kaviani said including a

video with a personal message in the prole is one o the most e-ective ways to attract views. Users should also balance their proledescriptions with both visions and concrete evidence, such as theireducation and experience the more details, the better. Having areal photo and using a real name wouldnt hurt, either.

o encourage prole completeness, CoFoundersLab will soongive preerred placement to users with ully completed prolesAnother upcoming eature will match users based on their person-alities, goals and complementary skill sets.

While the one-year-old start-up continues to improve its algorithms to nd the perect ormula or a successul business part-nership, Kaviani reminded entrepreneurs the old-ashioned coeedate is an eective ollow-up.

Online dating is more pervasive and you can look or morepeople that way. But we encourage people, once they discoveredsomeone online, to get together in person, said Kaviani, who rstmet his co-ounder at a local Coounders Wanted event.

While the search or his best buddy continues, DAngelo re-cently took a developer job at a oronto company to get moreexperience and meet more people. But working on his start-upwebsite with a wingman remains his goal.

Im pretty young, so this is pretty new to me, he said. Rightnow its an experiment, but I think it will work out.

-Sunnie Huang

HOW-TO Did you know: CoFoundersLab was launched on Nov. 112011 (11/11/11). Founder Shahab Kaviani attributes the

curious date to his ascination with the number.

How I Met My Co-founderWhat start-up bachelor(ette)s need to know about

online co-founder matchmaking sites

17

You are going to take so many dierent turns

along the way, it doesnt really matter what

the initial idea is. Its more important that you

fnd the right person who can help you navi-

gate the market, refne the product and bring

it to market. Shahab Kavian

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM



18/24

Beore Oakley Chan, a24-year-old oronto entre-preneur, established his companyTranquil Capital Corporation in2010, or days, he repeatedly calledup the webpage on which he couldget his business registered, clicked everything on the page and closedit beore completing the nal stage o the registration process-makingthe payment-because he did not eel certain about launching his busi-ness.

Everyday I opened that page, and thought i I should registermy company but [then] I thought Not yet. I dont know enough [tolaunch this business] yet. Ten I closed it, Chan remembers.

For entrepreneurs like Chan, the preparation beore launchinga business may involve a lot o work such as conducting marketresearch, checking the law and relevant legislation, and guring outhow a certain type o company operates.

Between the time Chan came up with the idea o launching thisinvestment company and the time he had it registered, he spentour months researching and getting himsel ready.

ranquil Capital Corporation now has two branches-the invest-ment company that Chan operates privately in the orm o an in-

vestment club and a printing and advertising company, ranquilPrinting & Advertising, which was launched about a year later.

But research is not enough. Building a unctional team is crucialto starting up a company, according to Nilay Goyal, associate di-rector o the Creative Destruction Lab at Rotman, University ofToronto.

When youre building a team it is very important to choose the

right people because you donwant to suer emotional backdrops, Goyal said.

Goyal said they do see somegreat companies run by one person but they do not see many o

them. He strongly recommends that a team should be put togetherwhen building a start-up.

James Zuo, president and ounder oCanasia Capital Consulting Inc., a oronto-based company established in 2010, doesnt seethe need or a team behind him.

In my case, I am really just a single proessional with a business en-titlement [] Im working by mysel and I outsource whatever I needto proessionals [] But as my business grows, I will need a secretaryand [hire] some in-house employees. Tat makes more sense, he said

Another reason to open a company is that it gives him a moreocial title when doing business and meeting people.

So when I talk to someone, instead o saying Hi, Im James. I ama consultant who is oating around independently doing my ownthings, Id say Im James, president o the company and what we dono matter how many people I have in my rm, isthe exactly thesame thing that I would have said i I were independent, he said.

Equipped with experience and a network and having alreadydipped his toes in the business, Zuo said launching his own rmdid not require substantial market research.

As ar as market research [] not much was needed but I didkind o inquire among my peers, similar companies, o what wouldbe a successul business model or people providing similar ser-

vices, he said. Jennifer Pang

18 WWW.ONSETMAG.COM

HOW TO

Preparations for Launching a Business

Before the Beginning ofEverything

Now that you know howto launch a start up, thetrick is to keep it running.

Between one-hal andtwo-thirds o Ontario start-ups ail within three years olaunching, according to 2009estimates by the Ministry ofEconomic Development and

Innovation.ONset spoke with three

Ontarians about how youngentrepreneurs can avoid be-coming a statistic.

Do your market research

oronto native Vlad Bar-shai co-launched setNightin 2010, a website or users torate venues and plan soires.

You cant just build [aproduct] and expect that peo-ple will come, said Barshai.

Mark Evans, a marketingconsultant who writes an en-trepreneurship or the Globeand Mail, agrees.

Probably the biggest twocauses o ailure or start-ups

are that theyre not solving aproblem, or theyre creating aeature and not a product, hesays. Youre operating in a siloi you dont speak with peoplewho would use your product.

Stay positive

We strongly encouragepeople that sometimes (ail-ure) can be a good thing, said

Mike Kirkup, director o theVeloCity incubation programat the University of Waterloo.Its a way o rsthand learningthat can be a key to success.

Tough Canadians can behesitant to admit ailure, the

vibe is much more lax in Sili-con Valley. San Francisco hostsFailCon, an annual one-dayevent where entrepreneurs

share their ailures and seekadvice rom industry experts.

Try, try again

Barshais team took whatthey learned rom setNightto launch Reachli, a socialmedia aggregation tool thattracks marketing on siteslike Pinterest. Tey ound astrong market and now have

a 65,000-client waiting list.You have to keep ship-

ping, he said. A lot o stuyou ship wont work but i youdevelop a sense o what worksbetter, you can make it.

Seek advice

When a start-up is ailing,the best thing an entrepreneurcan do is be honest and realis-

tic about their situation, saysEvans. Tat includes inves-tors and advisors, who Kirk-up says can ofen see when astart-up is close to success.

Its going to be one o themost tricky parts o being anentrepreneur. Youre going toget contradictory eedbackand you cant do both, saidKirkup.

Four secrets for success


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20/24

WWW.ONSETMAG.COM

When the topic o successul innova-tive entrepreneurs is brought up,names like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are al-most always dropped. Te most requentlymentioned aspect o their success is the

act that the Microsof and Apple oundersmanaged to rise to the top without nish-ing college.

But beore you decide schools are use-less, can I have 15 minutes o your attentionto share how schools are working towardshelping young entrepreneurs to build busi-nesses? Lets check out some o Ontariospost-secondary resources tailored to servestudent entrepreneurs.

According to Entrepreneurship and theCanadian Universities: Report of a NationalStudy of Entrepreneurship Education: 2009,in 2004, there were 27 university-based en-trepreneurship centres, aer 2009 there are

now 39, eleven centres are located in On-tario.

I you havent visited any o these centresor checked their services yet, let us start ourtrip by meeting Curtis Yim, a ourth yearRyerson student, majoring in marketingand minoring in nance.

Yim, 22, is the president o Enactus Ry-erson, ormerlySIFF (Students in Free En-terprise) Ryerson, and the ambassador orRyerson Entrepreneur Institute (REI).

REI is a student-led entrepreneurshipcentre.

I you walk in REIs oce located at 575Bay Street with your business idea, youllsee Yim, a clean cut young man wearing a

pair o square shaped glasses and a shinyearring, sitting in ront o his MacBook,ready to help you start your venture.

We keep an open door policy, so weensure that anyone who is interested[can] come by and discuss anything re-lated to [REI] with us, Yim said.

According to Yim, the institute con-nects entrepreneurs with other avail-able resources to help them urthertheir goals and provides education andunding.

REI works with other groups andorganizations like the Digital MediaZone (DMZ) at Ryerson University, aworkspace designated to supporting start-up entrepreneurs and Ryerson Angel Net-work.

Once REI has helped you connect withthe resources you need, you maybe betterprepared to move orward with your busi-ness venture.

Yim recognizes the act that being a stu-dent-entrepreneur means you have to dealwith schoolwork while you build your busi-

nessTe advantages o being a youth is that

you have that time, you have opportunitiesand you have those resources. As students,you have ree resources out there such asREI, such as these programs here, [and]aculty that can help you out on dierentaspects and give you ree resources youwouldnt receive [otherwise], he said.

Being heavily involved in the entrepre-neurship world, Yim says the spirit o en-

trepreneurs inspires him.A really cool quote I love to say is Like

the sun, whenever I all, I will rise againAnd thats what lie is all about, he said. Icame up with that quote just going throughthe experience o entrepreneurs, workingwith entrepreneurs, going through ailurestrying dierent initiatives, trying dierentprojects, and helping spread [the entrepre-neurship culture].

Te story o Damn Heels

Now lets hear the story oHailey Cole-man, 24, a ormer business managementstudent at Ryerson.

Coleman rst attended REIs StarMeUpprogram in 2009 and has become the own-er and ounder oDamn Heels, a companythat designs and sells easily portable wom-ens fats.

Entrepreneurship centresBuilding your business with your schools help

We keep an open door policy, sowe ensure that anyone who is in-

terested [can] come by and discuss

anything related to [REI] . Curtis Yim

Curtis

Yim

20

Student leader, college dean, entrepreneurship centremanager, and business owner. Jennifer Pang fnds

out how schools take students entrepreneurial dreams

under their wings.

JenniferPang/ONsetMagazine


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22/24

In the early 2000s, Dan Vader, a recent university graduate rom Ryerson Universitys lm

program, was working as a truck driver or a oronto document recycling company whenhe came across a pad o blank graphing paper that was about to be thrown away. He kept ior himsel.

Eight years later, the same pad or whats le o it is tucked comortably under the keyboard on Vaders desk at his Capybara Games ofce in Downtown oronto, slightly wrin-kled with curled corners. Te tabloid-sized paper is where Vader, now a narrative designerat the independent game studio, makes undecipherable doodles and scribbles, gives birth tocharacters and creates ctional universes.

For me, getting a job in video games was as improbable as going to Hollywood, saidVader, 33.

As video games become more story driven, game studios are realizing the importance oemploying 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, Vaders undergraduate studiesin lm didnt 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 be-

tween these screen-based products are oen transerable. For example, Vader said, it is notuncommon 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, sothey are looking to other mediums to bring pedigree, Vader said.

Navid Khavari, a narrative designer at game juggernaut Ubisofs oronto ofce and thewriter behind the latest instalment oSplinter Cell, also worked on V and lm projectsduring university. Aer completing his degree in history and political science at the University o oronto, Khavari made his break into the gaming industry with Bedlam Games in 2009where he worked on Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale among other gigs.

Te beautiul thing about game is it has the most eclectic group o individuals youll ndTeres no one direct path. You can be coming rom anywhere, he said. Whats commonamongst 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 oenemploy contract reelancers in conjunction with in-house writers.

Like some of the

elaborate stories

crafted for video

games, the route

to become a game

writer is far from lin-

ear. Sunnie Huang

takes a behind-the-scene look at the

career of a narrative

designer

22 WWW.ONSETMAG.COM

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GUIDE TO

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It doesnt have to be either or, he said. Teres so much oppor-tunity or stories in game. Its an unbelievably exciting time.

From the back o Kimberley Sparks rst-year game writingclass at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology inOshawa, students laptop screens displayed math lecture slides,graphic design programs and comic strips, while they waited orthe lecturer to start.

Te universitys our-year game development and entrepreneur-

ship program allows students to experiment with a wide range ocourses rom linear algebra and animation to accounting or Iand entrepreneurship.

Sparks, who has been a screenwriter or more than a decade,started her class by showing the opening scene o action-adventuregame Unchartered 2 and asking students to write down what theysee. Instead o letting students come up with original writing righto the bat, it is easier to do the reverse, Sparks explained.

Although this class is mandatory, Sparks ound many studentsare more interested in the other aspects o game development.

I always ask at the beginning [o the semester] how many othem actually want to be writers, said the so-spoken teacher. I'mlucky i I get about 10 per cent.

For students who have a keen interest in writing or games,Sparks suggests a creative writing program might be more suitablethan a ull-edged game development program that delves ur-ther into the technical aspects o video game. Nonetheless, writersshould amiliarize themselves with the work o programmers andartists.

You will understand what's involved in their jobs and how youcan make their jobs easier, or not make it harder, said Sparks, whois learning programing in her spare time.

Also jumping into the growing trend o video game enthusiastsis the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC), a union representingproessional writers, which has sponsored panels on game writingand organized networking sessions with video game companies.

What's happening is more video games need to be story basedto engage the player and stand out in a very crowded market 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 otherorms o digital writing, WGC has published digital guidelinesbased on industry statistics and actual contracts. Unlike the Guild'sother collective agreements, the digital guidelines do not set outminimums ees are negotiable between producers and screen-writers but they contain suggested rates and conditions to guidethem through this process.

One o the challenges the Guild aces is the nascence o videogame writing and the muddles that come with it. For example, likemany other careers in gaming, there is no standardization o minimums or accreditation. In her bookWriting for Animation, Comicsand Games, author Christy Marx's list o possible titles or writers

includes story writer, scenario writer, scriptwriter, dialogue writercontent designer, story designer and narrative designer. Tis is ur-ther complicated when writers take on the role o designers.

Te guidelines ... are our advice or what's appropriate and wetry to keep those up to date, Ashton added.

Back at Vader's desk overlooking Spadina Avenue, he sits quietlyin ront o his computer, 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 astech-savvy as I get, he jokes. But despite constantly being accusedo naively clicking on phishing links and causing ofce-wide virusinections, Vader sees the benets o being an on-site writer.

It's absolutely crucial to be right there with the team. You'll al-ways know the course o the game, and that inorms the writing,he said, adding that his colleagues' opinions and interests oen geltered into his work.

During ofce-wide meetings, Vader said music and low-budgemovies would be playing simultaneously in the background, whilethe team discusses projects over beer.

And what happens when writer's block strikes?I switch the album, he said.

The problem is

everybody thinks

they can write, but

it is a skill and it

takes a lot of prac-

tice. You dont nec-

essarily have to go

to school for it, but

it takes some de-gree of talent and

a lot of practice.-Kimberly Sparks

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Source: The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities

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