Entrepreneurism

10 Sep 2015

Middlebrook Prize on the Move

The Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators has named Adam Barbu as its third winner and is moving up to a whole new level. Founded in 2012 by John Kissick and me, with initial investments from Middlebrook Social Innovation Fund, to support and mobilize Canadian creative talent, the Prize aims to inspire positive social change through creativity and connectedness in a time of unprecedented economic, environmental, social, and cultural challenges.

In our 3rd year, some exciting changes are afoot as we see our vision for the Prize unfold.

First of all, the Prize has a new home in our partner gallery, the recently re-branded Art Gallery of Guelph. Led by Dawn Owen, the gallery provides a compelling new venue to host the Prize exhibition and to mentor the winner.

Secondly, the Prize now has a physical form and a visual identity as befits an increasingly important Canadian cultural icon. Designed by the immensely talented and award winning creative director, Chris Duchaine, our new visual identity reflects the knowledge integration inherent in modern curating interpreted with the most modern design principles. Paying homage to the “White Cube” abstraction of the idealized art gallery, it also references the forces that are breaking down that cube and moving curation firmly into the future, perhaps embracing new ideas like the Ultra Contemporary Art Movement.

Hear Chris discuss his design:

To accompany the design, Chris selected the recently designed LL Circular font by Laurenz Brunner from Lineto in Switzerland. The font manages to be “geometric without being cold” and timeless while modern.

And, finally, the Prize now has a permanent online home with a website at MiddlebrookPrize.ca to properly highlight the accomplishments of this growing group of young opinion leaders in the arts world. To acknowledge that growing influence, the winners comprise an expert centre, using the cloud-based service ExpertFile to highlight the developing oeuvre of our cadre of winners. To further encourage the growth of this network of leaders, Katherine Dennis, the 2013 Middlebrook Prize winner, was a member of the selection jury for the 2015 Prize. We extend a special thanks to Kendra Martin for managing the design and implementation of our web presence.

In keeping with 6 words in the Prize name, (hence the “cube” in the visual design), we’ve chosen a playfully “cubic” hashtag of #MPfYCC. Stay tuned for more exciting developments, but do check out Adam’s exhibition opening on September 17th and the Middlebrook Prize Award Day on October 24th.

Angel of the Year Award: Yuri Navarro, Jérôme Nycz, Randall Howard, Michelle Scarborough

3 Oct 2014

Canadian Angel of the Year Award

At the NACO Summit in Québec City, it was truly humbling to receive the Canadian Angel of the Year Award. I see this partly as a calling to be an ambassador to continue to help raise the Angel bar in Canada in the coming years. I wish to thank all those kind colleagues who, unbeknownst to me, wrote letters of nomination. Also, this is all based on the remarkable people at GTAN and in the Waterloo and Canadian ecosystem generally.

In response to the award, and recognizing the opportunity to build on current success, I shared the following observations and future challenges at the closing Keynote on Friday 3 October, 2014.

“TODAY’S CRITICAL MASS CAN POWER A QUANTUM LEAP”

Closing Keynote NACO Summit, Québec City Friday 2 October, 2014

Bonjours, mesdames et messieurs. Good morning, ladies and Gentlemen.

I hope that Yuri was aware of what he was unleashing by inviting me to share perspectives and future challenges of Angel investing in Canada! Not unlike a startup running on “fumes”, Canada’s angel sector reminds me of the quip from cartoonist Bill Hoest: “I just need enough money to tide me over until I need more”. I’ll start by looking back to help us paint a future directional context.

As Angel investors, we’ve watched a powerful people-driven engine, coming from nowhere, to become a key enabler of Canada’s future prosperity. As Angels, we fuel innovation companies with our capital and mentorship, ultimately creating some of the highest value jobs for 21^st century Canada. What’s not to like about that?

Let’s turn the clock back about 5 years. In 2009, the global economy endured the infamous credit crunch, perhaps the worst economic correction since the Great Depression. I observed this to be the final nail in the coffin for a large number of Canadian venture capital firms, for years struggling to generate viable returns. The seeming extinction of venture capital A-rounds and the bleak landscape for young, emerging companies, compelled me, as a seasoned tech investor, to get involved with the founders at Golden Triangle AngelNet (GTAN) in Waterloo-Guelph-Wellington-Stratford area. In a pattern surely repeated across Canada, Angel Groups from a slow start quietly and persistently worked to fill the funding gap through a labour-intensive “syndication” of Angel capital, with other groups and with government co-investment. In Ontario, this meant repurposing MaRS IAF from its origins as a VC on-ramp to co-investment in Angel rounds, lobbying that ultimately led to the Feddev “Investing in Business Innovation” (IBI) program, and BDC convertible notes.

A typical syndication for a top tier investee company might entail half a million dollars of Angel money being spun into $1.5 million or more. I used to describe this approach as providing “half the money of a VC A round for 10 times the effort”. At the time, I imagined this to be a strategy for a short term “bridge” of Canada’s innovation ecosystem to a more sustainable future. How did this market correction turn out for Canadian Angels?

NACO stats show a remarkable growth in total Angel investment. Between 2012 and 2013 alone, Canadian Angel group direct investments grew a stellar 120% from $40 million to $89 million. Of course, this doesn’t capture the aforementioned co-investment leverage that Angel investors attract nor does it cover investments outside of NACO members. All of us rightfully deserve to be proud of such collective impact.

But is it enough? Both from my own international investing and available statistics, it would appear that Canada’s Angel ecosystem is ahead of Europe on the maturity curve. I would estimate Canada has a 3-5 year head start on Europe. On the other hand, our American friends are definitely well ahead in maturity, deal dollars and information gathering. Angel Capital Association (ACA) data shows almost $25 billion of total US angel investment in 2013. To be at this level, on a per capita GDP basis, Canada would need about $2.8 billion of annual Angel investment. Even counting all the leverage, Canadian angel investment needs to grow 5 to 10 times over the coming years just to achieve parity with the US.

In Waterloo, home of Perimeter Institute, we tend to love Quantum Mechanics metaphors. Thus, propelling today’s critical mass through a quantum leap is a mission all of us need to work on collectively and individually, whether as angels, angel groups, NACO, governments, venture capitalists, sponsors, in fact, each and every ecosystem participant.

So, I will conclude by identifying just five of the gaps that we collectively need to fill:

Scaling: Recently, my friend Steve Currie, VP Strategy at Communitech, observed “Canada is great at starting companies, but not so good at growing them beyond the 5 year horizon.” This means less job creation but also smaller exits. In a study of 183 recent high tech exits versus 2300 comparable US exits, the average US valuation was US$384 million versus US$100 million for the Canadian companies. I don’t know about you, but I find it simply tragic to leave so much value on the table. Angels have a huge role both in mentoring management skills around scaling, but also pivotal to financing that scaling. And, bigger exits, will in a virtuous circle, drive more Angel investment.
Giving Back: We need more of our successful serial entrepreneurs to become (super) angels and continue to start new ventures. In the Silicon Valley, Paypal alone had 14 serial entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel and Max Levchin whose experience and wealth helped build legends like LinkedIn, YouTube, Tesla, Kiva and Yelp. While we do have a few super angels, we have yet to spawn someone like Ron Conway whose 600 investments include Google, Facebook and Twitter. Canada needs more titans like Mike Volker and Jim Estill.
Deal Discipline: Great companies grow and scale partly because of external motivations. In the 1990’s the hottest companies all wanted to do an IPO and that involved a playbook of enhanced management, systems and processes that also helped the companies scale into better organizations. VCs also played a part, but today, this role often falls onto Angel investors, hence requiring a more “institutional” approach versus becoming just another retail asset class.
Co-investment: Government funding has been critical to our success and it is key that funding increasingly backs Angel choices rather than governments having to choose winners. That said, there is plenty of room for more. For example, our Feddev IBI program in Ontario provides a 50% match while the almost identical “Double Equity” program in Austria does a 100% match to angels. And, the Angel Tax Credit, so common internationally, in parts of the US and in BC, would provide a much-needed boost to overall Angel resources.
Operational Innovation: Currently, most angel groups run as nonprofits using largely committed volunteer deal structuring and with little automation of the process. A big reason for this is Securities Regulations, especially in Ontario, that put a chill on innovations that might trigger an expensive regulatory burden. While there is some hope that the proposed Equity Crowd Funding rules might provide the clarity for such innovations, there is also the risk that this is a force that further pushes deals into a retail mode when what we need instead is more institutional discipline.

With these key points in mind, and assuming the right environment, I have no doubt that greater innovation in business models will fuel growth of a larger and more sustainable Canadian angel landscape. All of us can play our part. To dial up our game, will be an aggressive, yet I believe achievable challenge. And, we need even better measurement so we can regularly monitor, and report back to ecosystem participants, our progress.

The road forward isn’t just about traditional business. Because Angel investors’ motivations uniquely straddle the ever-blurring boundary between “passion capital” and Wall Street-style finance, Angel investing will increasingly be a great exemplar of Social Innovation. To me, the culture of collegiality and sharing resembles my experiences in nation-building around charitable foundations.

The last five years have witnessed an unprecedented expansion of Canadian Angel investing and we are poised for even more remarkable growth in the next five. In the words of the incomparable Alan Turing,

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done”.

Now, let’s get to work …

14 Jun 2012

Who Will Revive Canadian Venture Capital (Part I)

Today was a banner day for announcements involving a reset of the technology funding ecosystem in Canada.

For a long time, the slow demise of Canadian Venture Capital has concerned me deeply, putting us at an international disadvantage in regards to funding and building our next generation of innovative businesses. You may recall my 2009 post Who Killed Canadian Venture Capital? A Peculiarly Canadian Implosion? which recounts the extinction of almost all of the A round investors working in Ontario.

Since then, many of us have worked to bridge the gap by building Angel Networks, including Golden Triangle AngelNet (GTAN), where I chair the Selection process and using extreme syndication and leverage to replace a portion of the missing A rounds.

Today, the launch of Round 13 Capital revealed a new model for venture finance centred around a strong Founder Board whose members are also LPs, each with a “meaningful” investment in the fund. My decision to get involved was based both on this strongly aligned wealth of operating wisdom coupled with the clear strength of the core team.

The launch was widely covered by a range of tech savvy media, including:

Mark Evans gave some background in his post Round 13 Capital Moves to Fill VC Gap, and
David Crow, covered today’s announcement in his post Round 13 Capital Puts Founders First.

To illustrate the both the differentiation of Round 13 and show the depth of founder experience, Bruce Croxon, indicated that the founders board has, measured by aggregate exit value, built over $2.5 billion of wealth in Canada. It is this kind of vision and operational experience that directly addresses the second of my three points that Canadian Venture Capital needs to solve.

It is exciting to be involved with the unfolding next generation funding ecosystem for technology companies of the future. Time will tell the ultimate outcome, but I’m certainly bullish on Round 13.

3 Apr 2012

Social Innovation – Can Social Sector Learn from Tech Startups?

It is notable that much of the recent trend towards Social Innovation has come from people who began their careers in technology startups, in Silicon Valley or other technology clusters. Some notable examples include:

Bill Gates, partly at the instigation of Warren Buffet who added his personal fortune to that of Gates, left Microsoft, the company he built, to dedicate his life to innovative solutions to large world issues such as global health and world literacy through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Started by Paul Brainerd, Seattle-based Social Venture Partners International is innovating at the intersection of technology and venture capital, with Venture Philanthropy. Paul sold Aldus Corporation (an innovator in desktop publishing applications, including Pagemaker) to Adobe in the mid 1990s. In his mid-40’s at the time of the Adobe acquisition, he was young enough to seek a significant and active social purpose in his life.

Jeffrey Skoll, a Canadian-born billionaire living in Los Angeles and an early employee of eBay, has numerous activities aimed at Social Innovation including Skoll Foundation, Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship and Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Most of his initiatives are aimed at empowering the individual Social Entrepreneurs who are fuelling a new generation of Social Innovation.

Waterloo’s own Mike Lazaridis aims to transform our understanding of the universe itself by investing hundreds of millions of dollars into Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physicsn and Institute for Quantum Computing, effectively innovating a new mechanism of education and discovery. Notable is that this area of investment is one that may well take years, possibly decades, to show what breakthroughs, if any, are discovered.

Whether or not always attributtable to this connection with technology entrepreneurs, increasingly Social Sector organizations are starting to become much more like the entrepreneurial startups so familiar in the world of high technology. I’ve personally witnessed some of this change, and would like to suggest, that while there remain big differences, the parallels are strengthening over time. The following concepts represent just a small sampling of the key areas of similarity:

1. Founders Versus Artists

Stories are legion of smart, brash (and even mercurial) technology company founders who transform a business sector through the sheer strength of their wills. Many of these founders are “control freaks” and might find employment in conventional jobs a difficult proposition. Venture capital and angel investors have learned to be wary of such founders, citing numerous examples of founderitis – in which uncoachable founders, in a case of “my way or the highway” would rather maintain control than bend to ideas from often more experienced mentors, board members and investors.

Such personalities also exist in the Social Sector. For example, many arts organizations are founded by bright and innovative artistic directors. And yet, many of these same organizations come unravelled by the same mercurial nature that prevents the organization from being properly governed and accountable to funders (investors). With my background on both sides of this divide, the parallels are hauntingly striking.

Since such founders strengths can also be their undoing (or that of their organization), a conscious Board level assessment of such situations is always wise.

2. Running on Empty

Notwithstanding the media coverage of a few lucky technology startups such as Facebook or Google, most technology startups run of little or no significant funding. Many seek to change the world with very small amounts of capital, sometimes no more than several million dollars. The recent trend towards building such small capitalization organizations is called the Lean Startup movement. The challenges inherent in their undercapitalization is often the top complaint of such startups. However, Sergy Brin, the Google co-founder has insightfully observed that “constraints breed creativity” to describe how an underfunded state has led to the discovery of innovative ways to build companies and deliver their products.

Likewise, from my experience the vast majority of charities and nonprofits complain about being undercapitalized, and the reality is that most are. It is a fact of life in the social sector. Only now are we starting to see the emergence of social ventures, which by stealing a page from underfunded technology startups are exploring new business models and ways to deliver social change, often leveraging IT or a different process to vastly reduce costs of program delivery.

3. Technology Changes Everything

We’ve seen the emergence of a world where all information is stored in digital form and people are connected, even while mobile, the role of the web and technology can’t be underestimated. Technology-based startups, because they are small and start from scratch, often approach traditional problems in very non-traditional ways. Revenue and funding models change, as do fundamental ways to organize a business or social enterprise. Social media allows ideas to spread in a viral fashion. We have already seen how organizations like Avaaz can mobilize hundreds of thousands or even millions of supporters globally for both local and international issues of social injustices and poverty. This is a direct analogue to how many people now rely on Twitter or Facebook, rather than a printed newspaper, for much of their news and information.

4. Mission Creep – or the path forward

Technology startups have come to learn that success depends on laser sharp focus, attention to detail and execution of a “pure play” strategy (ie. only do one thing well). Thatparticular discipline has time and time again proven to be effective in a sector where technology change is moving rapidly and most startups are generally considered to be underfunded.

Likewise, Social Enterprises must adopt similar approaches to deal with underfunding and change. Even in today’s more fluid and fast-changing environment, to avoid deadly Mission Creep, Board and management must have developed a complete Theory of Change roadmap to enable Manage to Outcomes.

5 Feb 2010

Ignite Passion before Money

This week I had the pleasure to be the luncheon speaker during the Ignite Entrepreneurship course put on by Guelph Partnership for Innovation, aimed at University of Guelph graduate students from various technical fields including biology, life sciences, materials, agribusiness, etc.

It’s always a thrill to get into a room with 40 or so energetic and bright grad students who are considering going into business. And, kudos to GPI for hosting this.

As an experiment, I broadcast the 3 questions out into social media-verse (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) and got some great UGC that I factored into the presentation.

Here are the questions regarding Money and Startups that I attempted to address:

Do you really need it?
Where will it come from? and
What will you do with it?

I’d be delighted if any of you could comment on the topic as well. It’s an extraordinarily challenging time to startups to find funding right now, and the importance of a healthy pipeline of new companies to our future well being, has led me to dedicate a fair portfion of my social enterprise/sharing time to the issue of the serious funding gap for startups.

Note that while much of this is of global relevance, part of the advice is very specific to the startup funding landscape in Ontario.

15 Mar 2009

Who Killed Canadian Venture Capital? A Peculiarly Canadian Implosion

“Fortes fortuna adiuvat” – “Fortune favours the bold” – Latin proverb

The current economic meltdown has unleashed brutal forces acting on all aspects of the business world, but certainly innovative startups in fields like software, web, wireless, green technologies and life sciences are at grave risk. In Canada, our startups have generally been world class innovators, but severely underfunded when benchmarked against US and leading European countries.

Not only has the credit crunch forced most Angel Investors to the sidelines, but the supply of Venture Capital (VC) in Canada has contracted almost to the vanishing point.

Tomorrow’s Canadian Business documents this very well in VC Financing: Cold Realities.

Having started my first software company in the mid-1980’s, I am well aware that although VC money was available and well established in the Silicon Valley, VC money for knowledge-based startups such as mine was then nonexistent in Canada. Through the 1990’s, however, Canada started to build a cadre of new funds that showed early promise of replicating a US style VC funding ecosystem

In the early millennium when Verdexus investigated raising a institutional fund to fill a gap in the Canadian market with our “hands on” model and accessing global capital sources. It gave our partners a chance to look to VC best practices on a global basis and figure out how to apply to the Canadian context. While we didn’t proceed at that time, I’ve had the good fortune to work on projects with top VCs from the US and several European countries, giving me a global perspective on how Canadian Venture Capital measures up.

Sadly, I believe that the 2000/2001 tech bubble, or dot com meltdown, stopped the maturation of our VC industry in its tracks, a body blow from which the industry has never recovered. It is to this time that the root causes of our current VC meltdown can be traced. A few of the main reasons holding the VC industry back can be summarized as follows:

Impact of the Labour Sponsored Investment Fund model on our VC ecosystem.
Lack of balance between financial and operational skills: The Banker Effect.
Lack of International Funding discipline in our VC industry.

I will explore each of these causes in turn.

1. Labour Sponsored Investment Funds

Labour Sponsored Investment Funds (LSIFs, also known as Retail Venture Capital Funds), have been a particular sore spot, as a 2005 Globe and Mail Report on Business article “Labour-sponsored Love Lost” points out. Considered good public policy when launched in the late 1980’s, both Federal and Provincial governments gave individual (retail) investors a significant tax incentive (up to 35%) to invest up to $5 000 with a minimum 8 year hold period. In essence, many funds totalling hundreds of millions of dollars were raised by firms like VenGrowth, Covington and Growthworks as were numerous very small funds.

Lacking the inherent financial discipline imposed by typical venture capital structures, in which several “funds of funds” (legally dsignated as Limited Partners, or LPs) invest in a fund managed by a General Partner (or GP). The LPs in this sense have much leverage, not just in choosing their GPs, but also in ongoing oversight, not to mention the choice to re-invest in the next fund raised by the GPs. This LP/GP structure is the model employed world wide and has generally stood the test of time.

The thousands and thousands of retail investors in a typical LSIF exert no such control and hence we’ve seen Management Expense Ratios (MERs) as high as 4-6% versus the 2% private equity industry norm and Carried Interest (the portion of the investment gains shared by the fund) as high as 30% versus the 20% norm.

More importantly, although at its peak, more than half of Canadian VC money was in LSIF funds, returns were, as Doug Steiner says, “lousy.” How lousy? Studies show that average fund returns, also called Internal Rate of Return (IRR), are negative. The best fund appears to have produced a measly 1% IRR. In the US, funds aim for 30% and there is a long term track record of many funds in the 18-20% range.

Undoubtedly, individual investors didn’t have a lot at stake with those huge tax credits and it can be argued that LSIFs encouraged loads of job creation in the all important knowledge economy. All of that is true. My main concern is that the attraction of the LSIF model impaired the formation of a more mature VC ecosystem based on the normal LP/GP model mentioned above.

2. The Banker Effect

In the US, both in California’s Silicon Valley and in the Route 128 area around Boston, the VC industry has always been populated by a healthy mix of the financially oriented fund managers coupled with serial entrepreneurs who have founded and build technology startups. The composition of the partners at Canadian VC funds has always been different than this international norm, having many more banker types than operators. The experiences Jonathan Geist relates in the Canadian Business article are symptomatic of this difference. Too much focus on the numbers is like looking in the rear view mirror when startups need to be focused on the future – building market share, refining partnerships and developing strong go-to-market execution.

Again, I believe that this gap can be attributed to us being a less mature VC and startup ecosystem. In the late 1980’s and 1990’s finding seasoned technology startup operators would have been almost impossible. Most were still building their first startup. However, had things unfolded as they should have, many of the startup founders from the 1980’s and 1990’s should now be partners at Canadian VC firms. That didn’t happen because the dot com meltdown appeared to remove the ability to the industry to make changes or take risks. Ironically, this exacerbated an already more conservative VC culture here in Canada, and this more risk averse approach actually contributed to the lower IRRs seen when Canadian VCs are compared to their US or European peers.

3. Lack of International Money

The fledgling LP/GP VC industry of the 1990’s was funded by a relatively small ecosystem of LPs, such as OMERs, Caisse de Depot, Teachers, CPP, BDC, etc. Thus every VC fund was essentially not differentiated by its LP composition. In essence, a closed group of Canadian fund of funds all were chasing this same relatively small asset class. Furthermore, the relaxation of Canadian content rules coupled with these aforementioned low IRRs, sent the Canadian LPs looking elsewhere (mostly abroad).

What is the right recipe to change this situation? Quite simply, access to more global sources of money. The thousands of US, European and Gulf institutional fund of funds investors have largely ignored investments in Canadian VC funds. This is partially because of the chicken and egg of lower IRR returns. But, more fundamentally, it is primarily because the Canadian startup and VC ecosystem had low visibility to these international funds. Several years ago, I spoke to a large €6 billion LP fund at EVCA in Barcelona, that had investments in 40 tier 1 VC firms in each of the US and Europe. Ironically, that LP’s sense of the Canadian technology scene was limted to Nortel. Since Nortel hasn’t really been a star for many years. Clearly we have a long way to go market our great technology stories to the world.

The Way Forward

Unlike this sign, I don’t want to end this piece on a note of doom and gloom. Nor do I want to leave the impression that there aren’t very talented people in the Canadian VC industry. Nothing could be further from the truth – our long term VC gap arises from long term structural challenges, such as a lack of discipline as imposed by global LPs and not having reached the proper banker/operator mix. There are other factors, including the small population and large geography unique to Canada, but all can be and should be overcome with the proper model.

We already have a few outliers in our funding ecosystem. Being optimistic and entrepreneurial, I’m convinced that many talented individuals will find ways to, little by little, to invent and rebuild a healthy network of startup financing alternatives. As I’ve argued in other blog posts, there is a role for governments. However, that role isn’t to pick winners or to enter the VC business directly, rather it is to be a catalyst to the process by streamlining (securities) regulation and taxation.

As a stakeholder in the success of knowledge-based startups, what do you think?

Please share your comments.

15 Feb 2009

Getting Creative – “Yes We Can” or “Mind the Gap”?

In today’s challenging economic times, it is extra important for governments, academics and individuals to plan our future economic prosperity. Thus, it is timely that Richard Florida and Roger Martin from the Martin Prosperity Institute, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto this month published Ontario in the Creative Age, which provides a detailed future-oriented policy blueprint.

It sets a policy agenda to help us unleash our full potential in the Twenty-first Century where economic success is increasingly coming from creatively-oriented enterprise versus our traditional strength in routine physical and routine service occupations. The report is backed by research which highlights both our existing strengths and weaknesses including those in education, income and even the gap in our creative/routine job mix compared to our peers. Starting from the base of today, the agenda suggests four main focus areas to drive future prosperity:

“Harness the creative potential of Ontarians”, including businesses’ role in changing job mix, education and even marketing of our capabilities,
“Broaden our talent base”, focused on significant increases to our post secondary educational levels and broadening managerial capabilities,
“Establish new social safety nets”, including early childhood development, better utilization our key immigrant resource and retraining of older workers from declining occupational groups, and
“Build province-wide geographic advantage” which strengthens connections (physical and otherwise) within and beyond the mega-region spanning Waterloo-Toronto-Ottawa-Hamilton-Niagara-Rochester.

Having read this paper, it is encouraging to see such a forward thinking analysis that will certainly drive future governmental, business and economic decision and policy making. With that in mind, and being of an optimistic “yes we can” mentality, I was, however, struck by how very little attention was paid to the biggest gap of all — Funding this agenda.

Without proper funding, our ability to transform our economy in these wise and necessary ways, will go unfulfilled. I’ve written about this “funding gap” numerous times and from different perspectives:

as part of my series on government policy aimed at preparing us for the Digital Age: Digital Policy #3: Startup Investment and Taxes
our recent Federal Budget was chock full of stimulus measures, but seemed totally blind to the creative transformation. For example, I discussed potential green technology initiatives in A Bright Green Federal Budgetary Stimulus Opportunity
much social enterprise, particularly that most creative sector – the Arts, is hurting badly: Another One Bites the Dust – and You Thought Business Was in Crisis Mode

I’m certainly not alone in this concern. Many others in positions of thought leadership have raised the issue of funding of investment, some with very specific policy proposals and others just highlighting the gap:

Avvey Peters from Waterloo’s Communitech blogged about Magic Words: Economic Stimulus right before the Canada’s Januaray federal budget, and her post contains some very specific policy measures.
Dr. Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of MaRS Discovery District, a leading Ontario driver of research and commercialization, provided a well-researched analysis of the major institutional and venture funding gaps of Canada compared to other jurisdictions in their latest newsletter.
Alec Saunders, CEO of one of Canada’s most promising web/mobile startups, Iotum, addressed the tech startup funding gap in the context of the proposed federal stimulus in his blog post Tech in Canada: Can We Do More Than Play Hockey? Also, a number of international discussions of technology competitiveness have been hosted on their innovative Calliflower service.
Peter Childs, an Ottawa social media strategist and tech luminary, has laid out a framework Tech in Canada: Peter Child’s Framework for Stimulus

Make no mistake, having surveyed funding sources for startups and social enterprise, Ontario (and Canada) significantly lags most regions in the US and Western Europe — our primary OECD comparables. The reasons for this are numerous and will be discussed in a separate posting, but this funding gap is our extra hurdle before we can be successful in driving the Florida/Martin challenge to transform Ontario to a creative economy.

And to be clear, this transition to the creative economy needs to be driven by the competitive, market economy. That implies that it will not the primary role of governments to provide the major funding for our transformation. Fundamentally, governments should not be picking winners and losers, but simply equiping market forces to go to work. And, given our long history and culture of relying on governments for answers, it is important to clarify that point. With the right framework in place, businesses and individuals will compete to drive the path to our future.

Thus, as their primary task, it is imperative that our federal and provincial governments develop a strong and co-ordinated policy framework, dealing with taxation, security regulation, and the like, to encourage the private sector to make such investments. And, in our current times of economic stimulus, the extra icing on the cake should be to channel some of those near term stimulus dollars toward growing the creative sector that is so essential to our future economic prosperity.

13 Jan 2009

Another One Bites the Dust – and You Thought Business Was in Crisis Mode

“Another one bites the dust.
How do you think I’m going to get along,
Without you, when you’re gone”
Queen

This is a call to action where individual citizens can make a huge difference.

The recent loss of a local cultural gem, namely King Street Theatre:

Curtain Closes on Another Local Local Theatre

and the near death experience of the 87 year old cultural gem the Grand Philharmonic Choir, from cash flow challenges, has shone a spotlight on how the financial meltdown is already impacting the Waterloo area arts and cultural scene. As one who supported King Street Theatre’s original capital campaign, I feel this loss personally. Further, I am optimistic that many in our community share this sense of loss.

Many of the key funders who directly invest in our cultural sector, such as local foundations and individual donors, have seen their financial investments tank along with the rest of us. Given that 2009 contributions will largely be determined by 2008 investment returns, we are probably just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

The media cites lack of citizen interest or poor attendance as the root cause. Many business people working with social enterprises observe that many organizations lack the right management to deliver better results. While all true, I would posit that the challenges of the cultural sector are much more complex. I’m as much a believer in economic Darwinism, which dictates that in order to have real success, you also need to have failures. In fact, my recent post Playing the Lottery after the Meltdown underscores this notion in regard to the recent government led auto sector bail outs. Mark McArdle’s post What I Didn’t Get for Christmas makes an even stronger case for economic Darwinism.

That being said, much of the social sector, including arts, culture, the environment and many other social causes, have long operated in a marginal and underfunded state. This, for most organizations, trumps the above concerns about attendance or management quality. It is fortunate indeed that many community leaders met last September at the Prosperity Council of Waterloo Region: Task Force on Creative Enterprise to begin to put together a comprehensive, strategic initiative to invest in and develop our overall capabilities in the Creative and Cultural sphere. While from an early 2009 perspective, this might not at first appear to be the ideal time to launch such a big idea, we need to remember that such initiatives are long term and may need a number of years to properly gestate. Ideally, need to be ready so that our collective efforts can bear fruit in time for the next economic boom in the Waterloo area.

Meanwhile, I would call all citizens who care about the cultural future of the Waterloo area to respond with their support. While each of us may favour different organizations and ways to provide that support, we all need to do our part. The great community we live in depends on each of us to personally help to nurture and invest in its future.

19 Dec 2008

Congratulations to Jonathan Howard

Today at precisely 11:18 PST saw the fulfillment of a long held and ambitious dream. At that time, my nephew Jonathan Howard, having set out on March 25th of this year, persevered in his epic run and completed it by dipping his toe into the Pacific Ocean at Mile 0 of the Trans Canada Highway in Victoria BC. I’m still awaiting the photo, but at the bottom of this post you can see Jonathan dipping his toe into the Atlantic to kick of this run.

Our March posting first described his ambitious venture, Run The Dream, in which Jonathan and his team of volunteers sought to raise both awareness and a targeted $2.5 million for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Today, he completed that quest.

Congratulations to Jonathan on this remarkable accomplishment. His passion and commitment are remarkable and this is truly an examplar of the new generation of social entrepreneurism.

Please consider supporting his dream by donating at the Run The Dream website or perhaps attending a Gala fundraiser to be held on 25 March, 2009 in Toronto.

Below I’ve included a YouTube re-broadcast of the completion of Run The Dream and also re-posted the press release.

Jonathan @ Victoria/Mile 0

For Immediate Release
December 18, 2008

Cross-Country Run for Autism Completed Today in Victoria, BC

At 11:18 am PST today, Jonathan Howard dipped his toe into the Pacific Ocean at “Mile 0” of the Trans Canada Highway in Victoria to signify the completion of his cross-country run to create awareness for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Jonathan, 25 years old from Mississauga, Ontario, departed from St. John’s, Newfoundland on March 25, 2008 on the first-ever cross-country run and event in support of Autism awareness.

Greeting him on the steps of the Provincial Legislature shortly after he reached “Mile 0” was the Honourable Tom Christensen, Minister of Children and Family Development in the Provincial Government Cabinet, who personally congratulated Jonathan and read a letter (copy attached) to Jonathan on behalf of the Premier of BC, the Honourable Gordon Campbell. The Premier said, “The public awareness that has been generated by this run is extraordinary.” He continued, “His efforts have already had a big impact and this journey has truly made a difference for people living with autism and their families.”

In addition, in a press release (attached) issued earlier today, the Honourable Steven Point
Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia said, “We should all give back when and as often as we can and it is my privilege to congratulate Jonathan on the completion of his journey and thank him for his unwavering commitment to his cause.”

In response, Jonathan expressed his sincere appreciation and gratitude to everyone and said, “While the Run may be complete, the Dream continues. Early in 2009 I will be announcing my continuing efforts in support of Autism awareness. In the meantime, I would like to remind everyone that more needs to be done for individuals and families living with Autism, and if we can keep our focus on the objective, the obstacles will not become the issue.”

Jonathan undertook Run the Dream in order to raise awareness about ASD and raise funds in support of charities that work to assist children with ASD, their families, research, and public education. The increasing pervasiveness of ASD in Canadian lives is apparent from the statistics: almost 200,000 people in Canada have been diagnosed with an ASD and that number continues to grow dramatically, with 1 in 166 children being diagnosed.

On a day with very similar weather to the very unusual winter conditions that greeted Jonathan today in Victoria, he began his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on March 25, 2008, when he dipped his toe into the Atlantic Ocean. In the almost nine months that followed, Jonathan stopped in hundreds of communities across Canada, meeting families, schoolchildren, and political and community leaders, to spread his message of the need for a national healthcare strategy for Autism and the change that is required to provide support and services to the individuals and families affected. Jonathan notes: “Autism is a lifetime condition requiring a continuum of care and support. What we do for our children today will benefit generations to come.”

Jonathan sincerely appreciates all of the enthusiasm and support that he received along the way, especially from those individuals and families who deal with Autism every day, yet who found time in their otherwise heavily committed schedules to host local events, come out and meet him, and support him. Likewise, Jonathan is heartened by the many people from all walks of life, who, although they do not have direct connection to ASD, lent their efforts to the run and showed their concern and support for their fellow Canadians.

On a typical day, Jonathan ran an average of 40 km–the equivalent of a marathon per day. By the time he reached Victoria on December 18, 2008 Jonathan had run a total of 8,020 km across Canada in 199 running days (full details on the Run the Dream web site).

Bill Robertson, Chairman of Run the Dream said, “When Jonathan approached me fourteen months ago and asked if I’d be interested helping him organizing the run, his grit and determination to fulfill his commitment were immediately evident, notwithstanding the prospect of running through two Canadian winters. No amount of naysayers were going to dissuade him and I felt he deserved the best people that could be mustered to support him. In addition to the families and communities along the way, and our sponsors, I’d like to sincerely thank “the team” that helped make this all happen. We are very proud to have been part of this, but we’re glad that he did the running!”

Jonathan developed the campaign and dedicated a year of his life to the cause because of his experience with children during his high school and university days. Jonathan realized that additional public awareness was required to support families facing this serious health concern and to motivate the creation of a national strategy for Autism. At present there are regrettably only fragmented and inconsistent programs from province-to-province with substantial costs for care falling on the shoulders of parents.

14 Dec 2008

Ray Simonson Video Replay of MaRS Entrepreneurship 101

I wanted to share a great presentation by Ray Simonson who spoke on December 3rd, giving a “Lived It” talk as part of the Mars Entrepreneurship 101 lecture series at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto.

I’ve known Ray for a long time and, not only is he a great guy, but he’s an amazing storyteller. Certainly Ray’s stories can serve to inspire and educate any budding entrepreneur. Ray is forthright, having seen his share of challenges along the way, ones that might make a less determined person pack it in.

Since 2004, Ray and I partnered through Verdexus to acquire then build the company now known as Coreworx (formerly Software Innovation). Since its August 2008 acquisition by Acorn Energy, Ray continues as CEO of a growing business.

This recent lecture, focusing on Ray’s first exit at BlueGill Technologies, was taped and the video located here:

Lived It Video by Ray Simonson

is well worth the time to view. The site requires you to provide your name and email to access the video.

It’s part of a great, non-credit course to encourage and educate new entrepreneurs with real life experience. You can find out more about it at the MaRS CIBC Entrepreneurship 101 Lecture Series site. You might want to sign up for this series, but they don’t come much better than Ray’s recent talk.

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