Category: Entrepreneurship
Canada Is Going To Be The Next, Great, Entrepreneurial Tech Country
This article, Engineers Are Leaving Trump’s America for the Canadian Dream, stimulated a simple thought for me.
Canada has a huge, near-term competitive opportunity over to the US.
I have a deeply held belief that US entrepreneurship has benefited extraordinarily over since World War II due to the desire of people from around the world to come to make their lives in the US. While this immigration philosophy started with the drafting of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (and arguably before that with the European colonization of America), it transformed entrepreneurship, the US economy, and the US’s place in the world dramatically from the 1950s on.
While there are lots of issues around immigration, I believe the US’s relative permissiveness around, and openness to, people from other countries had a remarkably positive impact on the US. I wouldn’t be here other than the immigration of my great-grandparents (and my maternal grandfather) in the early 1900’s from Europe and Russia. While I feel deeply (and proudly) American, I know that my family has only been here for a few generations.
I’ve been aware of and engaged in issues around immigration for the last decade. When I saw this article yesterday, titled U.S. startup visa draws only 10 applicants as Trump throttles program, I thought to myself “duh.” I then read the article, which had a good punch line in the second paragraph.
“A big reason for the shortfall is that the year-old program has been constantly under assault since the election of President Donald Trump, whose agenda revolves around tightening immigration rules and dismantling Obama-era policies. The Homeland Security Department has twice delayed implementation of the program but agreed to leave the application process open after venture capitalists won a court challenge in December. No one has been granted a visa, and Homeland Security said last year that it’s working on a plan to kill the rule entirely.”
Yeah, well, I wouldn’t apply for one of those things either. After advocating for and working on the Startup Visa for almost a decade, it was powerful to end up with something at the end of 2016 (the International Entrepreneur Rule, which was the closest we’ve been to this) but disheartening to see the endless and continuous attack and attempt to undermine this by the current administration.
This is a gift to Canada around entrepreneurship, and I’ve already seen the impact of it in many places. The Toronto/Waterloo startup community is on fire. Many companies I’m involved in are exploring offices in Canada, especially Vancouver (for the Seattle folks) and Toronto (for the east coast folks) since it’s so difficult to get work visas in the US for employees. Other entrepreneurs from around the world are simply opting to start the company in Canada rather than the US because of all the uncertainty around visa status.
I’ve always liked Canada. There is a window in time where Canada has a massive strategic geographic advantage over the US. It’ll be interesting to look back in twenty years and see if the country capitalized on it.
Tonight, the New Venture Challenge at CU Boulder is having its 10th anniversary. It’s happening at the Boulder Theater from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm and is open to the public. Register here to attend if you are interested.
My partner Jason is leading the judging panel, which includes:
- Abby Barlow, partner and director of Investment Research at Crestone Capital
- Stephanie Copeland, former president of Zayo Group and current executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade
- Anthony Shontz, managing director of Private Equity at Partners Group
Dan and Cindy Caruso and Amy and I contributed the prizes, which total $100,000.
A decade ago the creation of the NVC was inspired by the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. I was involved in the early years (1992 – 1996) as a judge and funded a number of companies that went through the MIT $100K (which was called the MIT $10K at the time.) The entire experience was foundational for me, both as an entrepreneur and an early angel investor (I started investing in 1994 after I sold my first company at the end of 1993.)
Over a decade ago, Brad Bernthal and Phil Weiser were putting real energy into Boulder Startup Community. I discuss their efforts, and impact, in my book Startup Communities (which was published in 2012). One of the things I suggested was doing something like the MIT $100K. I remember a longish discussion with Brad Bernthal and my partner Jason about the history of it and how it unfolded over the first decade.
Bernthal and Jason grabbed this and ran with it. A decade later, that discussion now seems like ancient history. But, for anyone who knows my rant about having a long-term view around startup communities (at least 20 years), we are now 10 years into the NVC journey. And, it has really hit its stride.
I’m excited about tonight’s event and am really looking forward to seeing the companies compete! I hope to see you there if you are in Boulder.
Today is International Women’s Day (“IWD”) which dates back to 1909, although the UN did not start celebrating IWD annually until March 8, 1975.
With the current global movement for women’s rights and equality, IWD 2018 has spawned numerous initiatives including #PressForProgress and #TimeIsNow. While the hashtags vary, the common theme of 2018 is action. For many organizations, the goal is for these initiatives to launch on March 8th but continue throughout the year and beyond. At a minimum, IWD and the organizations and individuals celebrating it will spark action, continue existing conversations, and force new ones.
At Foundry Group, as part of our efforts to help build a more inclusive tech industry, we’ve joined two initiatives as part of IWD 2018: #StartWithEight and Project #MovingForward.
#StartWithEight addresses the gender disparity in venture capital funding by asking participants to commit to taking eight meetings with women from outside their existing networks during the month of March. The idea there is that “the dynamics will change when capital flows equally to any talented founder, no matter his or her gender, race, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic.” For many VCs, deal flow is extremely network driven and often our networks look a lot like us. At Foundry Group, we’ll do at least eight new meetings with women looking for funding who we’ve never met with before in the month of March.
Project #MovingForward is building an open-source directory that pools diversity, inclusion, and anti-harassment commitments from VCs. We (along with 35 other VC firms) shared information (now public on the site) on how we’re #MovingForward. At Foundry Group, in addition to adopting new policies, we’ve created a portal for internal and external stakeholders to report sexual harassment.
There’s a ton of work to be done to achieve gender equality and inclusivity in tech, but these action-oriented initiatives are a good start. I hope the momentum continues to build and we start to see some real change. K9’s Project #MovingForward submission really sums it up: “Actions speak louder than words.”
If you are a regular listener of the Reboot Podcast, you’ve heard Jerry Colonna masterfully interview many people. And – if you aren’t a regular listener, go sign up and give it a try.
In Episode 78: When Did You Start to Listen to Your Heart, I turned the tables on Jerry and interviewed him. We’ve been close friends for 22 years and I felt like it was time someone interviewed him on his podcast. I suggested it to him and his team, who either rolled their eyes or jumped for joy. Either way, it is now up.
I listened to the final version during my run yesterday. I smiled a lot, snickered a little, and grimaced a few times. If you want a taste to entice you to listen, here are a few of the quotes from the show highlights that jumped out at me.
- “What I’m trying to do right now is pull myself into the present and be really real.” – Jerry Colonna
- “I have always given a shit about people.” – Jerry Colonna
- “Things are fucked up all the time like every day, continually. You can either just react to it, or you can deal with it.” – Brad Feld
- “I think that there are two things that I would get excited about as an investor. People and product.” – Jerry Colonna
- “Better humans make better leaders.” – Jerry Colonna
- “I don’t want to spend minutes with people who I don’t feel are good humans.” – Brad Feld
- “Good people do shitty things all the time.” – Jerry Colonna
- “If you’ve got that inquiry process and you remain curious about human beings, you can, with compassion, understand and therefore protect yourself from the bad things that even good people do.” – Jerry Colonna
- “Men at 40 learn to close softly doors to rooms they will not be going back to.” – Jerry Colonna
- “This idea that people are fundamentally willing to work on themselves and that they’re there for each other especially when there’s a struggle.” – Brad Feld
- “When I’m dust and dried up, and I’m dead and whatever, please just keep paying it forward.” – Jerry Colonna
It’s all Jerry for an hour with a little bit of me nudging the discussion along. None of it is scripted. We didn’t discuss anything in advance. Just two guys, who have known each other, worked together, and have had a deep emotional intimacy together – for 22 years – talking about some things that come to mind about what they think matter.
If you are a reader instead of a podcast listener, the transcript for Reboot Podcast 78: When Did You Start to Listen to Your Heart is also available.
Every entrepreneur starts her journey somewhere.
Colorado is a premier location for entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers. This is why I co-founded and commit a portion of my time to Startup Colorado; an organization that empowers and sustains startup communities across Colorado. One of the programs that Startup Colorado runs – called Startup Summer – cultivates and engages undergraduate entrepreneurs looking to get involved in the Front Range startup community.
Startup Summer is an immersive 10-week program that includes weekly seminars from local entrepreneurs who teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. The student entrepreneurs form teams and build companies while receiving coaching and mentorship from alums of the program and local entrepreneurs, culminating with a pitch competition. The program admits 50 student entrepreneurs from around the country, bringing together different backgrounds while exposing them to the Front Range startup ecosystem.
Startup Summer is now in its sixth year. All internships are paid. If you are interested or know a promising student who wants to take advantage of this opportunity, the application is here and closes on January 31st.
Oh, and if you’re a company in Boulder or Denver that wants to participate and host an intern, email me and we’ll see if we can fit you in this year.
Yesterday, I wrote about the upcoming CO Impact Days. In it, I pointed to a Medium post titled Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break, which turns out to be the Zebra Manifesto.
Per the manifesto, a Zebra (unlike Unicorns) are real:
- Zebra companies are both black and white: they are profitable and improve society. They won’t sacrifice one for the other.
- Zebras are also mutualistic: by banding together in groups, they protect and preserve one another. Their individual input results in stronger collective output.
- Zebra companies are built with peerless stamina and capital efficiency, as long as conditions allow them to survive.
Yesterday afternoon, I got a text from Mara Zepeda, one of the founders of the Zebra Movement and authors of the manifesto, saying that we should talk. We had a great discussion where I learned more about Zebras, the Zebra Movement, and the upcoming DazzleCon Conference in Portland this week. Over 200 Zebra founders, funders and friends from around the world are gathering to co-create the community of companies that are building the goods and services we need for the society we want.
Mara also pointed me at the article Can “Zebras” Fix What “Unicorns” Break? on The Long Now Foundation website, one of the sponsors of DazzleCon along with the Rockefeller Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and several others.
Amy and I signed up to support the Zebra Movement and decided to also sponsor DazzleCon through our Anchor Point Foundation. I’m excited – and fascinated – with what Mara and her colleagues are doing as they extend the perspective and engagement around 21st century entrepreneurship well beyond Unicorns.
My friend Dave Jilk recently shared the following Robert Frost poem with me.
Lodged
by Robert FrostThe rain to the wind said,
‘You push and I’ll pelt.’
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged–though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
That perfectly describes how 2001 felt to me.
We now have at least one generation of VCs and entrepreneurs who didn’t experience the collapse of the Internet bubble. Fred Wilson wrote a great post this morning titled Diversification (aka How To Survive A Crash). Fred does a great job of covering the financial dynamics around a crash.
But he didn’t really address the emotional dynamics.
In 2001, I was on the board of four public companies (and was co-chairman of two of them which I had been a co-founder of.) Sometime in the spring of 2000, all of them hit their peak stock price. By mid-2001 I think all of these were sub-$1 stocks and – if they weren’t – they would be soon.
The rain to the wind said,
‘You push and I’ll pelt.’
I knew my work world was totally fucked. I was working as hard as I knew how to work, dealing with a steady stream of failures. Amy and I were in a better place than the one I talked about in the beginning of our book Startup Life where we almost split up, but everything was still very rough around the edges.
My moment of capitulation came sometime in the early summer of 2001. For months, I was going to bed each night with the thought “tomorrow will be better.” By summer, it was warmer, but one night, as I was crawling into bed, I realized that each day had been worse, and often much more punishing than the previous one. The cumulative impact of what by that point was over a year of an intense, downward spiral in every aspect of my work world, was undeniable.
Forget about the paper money, much of which had vaporized. I was just completely exhausted hoping that something would break my way.
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged–though not dead.
That night, I changed my perspective. Instead of hoping the next day would be better, or easier, I went to bed thinking, “Fuck it – let’s see what the world will throw at me tomorrow…” If you’ve read my post from 2015 titled Something New Is Fucked Up In My World Every Day, you will recognize this philosophical shift.
I know how the flowers felt.
Eventually, it got better.
I wasn’t dead. Someday I will be, but I wasn’t then. The pelting eventual stopped. Lots of things I was working on were smote, but the sun came out and I kept at it.
Every successful entrepreneur I’ve ever met has stories like this. Every successful long-term VC has had these moments, sometimes for extended periods of time.
Just like Fred suggests you diversify financially, you should diversify emotionally. I have no idea how I would have survived this period without Amy. When I reflect on my relationship with Seth, Jason, and Ryan much of the intense loyalty between us was forged in the period during and after the debacle that was the collapse of the Internet bubble. Some of my lifelong friendships, with people like Len Fassler, Dave Jilk, Rajat Bhargava, Jenny Lawton, Will Herman, Ilana Katz, and Warren Katz were solidified by the intensity of this time frame.
Until that day in the summer of 2001, my emotional well-being was much too connected to my financial well-being. The day after, not so much …
Last Chance to Sign Up For The Fall 2017 Venture Deals Course
Kauffman Fellows and Techstars are running another cycle of the Venture Deals course with me and Jason Mendelson. Signups close tomorrow as the course runs from 9/24/17 – 11/13/17. The course is free to everyone.
The seven-week course, which is about five hours of work each week, has the following agenda.
Week 1 – Introduction of key players/Form or join a team
Week 2 – Fundraising/Finding the Right VC
Week 3 – Capitalization Tables/Convertible Debt
Week 4 – Term Sheets: Economics & Control
Week 5 – Term Sheets Part Two
Week 6 – Negotiations
Week 7 – Letter of Intent/Getting Acquired
Over 10,000 people have taken the course at this point. We’ve gotten universally strong positive reviews and have made plenty of new friends from people who have gone through the course and connected with us.
If you are interested in raising venture capital, I encourage you to sign up and take the course. I hope to see you online.
Amy and I have been big supporters of a movie about immigration called For Here or To Go?
With our friends at Boundless, we are sponsoring a week of screenings in Seattle. We are supplying a bunch of free tickets and – when they are used up – will still have a set of paid tickets available.
It’s playing at the Landmark Theaters Crest Cinema Center from Friday 9/22 to Wednesday 9/27. If the topic of immigration is important to you, this is a great, powerful, thought-provoking movie.
If you want to bring a big group or spend some time with Rishi, the creator of the movie, just email me.