Congratulations Jay!

You might not be a product marketer by training but you did a pretty good job playing one on the Internets.

Amen,

So many entrepreneurs don't seem to understand that this is about derivatives. Growth rate and acceleration. It's not about getting paid. Customers pay you. You take capital to accelerate the growth of your company.

And mine (but apparently I like living further east ;-)

I think the "because I like living here" is becoming a mantra for an entire generation of entrepreneurs. It's the "New Argonauts" thesis by Anna Lee Saxon at UCLA, that basically says the entrepreneurs go to places like Silicon Valley or Boston, learn the culture and build the professional network, then return to the place they like to live (usually home country). And using the culture they've adopted from somewhere that has seen successes in a similar field and their professional networks they adapt new businesses according to the successful culture and local specializations.

There are a lot of things to like about living in Canada.

Transplanting has worked in the past. Typically transplantation has happened around education and economic opportunity. Silicon Valley has had world class for 2 or 3 generations in both.

Stanford, UC Berkeley, and CalTech are some of the every best in the world. And they call it Silicon Valley for a reason. It was home to a great companies, great VCs, blah, blah, blah.

The interesting challenge is that the funding market is limited. So you can create more wealth and lower valuations by looking elsewhere, i.e., opening shops where there are similar conditions.

RE: Canadian VCs

@chrisarsenault you've hit it. It was decisions from 1997-2001 that we're just seeing bubble up now, i.e., that's how long the returns for LPs (well it's probably a little long but it's a close approximation based on fund lifecycles). But the comments condemning VCs are out of context and inappropriate. I wish more entrepreneurs would realize that they (and the entrepreneurs who came before them) are partially to blame.

I love seeing the development of BootupLabs, Xtreme Ventures, BaseCamp Partners, Lead to Win and others. They are an attempt to reform the risks and capital for very early ventures.

The discussion of a Startup Visa. It's great. Continuing to lead the world on immigration and openness would benefit the Canadian economy. Danny and Boris are on to something here.

Why is having a LinkedIn account any sort of litmus test for a VC? WTF!

How about a track record of successful exits? Sales to US or international interests? High IRRs? Follow on rounds from US or international capital?

This starts to sound like an entrepreneur that has an unfundable company complaining that the money people won't give him money for his unfundable idea.

Hey Jason,

Rather than just crap on our VCs, do you have data to back up the "too afraid to risk investing on new technology"? Yes, the CVCA data shows a reduction in the number of deals and the size of deals for the past 2-3 years for Canadian VCs, however, this doesn't show a fear of new technology, it might equally show a combination of the market realties and the state of corporate development of startups.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are exist in their own unique market conditions. I'm not sure that the Canadian marketplace will ever give rise to a venture that looks like these. We have created a few HUGE companies, we have at least 2 billion dollar companies hiding in Waterloo (RIM and OpenText).

Before we condemn Canadian VCs, maybe we should base our decisions on data not just personal opinion. Is the Canadian VC world perfect, hell no, there is a lot of room for improvement. There is a real need for culture shift and support of early-stage entrepreneurs (you can see the development of BootupLabs, ExtremeVP, Basecamp Partners, Flow Ventures, Montreal Startup as a need to develop a new type of funding culture in Canada).

Rather than blame the VCs, I think it is necessary that we as entrepreneurs understand the environment we operate, grow and exit.

Combining Danny's suggestions and @Colin Percival of the existing visa structure is a great plan. Having local funding sources qualify to count towards the "$300k net worth" requirement is a great idea, actually structuring it at a minimum sweat equity plus local investment starting at $300k.

Canadian cities (like Toronto and Vancouver) already have some of the most diverse populations in the world. In Toronto with over 50% of the residents born else where it creates a great creative tension between differing viewpoints. It would be fantastic to continue to demonstrate Canadian openness and acceptance by the creation or modification of existing visas to allow/encourage immigration of skilled workers by extending the definition of "skilled worker" to include entrepreneurs.

Fantastic stuff guys!

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