Lots of ideas for startup ecosystem builders to discuss, debate, adapt and adopt in the 2018 Startup Genome report. It's one of the few examinations of what world-class ecosystems look like and how to get there—and something that every ecosystem organization should read and consider. Some of the topics discussed on this episode: Local Connectedness: New in this year's report and a critical component of all strong ecosystems. We give a big thumbs up to the report's contention that "collisions" an...
May 04, 2018•40 min
The Canadian federal budget was delivered on Tuesday and we start the show with a quick look at two items that may not get a lot of attention but may have a big impact on the startup ecosystem. It wasn't said directly, but it looks like the CAIP program will not be renewed next year. It has provided millions of dollars in funding to organizations like Communitech, MaRS, Ryerson DMZ, Invest Ottawa and many others across Canada. IRAP has been a source of funding for some of Canada's top startups, ...
Mar 02, 2018•41 min
An expert review panel recently completed a report on the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE)—the main program of the Ontario government for providing funding to organizations supporting tech or innovation companies and startup ecosystem. The ONE's Regional Innovation Centres are located in 18 cities across Ontario. And the review panel has recommended big changes: they want the government to become "a strong central authority" in the management of the program and recommend a diminished role ...
Jan 30, 2018•51 min
We're back this week and it's the show we can only do once every five years. What are the fastest growing tech/ICT/software centres in Canada? You'll see rankings like this all the time, but we really only have good data on this every five years when the Census numbers come out. And they just came out and we go through them on this week's show—while also looking at why it's not as simple to come up with these rankings as you may think. So, there's a lot of Waterloo in these rankings, and plenty ...
Dec 13, 2017•47 min
Hot DesQ is a program run by the government of Queensland in Australia through its Advance Queensland initiative to bring startups from around the world to Queensland and get them engaged with the local startup community. Through the program, startups receive $50,000-$100,000 in funding plus space at a coworking site in Queensland of their choice for six months. In return, startups agree to participate in local startup activities and build connections with companies in Queensland, while passing ...
Oct 26, 2017•43 min
Montreal is home to one of Canada's largest and most dynamic startup ecosystems, and in just a few years, Isaac Souweine has gone from being a newcomer to the city (and to Canada) to being at the centre of the startup community as EIR with Real Ventures. We talk to Isaac about how he came to Montreal, how he initially got plugged into the ecosystem, working in Montreal without being fluent in French, and working with Real Ventures to help build the Montreal ecosystem, including his work as the g...
Oct 19, 2017•46 min
Velocity is one of Canada's most successful university-based startup incubators and an integral part of the Waterloo startup ecosystem. Its success helped the Ontario government see university incubators and accelerators in a whole new way, leading to the creation of a multimillion-dollar program across the province to fund "campus-linked accelerators." It had an unlikely beginning 10 years ago. On this week's show, Sean Van Koughnett talks about how the idea for Velocity came about, how it foun...
Oct 12, 2017•40 min
Since 2014, Australia has received a detailed, annual profile of its startup ecosystem thanks to Startup Muster. And the startup community has been eager to participate, with thousands of responses last year from founders, potential founders and startup supporters. This week, Startup Muster cofounder and CEO Monica Wulff talks about what motivated her to create the survey, how Google became an early supporter, her annual roadtrips across the country to build interest and awareness, the rigorous ...
Sep 28, 2017•37 min
One of the challenges facing startup support organizations of all kinds is how do we know that we're doing a good job? Which programs are most effective? Which initiatives are worth continuing and which need to be changed or dropped? Even if we feel confident in our own activities, how would we convince someone else (including funders)? Jesse Rodgers, CEO of Volta Labs in Halifax, has written a lot about startup ecosystem metrics and has years of experience in dealing with these critical issues—...
Sep 21, 2017•47 min
Ottawa has been one of Canada's largest tech centres for decades and has the highest concentration of tech talent in the country. It hasn't always been a smooth ride—the city was riding high on the telecom boom of the late 1990s and took a big hit when the glory days came to an end, but it evolved and rebuilt and now has an impressive collection of startups and young companies, led by Shopify—now valued at over $10 billion after its IPO in 2015. Ian Graham has been part of Ottawa's tech communit...
Sep 05, 2017•37 min
Vancouver is one of Canada's biggest tech hubs and Launch Academy has played a key role in the startup ecosystem over the last five years, providing incubation services and training to over 100 startups a year—and hosting events for the community at its 12,000 square-foot space in the Gastown area of the city. This week, we talk to general manager Hussein Hallak about the programs at Launch Academy and their big vision for Vancouver's startup community—already ranked #1 in the country by Startup...
Aug 29, 2017•54 min
Mike Colwell has been mentoring startup founders for over a decade in his role with Square One DSM in Des Moines, Iowa. He's also on the board of directors of two accelerators focused on sectors where the region is building on established strengths: one for startups in the insurance sector and the other focused on agritech. On this week's show, Mike talks about how the accelerators were created and structured, how they're funded, how they operate, lessons learned from an earlier unsuccessful inc...
Aug 16, 2017•52 min
It's Canada's smallest province, but that hasn't stopped Prince Edward Island from launching several initiatives to support startups. One of the newest is Startup Zone, an incubator in downtown Charlottetown, which launched last year. It's already worked with over 30 startups and has started to see companies graduating and moving out and into larger spaces. Doug Keefe became the interim CEO of Startup Zone in April and on this week's show he talks about how Startup Zone started, building a start...
Aug 08, 2017•35 min
It wasn't that long ago that you couldn't run a hackathon in Saskatoon without raising eyebrows about what you were planning to hack into. Now a startup community is emerging in the city and the province has provided $250,000 to the first tech incubator in Saskatchewan—Co.Labs—which will officially launch in September. We talk to Jordan Dutchak, the executive director, who has spent more than two years helping to make Co.Labs a reality. He talks about how Co.Labs came about, how it's structured,...
Aug 01, 2017•45 min
No guest this week, so a roundup of recent news and updates from startup ecosystems. [1:50] It's deadline week for applications to Canada's Innovation Superclusters program. $950 million up for grabs. [2:50] The new Grand Innovations hub in Cambridge is coming along and looking at a January opening. [3:56] Volta Labs is tripling its space in downtown Halifax. [4:30] New research reports from the Impact Centre. The latest one looks at whether VC-backed Canadian startups have experienced marketing...
Jul 20, 2017•28 min
Edmonton's startup community has come a long way in just a few years, and Startup Edmonton recently celebrated its fifth anniversary as a startup hub in the city's downtown. We talk to CEO Tiffany Linke-Boyko about the evolution of Startup Edmonton, starting as a grassroots initiative with two founders in 2009, to its place today as a core piece of the city's economic development strategies. It was a big week for Edmonton, as the city—and the rest of Canada—cheered the creation of a new research...
Jul 11, 2017•46 min
Northumberland County—east of Toronto in Southern Ontario—isn't a place where you'd expect to find a $100,000 startup competition that attracts some of the top new tech companies in the province. It's a largely rural area with no university campus and its largest population centre has fewer than 20,000 residents. But the N100 competition is now in its fifth year and Northumberland is also introducing an angel coinvestment fund and the Town of Cobourg is converting one of its unused buildings int...
Jul 04, 2017•47 min
Arctic Business Incubator isn't an exaggeration—they're incubating new technology businesses at the Arctic Circle in Sweden, and have been for the last 12 years. It's affiliated with the Luleå University of Technology and runs accelerator and incubator programs in four locations, with startups covering a broad range of sectors from gaming to space to cleantech and many more. We talk to managing director Jens Lundström on this week's podcast. And I take a look at a new report out of British Colum...
Jun 27, 2017•47 min
It's not the biggest country, but New Zealand has developed thriving startup ecosystems while facing heightened versions of many of the same challenges we see in Canada, including a small domestic market, and an underdeveloped venture capital sector. Creative HQ in Wellington is one of the leading lights of the New Zealand startup ecosystem, and we talk to CEO Stefan Korn about what's working well and what gaps still need to be addressed. I take a look at two different reports on venture capital...
Jun 20, 2017•51 min
For over four years, Mike Kirkup was the director of Velocity—the startup incubator at the University of Waterloo. It's been a huge addition to the Waterloo startup community since opening in 2008. He stepped down just over a year ago to become CTO at Encircle—a Velocity graduate—and on this week's show looks back at lessons learned from Velocity's growth (and how a huge space for Velocity Garage quickly became too small). I also take a quick look at some new data on Canada's venture capital ind...
Jun 13, 2017•58 min
The Canadian federal government has released a discussion paper asking for feedback on parts of its in-development Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative, we take a look at what's in the paper and also discuss a new academic paper from Stanford that claims that all U.S. unicorns are overvalued. And we talk to Yuri Navarro, the CEO of the National Angel Capital Organization. They've just released their seventh annual report on angel investing activity in Canada, based on a survey of angel groups acr...
Jun 06, 2017•49 min
On this week’s podcast: The Canadian government has come out with some of the details of its $950 million Innovation Superclusters program. Five superclusters are going to be selected and provided with well over $100 million apiece in federal funding, and startups are required to be included. We look at some of the details of the program that are particularly relevant to startup ecosystems. We then talk to Steve Bailey of the Lazaridis Institute at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. They've...
May 30, 2017•41 min
On this week’s podcast: For the last five years, Startup Genome has been assessing and ranking startup ecosystems around the world for its Global Startup Ecosystem reports. They recently published their third report, and this week we talk to their CEO, JF Gauthier, about the factors they assess and the metrics they use in determining the rankings. JF also talks about the startup ecosystem lifecycle model Startup Genome has developed to determine where a region is in its development and what it n...
May 23, 2017•55 min
On this week's podcast: Can the expertise and lessons learned in one startup ecosystem be used to benefit ecosystems in different cities and countries? That's what Tim Ellis has spent much of the last few years doing. Tim is the former CEO of the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo and a long-time member of the Waterloo startup community. He has been taking expertise developed in Waterloo and sharing it with startup ecosystems internationally—including in Australia, where the University of Wollongong...
May 16, 2017•56 min
Do Canadian startups replace founder CEOs too quickly? Are startups still focusing significant resources on product development with minimal market feedback? Do Canadian businesses really underinvest in R&D? What do Canadian startups need to do to improve their chances of scaling to prominent size? These are some of the topics related to Canadian startups that Charles Plant has covered in research reports over the last 14 months. Charles is senior fellow at the Impact Centre at the Universit...
May 09, 2017•1 hr 1 min
Will Halifax become Canada's next great startup centre? Jesse Rodgers says it has all the right ingredients and a lot of momentum. Jesse is the CEO of Volta Labs in Halifax—"Halifax's tech superhub." Jesse was a long-time member and builder of the Waterloo startup community and the former director of the Creative Destruction Lab in Toronto and Velocity in Waterloo. He talks here about what he has seen in Halifax that makes him excited about the city's startup ecosystem and the role Volta will pl...
Apr 28, 2017•49 min
In this introductory episode of Cultivating Startups, it's just me, Gary Will, talking about what the podcast is about and what I hope you'll get from it, and then finishing off with a bit of background on me. Short version is that, while there are plenty of sites and podcasts (and books and YouTube channels, and so on) about startups themselves, there's much less on startup ecosystems and startup communities ... even though regions around the world are now devoting significant resources in an a...
Apr 28, 2017•23 min
