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Masterminding the Amazon Exit

[ October 15, 2008; 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm. ] As promised, some more details on the upcoming STIRR Canada Tech Mixer in Calgary:

How Canada’s AbeBooks engineered its multi-million dollar sale
Boris Wertz, CEO at Nexopia & Director at Abebooks (photo courtesy of Kris Krug, via a Creative Commons Licence) On Oct 15th, headliner Boris Wertz, CEO of Edmonton’s Nexopia, will be in [...]

As promised, some more details on the upcoming STIRR Canada Tech Mixer in Calgary:

How Canada’s AbeBooks engineered its multi-million dollar sale

Boris Wertz, CEO at Nexopia & Director at Abebooks (photo courtesy of Kris Krug, via a Creative Commons Licence)

On Oct 15th, headliner Boris Wertz, CEO of Edmonton’s Nexopia, will be in Calgary at a STIRR Canada Tech Mixer event to share insights on how his previous venture, AbeBooks, won the attention of Amazon and was recently acquired.

Attendees to this invitation-only event will also be first to hear 60-second elevator pitches from a select group of local “under the radar” tech founders. Get ready to mingle with a great group of seasoned and emerging tech industry players!

YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF STIRR CANADA TO ATTEND.

Our membership is limited to high-tech startup founders, founding teams, former founders, angel and VC funders, and technology journalists. Please click on the “APPLY” tab above to complete our application form.

General Information: Info [at] stirr.ca

Press Contact: Media [at] stirr.ca

Sponsors: Sponsors [at] stirr.ca

Tech Talks Visibility - Event Wrap-up

We were back at the Tribune Restaurant in Calgary for the August Founders’ Table dinner. Founders and/or funders participating in this STIRR Canada event represented the following organizations:
Wireless Dynamics
dTech
CoolIT Systems
x-Tech
DirectVoxx
VoodooPC
Octane Capital
iNovia Capital
Much talk was around marketing, PR, getting visibility, and tech product management. The importance of a brand strategy that is implemented with consistency was [...]

We were back at the Tribune Restaurant in Calgary for the August Founders’ Table dinner. Founders and/or funders participating in this STIRR Canada event represented the following organizations:

Wireless Dynamics
dTech
CoolIT Systems
x-Tech
DirectVoxx
VoodooPC
Octane Capital
iNovia Capital

Much talk was around marketing, PR, getting visibility, and tech product management. The importance of a brand strategy that is implemented with consistency was discussed as an important component of getting noticed. The dinner conversation then turned to the ups and downs of selling into big, multi-national companies (many stories were told!), as well as the differences in marketing enterprise technology vs. consumer devices. Before the evening ended, the topic of “building businesses with an exit strategy in mind” was tabled.

Values or Value First?

Here’s a wrap-up of the STIRR Canada Founders’ Table dinner held at the Wildwood Grill on Tuesday August 29th in Calgary.
The theme was Technology Marketing and the discussion was animated as attendees discussed a broad range of topics including: choosing a business partner (look at the culture/values first or the numbers/value first?); internal blogging strategies [...]

Here’s a wrap-up of the STIRR Canada Founders’ Table dinner held at the Wildwood Grill on Tuesday August 29th in Calgary.

The theme was Technology Marketing and the discussion was animated as attendees discussed a broad range of topics including: choosing a business partner (look at the culture/values first or the numbers/value first?); internal blogging strategies (education, keywords, etc.); SEO (conversion vs. clicks); varying business views of the role of marketing in Calgary (commodities trading, t-shirts, strategic role); finding customer champions (internal influence, heroes, etc.); vibrant communities (taking the good with the bad); and ideas for growing technology marketing know-how and expertise in Calgary.

Representatives of the following companies were at the table: Divestco, Curve Dental, Intuit, Evoco, Tynt, iStockphoto, RenoWorks, Shopster, Cambrian House, Uncommon Innovation, and Mob4Hire.

Feedback from the evening:

“Great contacts, folks I’d been meaning to connect with for some time, interesting discussion.”

“I really enjoyed the event and thought it was useful to get together with fellow technology marketers and talk about functional and current business issues.”

“Thanks very much for organizing the dinner last night - it was one of the best industry events I have been to.”

Clockwise from upper left: Stephen King (Curve Dental), Christine Dougan (Intuit), Peter Koizumi (Shopster), Shekhar Parmar (STIRR Canada), Doug Vickerson (RenoWorks), Carey Houston (Evoco), Yvonne Beyer (iStockphoto), Claudia Moore (STIRR Canada).

Finding Great Talent: Event Wrap-up

“The challenge in finding and retaining great sales and marketing talent” was one of the hot discussion topics at the STIRR Canada Founders’ Table held on July 3rd, at the Tribune Restaurant in Calgary.
A group of 10 emerging and established tech startup founders and funders were invited to the dinner, hosted by STIRR Canada’s Patrick [...]

“The challenge in finding and retaining great sales and marketing talent” was one of the hot discussion topics at the STIRR Canada Founders’ Table held on July 3rd, at the Tribune Restaurant in Calgary.

A group of 10 emerging and established tech startup founders and funders were invited to the dinner, hosted by STIRR Canada’s Patrick Lor and Claudia Moore. Among the companies represented were Acceleware, Calgary Scientific, VoodooPC (HP), Userful, and Evoco, as well as the evening’s sponsor Macleod Dixon.

Discussions covered a range of other topics including: best practices in working with international partners and resellers, startup culture, the ins and outs of tax credits and government funding, when to outsource, and more … talk continued on past dessert.

Some of the attendee feedback included:

• “It’s nice to have exposure to raw entrepreneurial spirit/DNA …”
• “I lost track of the time owing to the terrific conversation.”
• “I appreciated the small format discussion - and the ability to ask questions and share experiences.”
• “It was interesting hearing about the common issues all our companies suffer …”

More Founders’ Tables are planned for this summer, with a larger Tech Mixer planned for the fall. Stay tuned for dates, locations and times.

West Coast F&F event

If you’ll be in the Vancouver area in mid June, there’s a tech entrepreneur community event of interest. Following successful Founders & Funders events in Toronto and Montreal, Vancouver is primed to host the first West Coast Founders & Funders event in Vancouver on June 17th.
Vancouver’s Boris Mann (right) from Bootup Labs has been working [...]

If you’ll be in the Vancouver area in mid June, there’s a tech entrepreneur community event of interest. Following successful Founders & Funders events in Toronto and Montreal, Vancouver is primed to host the first West Coast Founders & Funders event in Vancouver on June 17th.

Vancouver’s Boris Mann (right) from Bootup Labs has been working with David Crow, Jevon MacDonald and Austin Hill to get this first West Coast event ramped up. After the June F&F dinner, their next Western Canada event will likely be in October. Stay tuned.

In addition to organizing Vancouver DemoCamp and BarCamp events with the local tech community, Boris also collaborates with Maura Rodgers at Strutta on Vancouver LaunchParty socials. Lots happening on the West Coast to link up the tech community!