The Ottawa Network

The Ottawa Network has events every now and then to get entrepreneurs around Ottawa to get together and discuss business topics. I went to the last one this spring, held at the Code Factory, to see if I could meet some people that could lead me to a job with a small startup company. I didn't get any solid job leads, but the discussion was really interesting.

The topic had to do with bootstrapping your business. The tree panelists were in full agreement about external funding: there is none. There are some VCs that are still investing, but only after a business is demonstrating revenue growth. Angel investors have been hit hard by the economic recession and are finding safe havens for their money. The only good way to raise funding for your business is by generating customer revenue. Basically, sell your idea to someone before you even spend a dime developing it.

Practically this means identifying your target first customer, meeting with them, and explaining that you can solve their problems if they explain them to you. At this meeting, your job is to sell them the idea using a presentation. If they like it, you can then start talking about a deposit to begin the work and subsequent funds to continue as the project progresses. But until you have a first customer committed, there's not much point in doing any work or spending any money.

Apart from that, I met some interesting people doing some interesting things. One guy in particular started a website called careerseer.com. It's basically a search engine for job postings for the Ottawa tech sector. It mostly has to do with the software industry, but there may be some postings that are more business related.

It's too bad I only went to one of these networking events. I knew about them when I was still in the MBA program, but never went to one for various reasons. I should pass on the info to the new class, especially the new ventures club members.