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Today we wished JS Cournoyer, partner at Real Ventures, a very happy birthday. Hip hip! Hooray!

Today, Notman’s own Real Ventures partner and FounderFuel mentor John Stokes talked to the teams about how to pitch for a seed round. The idea behind his class: “Attention, insight, implication, greed, capability, awareness, moving, ask, greed.” That’s his basic outline for how to pitch on Demo Day, which he went through in great detail and insight during his hour-long class. He also took the time to ask the teams for their insights, implications, capabilities, and the like, in order to bring the talk into perspective. John answered a few questions for us before coming in, which are just below, and we’ve included some insightful quotes from his talk below the interview. Comment if you have tips on how to pitch for a seed round! 

On Day 2 of the program (Show and Tell #1), you told the teams that it was your job to make them cry, only to then make them laugh even harder. What effects have you noticed the “tough love” approach has on startups and their founders?

We owe it to entrepreneurs to be honest with them. Being honest doesn’t mean being right, but it does force them to either a) change their views or approach or b) improve the messaging they use to deliver the story. One of these two things often has to change in order for an entrepreneur to succeed, but they aren’t going to go through the process of finding out which one it is unless they are challenged.

What role does being torn down and then picked up again play in an accelerator program?

Entrepreneurs have to focus intensely on their business in order to succeed. This does mean that they can often end up focusing inward and believing that “their” world is “the” world. They have spent so much time in their world it becomes “warm and comfortable” – they can become protected by their bubble – until they run out of oxygen in their bubble. Tough love is meant to pop that bubble ! Popping the bubble is uncomfortable for many, but it means that they can see beyond it, grow beyond it and most importantly, scale beyond it.

You have over 15 years of experience as a founder and investor in early stage startups. What was the first startup you ever played a role in?

The first one I founded was called Forte Communications and the product was called Bulletin.net. It was a great experience. We bootstrapped the company quite successfully and sold it in the late 90′s.

Is that what got you hooked?

I had always been hooked on the idea of building a business but having success certainly poured fuel on the fire.

You’re a citizen of both the UK and New Zealand. How did you end up in Montreal?

I met my now wife in Tokyo and she is a native Montrealaise – she sold me on the place !

What do you think the Montreal startup space has to offer that others don’t?

It has the essential ingredients that I think all startup environments need – close-knit community, good number of passionate entrepreneurs, willing mentors and a reasonable amount of venture capital.

You’re going to be talking to the teams about how to pitch for a seed round. What is the biggest mistake you think that startups make when pitching for a seed round, and how do you recommend they might fix this mistake?

Biggest mistake is thinking that your product is your business. Presentations that are all about features, roadmaps and generic industry growth charts miss the point. Entrepreneurs need to base their pitch on the key insight that drives their thinking, explain why this insight gives them an edge, and explain how this edge will place the company in a winning position.

What, for you, is the most rewarding part of being a mentor for FounderFuel and so involved in the program?

Seeing the change between day 1 and demo day and knowing that you have had some impact on that change.

Any words of advice for the cohort as they catapult themselves towards Demo Day?

Be unrealistic in what you think you can achieve by DemoDay – and then achieve it !

Here are some quotes and photos from his talk: 

“[Think] about it from an opportunity, rather than a problem point of view […] The problem matters to the person that might buy your product. The opportunity matters to the investor [...] I am not going to buy your product. I am going to invest in you so that others buy your product.”

“The more you can boil it down to that key insight, the more chance you have of creating a unique story about how you’re going to take ownership of this space … [you need to] really peel back the layers to understand what the insight is that drives your business.”

“Give a sense that the train is leaving the station and people need to jump on it. No one wants to get on a train that is not moving.”

“It’s not a snapshot, it’s a video. The video that you’re [showing] people is not just a video from day 1 to day 90, Demo Day, but it’s also then panning out and giving a sense of where it’s going to go in the future.”

You want them to say “‘They’ve had three months and shit, look what they’ve done.’ If it’s ‘Look, they’ve done shit,’ you’ve got a problem.”

Today we celebrated Alan’s birthday with the whole cohort, champagne, cake, and chocolates! Happy birthday, Alan! 

Today we’re very excited to announce a new partnership with Jet Cooper, Canada’s leading user experience agency.

As part of their Design in Residence (“DiR”) program, Jet Cooper will support the next cohort as they look to find product-market fit, by applying lean principles and an agile approach to design.

Future FounderFuel teams will be able to list design as a key differentiator in an increasingly competitive space, where every user, dollar and pageview counts. The focus will be on measuring success through product desirability and user adoption, rather than simply getting to market with a working product.

The package each DiR startup will receive includes:

- On-Site Presentations
To be delivered as part of our calendar of activities on best practices, case studies, and user experience design processes.

- UX Workshops
One-on-one sessions with each startup to help guide conceptualization, architecture, user goals and feedback, and inform the product roadmap.

- Office Hours
Available on an ongoing and scheduled basis both in-person and on-call. This time will be used for follow-up, problem-solving, and ideation.

Jet Cooper will ultimately be delivering on an area of essential knowledge that startups often have less exposure to in their founding teams, and will also be offering additional support as needed by our teams.

Today we’re hoping to get you little closer look to the action happening behind closed doors at accelerator programs by sharing with you a TechStars New York initiative we find quite interesting. 

If you haven’t heard yet, TechStars New York and Bloomberg have teamed up to create a reality show about technology startups:

“Follow the entrepreneurs of the TechStars’ first New York program. Watch the grueling process of building a business from the ground up in an elite startup boot camp. Guided by top names in tech from Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and more – and judged every step of the way. It all comes down to the final pitch. Who will win big – scoring millions of dollars from investors?”

Have a look at today’s episode:

Be sure to visit their site to see previous episodes, and catch the new episodes weekly at 9pm ET.

Subway!

Ok, the rhyme may be a stretch, but looking at this photo we think you’ll agree it certainly is enjoyed by all of us here at FounderFuel.  

Once a week we have a Subway lunch, and today we had the good fortune to welcome guest speakers from Planbox, friends of ours located just up the street from Notman House. Martin and Alex were here to talk about Agile Software Development and give a quick demo of their product.

Thanks Martin, Alex and of course Subway.  

To be technical, or not to be technical?

The business folks are often not, but Bradley and John from Amazon AWS certainly are.

This is John, who flew up from New York today with his colleague Brad, at the beginning of his talk with the teams. For the business people in the rook like Ian, things were all pretty clear at this point…

…but it didn’t take long until it was mostly gibberish to a few in the room. Here’s the board just a couple minutes later…

We tried to photograph the board at the end of the discussion, but it really didn’t make for a very nice photo. ‘Nuff said.

It was certainly great to have the guys lay out the services offered by Amazon AWS and the problems they can help solve for early stage startups.

Brad, John, thanks very much for taking the time to visit us, and safe travels!

About a month ago now we added Rackspace to our list of partners.

Last week, Blake our new friend from Rackspace, came to visit the teams in Montreal.

He spent time with the teams talking about their businesses and how Rackspace may be able to help them. Rackspace is providing a wide range of services to our teams including hosting, mentoring and top notch service, in exchange for what they call “Talent, hard work and dedication” from our teams. Pretty sweet deal!

Major thanks to Blake who flew up to Montreal just for the occasion.

To learn more about the Rackspace Startup Program, visit rackspacestartups.com

Free! For FounderFuel teams that is…

As the teams kick into full gear today, we’re excited to announce that Subway will be supporting FounderFuel throughout the program with food for our teams. Gotta love free food.

Thanks Subway!

Our fridge was delivered this morning, just in time for the arrival of our teams.

Isn’t it a beauty?

And of course it came with a full stock of Red Bull.