Who’s speaking?

We’ve got David Crow joining us for Breakfast 10! David is Microsoft Canada’s User Experience Evangelist. And, many of the startup community will know David well as being the instigator of DemoCamp and Founder & Funders.

A bit about him . . .

David is a software designer with a passion for community. At Microsoft, David helps companies understand the technology and design opportunities for creating compelling digital experiences. He focuses on helping companies to extend their customers’ reach with next generation technology for the desktop, digital devices, standards-based applications for the Web, and rich media applications.

David has been named Toronto’s Best Web and Tech Evangelist for his efforts in founding DemoCamp, BarCamp Toronto and Founder & Funders. David has worked to facilitate a vibrant community and ecosystem in Toronto. David continuously helps his clients understand that the power of community is beyond just being an audience: community is the framework.

Want to meet and learn from David Crow? Sign Up Here

The fine print . . .

Can’t wait for your Breakfast fix? Join us on Sixent, LinkedIn and Facebook. Stay in the loop at the Social Media Breakfast blog.

Creating/looking for content? Our event tag is smbottawa

Jamie Oaslter has come up with an amazing idea:  A WordPress Developers Pub Night!  Jamie is proposing that Tuesday July 7th, 2009 be the first Ottawa WordPress Developers Pub Night.

Location and time are subject to interest from the community. Current theory is a start time of 8pm at Shoeless Joe’s at 3049 Carling Ave which has cheap wing night on Tues and very nice booths.  There are several ways you can make your preference / interest known:

1)  Leave a Blog Comment on Jamies original post.

2)  Follow on Twitter - @wdgo on Twitter and tweet your preference(s). In general, this is probably the best way to stay up-to-date with those who live in Ottawa with an active interest in WordPress until the full / robust website for our community is launched.
 

3) Or you can email Jamie at: jamie [AT] idealienstudios.com with your preferences. I’ll send out an email to everyone who emails me by Monday afternoon with the location / time as well as putting up a new post on this site.

Rock on Wordpressers!

For more information, visit open source breakfast page on the FOSSLC website.

“Social Media Marketing” is a workshop hosted by the OCRI e2 Program which runs on Friday June 26th . The session will be delivered by session leaders Natasha D’Souza, and Rick Radko, and our very own Scott Lake, of ThinkSM.

To register go to www.ocri.ca/e2plus . For more information contact Shelley Davidson, e2 Program Coordinator, at theedge@ocri.ca .

The workshop runs from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm on June 26th , and includes a lunch service – It is no charge for e2 Alumni, and a special (subsidized) price of $195 for others interested in applying Social Media Marketing to create business growth.

Posted by Shane McLean.  Hi all.  I recently posted this on my blog and thought it might be of interest to the StartupOttawa readers:

If you are part of a growing business that requires a source of outside funding, chances are that you will at some point have to review a “term sheet”.  What is a term sheet?  Basically it is a high level summary of the terms on which someone is willing to invest in or lend money to your business.  In this post I am going to discuss financing term sheets only.  There are other circumstances in which you may be on the receiving end of a term sheet — a sale of your company, for example — but those will be left to be discussed in future posts.

Financing term sheets can vary widely in their terms and structure, but there are generally a few areas that are common (or should be common) to most:

Who:  Who is the party (or parties) who will be investing, lending etc.?

What:  What are they receiving in return for their investment?  This might be preferred shares, common shares (if you’re lucky), convertible debt, non-convertible debt or a host of other possibilities.  To give two examples, with high tech startups you’re often talking about preferred shares and with publicly listed companies you are often going to dealing with common shares and maybe warrants.  If your term sheet contemplates preferred shares, debt or other complex securities the term sheet will also include a fairly detailed breakdown of the terms of those shares, debt etc.

How Much:  How much $ will the investor(s) be putting up?

Price:  The term sheet has to include a price per share (or a price per whatever you’re selling).  With private companies this is typically the investor’s best guess (or best offer) of the value of your company.  This could be stated in the form of a “pre-money valuation” which attaches a value to the company before the investment.  If you know the  number of shares you have outstanding prior to the investment you can use this number to determine the value per share.  That’s what the investor hopes to pay.  Less frequently, the price might also be expressed as a post-money valuation.  Just take the aggregate amount to be invested away from this number to reach the “pre-money valuation” and do the math as described above to determine a per share price.  Sometimes the investor will do the math for you and just give a per share price in the term sheet. If you are dealing with a public company the price is probably based on the most recent market price, a discount to the market price or some average of the market price over a recent period of time.  The price or valuation can also tell you how much of the company is being purchased for the aggregate investment amount.  For example, if your pre money valuation is $2,000,000 and the investor is investing $2,000,000 the investor will own 1/2 of the equity in the company post investment.

Timing:  When do the parties hope to close the financing?

Other Closing Deliverables/Conditions:  There will typically be a laundry list of other deliverables and conditions to the closing possibly including: a shareholder agreement, board of director seats, delivery of certain information, amendment to the articles of incorporation etc.  This is where the investor will tell you what, if any, controls they expect to have over the operation of the business on a post closing basis.

Expenses:  Typically the term sheet will describe who is responsible for the expenses incurred by the investor and the company as part of the transaction.  Here’s a hint: It’s almost always the company.  As a company, if you are stuck paying the fees your goal should be to negotiate a cap on investor legal fees.

Exclusivity: Sometimes there will be a commitment to exclusivity — i.e. once you sign the term sheet you won’t talk to other potential investors for some defined period of time.

With the help of good advisers you can often negotiate some of the key points on a term sheet so if you are handed a term sheet you do not necessary have to sign it in the form presented.  If you want to see an example of a financing term sheet you can check out this term sheet generator developed by US law firm Wilson Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati.  There are a few web based term sheet generators out there similar to this one and they generally get a lot of buzz.  They are definitely neat, but I often wonder whether they have any real life benefit to companies aside from preparing you for the types of things you will see in a term sheet that is handed to you.  Generally speaking the investor is going to present the term sheet to you in the investor’s “standard” form and a sophisticated investor is unlikely to accept or generate a term sheet from an Internet based term sheet generator.

Once everyone is happy with the term sheet, it is signed and the lawyers get to work preparing the definitive documentation to reflect the high level terms agreed on.

Posted by Shane McLean ]]> http://www.startupottawa.com/?feed=rss2&p=1270 http://www.startupottawa.com/?p=1267 http://www.startupottawa.com/?p=1267#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:43:18 +0000 Scott Lake http://www.startupottawa.com/?p=1267 On June 26th, e² is hosting a Social Media Marketing Course at OCRI.  Here are the details…

• Natasha D’Souza, Digital Media Strategist and founder, Virtual EyeSee
• Rick Radko, Social networking and web application architect, founder of R-Cubed
• Scott Lake is the founder of ThinkSM and SWIX and a co-founder of Shopify  and StartupOttawa

By engaging online communities, Social media marketing can create exposure, opportunity, leads and sales in worldwide markets. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. There are many ways to engage and connect, and it’s easier than you think! Join us for this e2 Plus where we will demystify social media marketing through lively discussions and interactive exercises.
You will learn:

• how companies like Dell and Jet Blue are using social media
• about leveraging on-line social networks, consumer generated content, blogs, podcasts, wikis, video, and RSS feeds to better deliver your message to create relationships with potential clients
• how to use social media to drive direct and indirect sales
• ways to improve Customer Service and increase Customer Satisfaction
• about campaign killers and online faux pas
• how to save your organization a great deal of money by using open source applications

Take aways:

• Leave the workshop with cutting-edge skills for using social media to build your brand online.
• Ideas to get your website social media ready.
• Ways to implement a social marketing program on any budget.

This e2 Plus workshop is part of the e2 Program, and is offered to e2 Alumni at no additional cost.

Date: June 26th, 2009
Times:  8:00 am - 3:00 pm
Place:  OCRI, 2625 Queensview Dr., Suite 200, Ottawa
Cost:   $195  (e2 Alumni: FREE)

Class size is limited (max. 14 participants) – So register now!

If you bought an iPhone 3G from Rogers in 2008, they will now sell you a shiny new 16GB 3GS for $125 ($199 - $50 Apple rebate - $25 “customer appreciation” credit if you ask for it), and you can keep your original iPhone. I just called them to confirm, and it’s legit.

Also, there’s now a very simple hack available for tethering a laptop to an iPhone without jailbreaking it:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.iphone-notes.de/%3Fp%3D5969

Works great, but technically not exactly kosher with the Rogers terms of service, so use at your own risk.

Then not to be outdone CTV covered her at the Zone5 Twitter panel. Luckily Kelly also got me in that video as well.

Here is some great news from Overlay.TV. Early this week they released Overlay.TV for Retail. Overlay.TV for Retail is an all-in-one eCommerce video solution with all the tools a business needs to provide its customers with an interactive shopping experience.   Essentially this new platform integrates into existing websites with custom branded players so users can click and shop directly form your inventory catalog right from the video.

By the way OTV also recently re-designed the Overlay website and it looks stunningly beautiful.  Faisal and the OTV crew did an amazing job.

(click on the picture for a bigger view)