On Thursday, ideaBOOST held its Master Class and Networking Event at the Arts & Letters Club on Elm Street in Toronto, and featured expert insights from leading entrepreneurs in the technology space.
The interview-based Master Class included input from Sunil Sharma, Managing Director of STEM 7 Capital; Doug Cooper, Program Director for the Communitech Hyperdrive Accelerator; and Hussein Fazal, the co-founder of AdParlor (sold to Adknowledge in 2011).
Participants from the current Spring 2013 ideaBOOST Cohort and Affiliate Program were invited to attend for informal networking and the featured Master Class.
Here are some of the tips Sharma, Cooper and Fazal had for emerging startups:
“Really leveraging and accessing the mentor network – that’s important. I think the most valuable part of being in any program is the mentor network,” Sharma said. “It takes a lot of personal initiative to contact, to research the mentors, research their networks and be typically un-Canadian in their strategy of reaching out.”
According to Cooper, accountability is crucial.
“Startups need to make some real objectives that aren’t just vanity metrics like site visits, ad impressions. If you’re just trying to engage people, these metrics mean almost nothing. The key is being disciplined enough to capture a metric that isn’t easy to capture.”
“You have to keep talking to people, emailing — just keep hustling,” Fazal said. “Startups shouldn’t be afraid of being persistent and hearing ‘no’.”
See full photo coverage from the July 24 event here.
Be sure to stay tuned for updates on this exciting group of companies, as well as the ideaBOOST program.
