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MaRS ENT101: Meet the Entrepreneurs: Life Sciences & Healthcare – Peter Adams, Joel Ironstone, Trevor Van Mierlo, Alex Hodgson

Posted: - Modified: | sketchnotes


This talk is part of the free MaRS Entrepreneurship 101 series (webcast and in-person session every Wednesday). Feel free to share this! You can credit it as (c) 2012 Sacha Chua under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada licence. Click on the image for a larger version of sketchnotes.

20121114 ENT101 Meet the Entrepreneurs - Life Sciences and Healthcare - Peter Adams, Joel Ironstone, Trevor Van Mierlo, Alex Hodgson

Check out my other ENT101 sketchnotes, or other sketchnotes and visual book notes!

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MaRS ENTREPRENEURSHIP 101: NOV 14, 2012 # ENT 101
MEET THE ENTREPRENEURS: LIFE SCIENCES & HEALTHCARE Moderator : Peter Adams

JOEL IRONSTONE, SenoSense, personalized breast cancer risk

Early stage: The more value you can CREATE without burning – LESS STRESS
Ramen
First 1000 devices: outsource to med. device manufacturers, dropship
People vs. Money : Can flex in people, Can’t flex in money
Note: there’s only so much equity
Kids & risk aversion?
Balance? Carve out / opt in to time outside work
Why: Creating a company OUT OF NOTHING
Business Partner: Compatible, complementary
Worst mistake? Don’t go too far from your gut.
Ontario: SRED, Angel investors
Want $…? More post-financing business support

———–

ALEX HODGSON, 1Degree Bio, Product review for scientists

Business Partner -> Skin in the game

Biggest challenge: Trying to do everything. ASK FOR HELP!

Can’t buy PASSION. My team is full of entrepreneurs

Worst Mistake? Forgetting friends & family

Mentors help you not miss stuff.
Naming? domain name, etc
I expected things to be faster. Don’t beat yourself up over that .
Also mistake: Image above all – uncomfortable!
Talk about the MISTAKES, not just Fluff.
The path CHANGES. There are a lot of low points. Iteration is important
Why: Didn’t see something like this, so I built it.
Bootstrapped 18 months. stressful, but worth it
grants, programs; Went all over to find funding
Ontario: More conservative
Critical of idea? Why? Merit? nuggets
Balance: Still learning. cyclical. Time is not free
Full commitment to startup? It depends. Be honest re: milestones
Hiring? one person at a time. be choosy
Toronto: 4th Largest research centres

TREVOR VAN MIERLO, Evolution Health Services, Changes people’s behaviour

Balance: You can control your schedule
Low points: Firing People
If you want to grow, you’ve got to move to the STATES, but Ontario is a good test bed.
Your first customers will wonder why you have a fancy office
Why? Expanding an idea – follow that path
hiring? MaRS is fantastic for finding people
What do you have to lose? OPPORTUNITY
naming? Don’t let it stop you. Build your product
What do you want? be clear before finding investors. OUTCOME
It is a path of DISCOVERY. Go in with an open mind.
Plan – FICTION
International advisors, caution
Growing: stages > big bang

Notes from the City of Toronto Web 2.0 Summit

Posted: - Modified: | gen-y, talk, web2.0

Thanks to Aaron Kim’s referral, I participated on a panel about Generation Y and Government 2.0 at the City of Toronto’s Web 2.0 Summit. I told a couple of stories about characteristics of my generation and opportunities (for everyone!) opened up by Web 2.0, including Clay Shirky’s story about 4-year-olds and televisions (hmm, got the details wrong on that one). During the panel, I learned about the City of Toronto’s push towards citizen-centric views of information with their 311 project, some thoughts on using subscriptions, aggregation and filtering in order to deal with information overload, and concerns about digital divides and lack of access to computers or the Net. I also heard a story about how one company uses the Web 2.0 equivalent of a swear jar – people who send attachments through e-mail get poked about how they can be using more effective tools to collbaorate. =)

What went well?

  • People: I enjoyed getting to meet the organizers, the other panelists, and the audience members. People had interesting stories and questions. I particularly enjoyed Mark Surman’s talk about lessons from open source development that may help cities become more open and participative. =)
  • Webcast: There was a live webcast of the event, and Lan Nguyen told me that more than three hundred people from all over Canada logged in to watch the streaming video. Moderators also took questions from the online audience and brought them into the discussion. This was a terrific idea because it allowed more people to participate. People were interested in simultaneous webcasting for all city sessions, and I think that would be a Good Thing.
  • Twitter backchannel: Towards the end of our panel, I noticed that one of the online comments mentioned the #to20 Twitter backchannel. I pulled out my iPod Touch, keyed in the wireless user name and password the organizers gave me, and navigated to the #to20 search page. After I scanned through the previous discussions, I started bringing ideas from the backchannel into our panel conversation. People’s tweets reminded me of interesting points to bring up. I’m really glad I had access to the Twitter backchannel without doing something as awkward as bringing out a laptop, and that I could get to know different aspects of the people I’d just met in person. Good stuff! I’ll be relying on Twitter to keep me up to date tomorrow, as I won’t be able to attend in person and rumor has it that the live webcast requires Internet Explorer.
  • Experience: I’m usually anxious before panels and presentations like this because I don’t feel at all like an expert. Who am I to talk about Web 2.0, or Generation Y, or something like that? I make up for it by reading a _lot_ about the topic, collecting stories, and talking to a lot of people about the topic. This time, I was even more anxious because I’m not a citizen of Canada, I didn’t grow up in Toronto, and I don’t know much about the way the Canadian political system works. But the pre-event call reassured me that they’d be okay with my newcomer perspective, and during the panel, it turned out that I had plenty to share: stories from other organizations and people, ideas I’ve written and spoken about, experiences I’ve reflected on… It all worked out well, and I’m glad I got to share some of what I’d learned. =)
  • What would make this even better?

  • Focus: A development issue pulled my attention away during the last panel session, which was a pity because it seemed like an interesting one.
  • Planning: I really should get into the habit of asking for the registration list or even just looking speakers up so that I can have richer face-to-face conversations with them. Names alone are hard to search for. The next time I help organize a conference, I think I’ll ask everyone for blog addresses, Web addresses, profile links, or a short self-introduction… Hey, maybe I’ll do that for my tea party! =)
  • Linking: Should’ve found the webcast URL before the event and posted it on my blog, so that more people could tune in! I’ll keep an eye out for recordings. =)

Lots of people to follow up with, lots of conversations to continue…