Startup Mentoring Successful: Tap in Tuesday Meetup Recap Part 1

 

We held our first mentoring meetup for Montreal technology Startup entrepreneurs this week with Sebastien Provencher @sebprovencher co-founder of Praized Media acting as what he called himself “the guinea pig mentor”. 

Thanks to an insightful, well organized introduction by Sebastien on his personal Startup experience, and an open and honest Q&A session naturally flowing out of the narrative, the overall feedback from attending entrepreneurs was extremely positive.

Sebastien was able to take us quickly but thoroughly through each stage of his Startup life. From the first moments of identifying an idea, deciding to leave corporate life, finding partners, building a demo, finding funding, building out the product, to the realities of re-iterating, re-iterating, and re-iterating. Each stage of his story offered real examples, specific advice, and actions taken with detailed explanations of tactics used.

About 50% of the meeting time then naturally flowed into a Q&A session. A sample of some of the questions from attending entrepreneurs is below:

Sample of Entrepreneur Questions from Q&A portion of meetup

Funding

• Why did you choose VC money versus angel funding?
• What are the differences between VC money and angel funding?
• How do you decide which VC’s to approach first?
• Are there VC’s that specialize in specific sectors?
• Is getting funding for a new idea easier then an existing business model?
• Should I line up an advisory board? Does having one help when approaching VC’s?

 Quebec Tax Credits

• What is the process of applying for Quebec’s R&D tax credits? How long does it take to receive the money?
• How much does it cost to take advantage of Quebec’s R&D tax credits?

 Legal

• When do I need to hire a real lawyer?
• How can I afford to pay a lawyer before raising money?
• How do I protect my idea?

 Partners

• What are the benefits of having a partner?
• What is the best number of partners to have?
• What is best set of skills to bring together in partnership?

 Other

• How much can I pay myself as the founder? What is the VC’s expectation?
• Why should I visit Silicon Valley, Boston, New York? Everyone says that, what do you specifically do when there? Is it about networking, finding employees, raising money? Can you just show up and meet people?
• Was the perceived challenge of starting a Startup bigger than the reality? Or is it actually much harder than you thought it would be?
• Is there anything you would do different?

 

One New Distinction is All You Need 

A personal mentor always told me if you can come away from an event with just one new idea or one new insight then it was worth it. As an entrepreneur you never know what new distinction will dramatically change your business for the better. I am confident that we succeed on that front with this first event.

In the next few days I’ll be posting more information about Tap in Tuesday’s first meeting. Hopefully I can share some personal thoughts on some of the discussion as well as some comments on the structure of the event itself.  Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed or follow us on Twitter @tapintuesday for more information on this or the upcoming events.

 

Next Mentoring Event is Tuesday September 14^th

 If you are interested in attending the next mentoring event or becoming a mentor yourself please reserve a place ASAP  by emailing tapintuesday@gmail.com (we are limiting the number of participants to 20 entrepreneurs)

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