Videos

Ron Hirson – Khosla Ventures / Mayfield Fund

David and Goliath Business Development – Startup business development is basically David vs. Goliath. At the startup, you’re David. You have no armor (few, if any, referenceable deals), a staff (your startup), five stones and a sling (a product that works…mostly). You know everyone who works at your company, and everything about them. You’re trying to pitch Goliath, a company so large that employees are introducing themselves to each other in your meeting, because they have never met before.

Hear Khosla Ventures and Mayfield Fund’s Ron Hirson share tips and stories from his successful experience pitching big companies like AT&T, MasterCard, Facebook, EA, Vodafone and other Goliaths, at his last three start-ups.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

Dave McClure – 500 Startups
Sam Teller from Launchpad LA
Renee DiResta – O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures
Roger Chabra – Rho Canada Ventures
Senia Rapisarda – BDC

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Startups have always been backed by a complex dance of angels, incubators, accelerators, and big funds. Lately, that dance has become a veritable mosh pit of innovation, competition, and cooperation as the disruptive forces of cloud computing, mobility, app stores, social media, and SaaS rewrite the rules. Join this panel discussion for a look at how the funding ecosystem is changing its tune.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Phil Jackson – SoftLayer

Infrastructure at Scale: Best Practices in Scaling Cloud Architectures

Beneath the covers of every great startup is a scalable infrastructure. It has to be resilient, flexible, and fast—but few founders think about architecture until they’re in the middle of an emergency, when it’s too late. In this interactive, no-holds-barred workshop, Phil Jackson, Hardcore Technologist at SoftLayer—one of the biggest cloud platforms on the planet—dives into the design of good infrastructure.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

Dulcie Madden – Rest Devices
and Jen van der Meer – Luminary Labs

Disrupting the self: Lifelogging, wearable computing, and society – Social networks get bigger. Sensors get smaller. Together, these two things let us track our lives. We collect data both actively (places we check in, quips we tweet, foods we consume, miles we run) and passively (heart rate, asthma inhaler use, sleep patterns.) However you look at it, the move to quantify the self is big news—and big business. But how are today’s innovators framing the Quantified Self discussion? How can our species benefit from all of these sensors, and the predictions that analytics can offer?

In this session, we’ll take a step back from the details and look at why lifelogging and wearable computing is such a polarizing topic, exciting some and terrifying others. We’ll learn how people are using this technology to understand their bodies and minds. We’ll discover the connection between technology and mindfulness, and how persuasive technology can generate behavioural outcomes. Ultimately, we’ll explore the role of lifelogging as a force for the common good—provided we have the right framework and a moral compass to steer us towards this lofty goal.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

Mark MacLeod – FreshBooks
Sundeep Peechu – Felicis Ventures
Andrew D’Souza – Top Hat

Build a Billion Dollar Company Anywhere

In today’s globally connected World, Silicon Valley is losing its monopoly on the creation of tech giants. Rovio (Finland) & Skype (Estonia) are just two of many companies that are building market-leading giants outside the Valley.

Join FreshBooks & Top Hat (two of Canada’s largest and fastest-growing startups) and Felicis Ventures ( a fund focused on finding the best investments across the Globe) for a wide-ranging discussion of how to build a tech giant outside the Valley.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

April Dunford – RocketScope
Joe Chernov – Kinvey
Ken Seto – Massive Damage, Inc
Katherine Hague – ShopLocket

Launching At Escape Velocity — Startup Marketing for Early Growth

Content Marketing, Social Media, PR, Advertising, App store marketing, SEO — you don’t need to be a marketing expert to found a startup but to grow it, you’ll have to learn quickly. For new startups, a great initial product launch can mean the difference between startup success or failure. Or can it? In this session, a group of startup marketers and founders will share their best and worst launch stories, describe what did and didn’t work in their early stage marketing efforts, and share the biggest marketing secret they wish someone had told them before they first launched. If you are an early-stage startup this is a session you won’t want to miss!

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

Brady Forrest – PCH Accelerator
Zak Homuth – Upverter

Hardware is the New Black – You’ve got your Big Idea. Kickstarter has found you customers and proven the demand. Now, you’ve a victim of your own success. In this session, Brady Forrest and Zack Homuth tackle the challenges of actually making something—and the hard realities of scaling your initial prototype to thousands of finished products.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

Randy Smerik – Osunatech

Build 2B Bought!

You never want to have to sell your company … but you always want to be bought! Always remember that you have two products: what you design, build, and sell — and the company itself. In this workshop, we’ll look at how an « exit strategy » is an essential part of any solid business plan. Bottom line: you want to create a company that is an irresistible target for buyers — yes, you do!

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

Ari Gesher – Palantir Technologies

Data in Action

Data in action is all about real-world solutions. We’ll look at three diverse use cases for human-driven big data analysis systems: stopping credit card bust-out fraud, realtime home pricing, and managing the chaotic information environment in disaster recovery. For each one, we’ll break down the technical architecture and the real-world impact of each solution. Please bring your questions and tales from the field!

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

Alistair Croll – Solve for Interesting
Mitch Joel -Twist Image
Hugh McGuire – PressBooks.com
Julien Smith – Breather

Are We at the Beginning or the End of Publishing?

Is the ‘book’ a thing of the past? Or, are ‘books’ the greatest media opportunity of the next decade? One way or another, what we think of as «  »books » » and «  »publishing » » are changing fast. The same could be said for magazines, newspapers, and—GASP—even blogs! Where are the opportunities for new businesses, new models, and new forms of publishing? Is it Vine… is it Medium? Whatever it is, it’s not business as usual.

This session brings together three published authors with deep expertise in online platforms and the publishing industry: Mitch Joel, president of digital marketing agency Twist Image and author of bestsellers, Six Pixels of Separation and Ctrl Alt Delete; Hugh McGuire, founder of the publishing start-up PressBooks.com; and NYTimes bestselling author and founder and CEO of Breather, Julien Smith. Moderating the discussion will be Lean Analytics author Alistair Croll.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Andy Nulman – Just For Laughs
Nathalie Hazan – Raison d’art
Ondi Timoner – A Total Disruption
Danae Ringelmann – indiegogo

The Spark and the Fire: How Creators Think

Founders see the world as it should be rather than as it is. They find the unseen angle to get attention. They uncover the unexpected, reveal what’s obvious in hindsight. This is at first a creative process, later honed through iteration and analysis. At its core, there’s a spare.

This session is a series of short, back-to-back discussions between an artist, an organizer, a filmmaker, and a founder. Taking turns as both interviewer and subject, they’ll explore what it means to create, and the strange bedfellows of imagination and industry.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest

Produced by: Rachel and Michel
www.racheletmichel.com

Harley Finkelstein – Shopify
Fabian Pfortmüller – Holstee
Ethan Song – Frank & Oak

Distributed, Disrupted, and Democratic— The Retail Revolution

E-commerce was supposed to transform retailing; it turns out it was the tip of the iceberg. From ubiquitous credit-cards, to online wallets, to the eye-opening simplicity of the Apple Store, to the tablets that are replacing cash registers, retail is undergoing a massive shift. In the back office, software is replacing processes; out front, it’s quickly becoming the default channel. Creators and curators can sell direct-to-consumer, using powerful tools that weren’t available to anyone just a few short years ago.

Along with these changes are fundamental shifts in consumer expectations, who want to buy what, where, and how they want—putting traditional retailers on notice that they can no longer rest on their laurels. The future of retail is distributed, disrupted, and democratic—and it’s the subject of this high-powered session. Join Shopify CPO Harley Finkelstein; Frank & Oak founder Ethan Song, and Holstee founder Fabian Pfortmüeller for this glimpse into the future of retailing.

Filmed at the International Startup Festival 2013 in Montréal
startupfest.local
@startupfest