How To Launch a Startup: Ideas, Acceleration, Raising Capital and More

by Ben Yoskovitz

I was very glad to see that someone recorded the recent Blitzweekend presentations. Stephane Daury did a great job recording everything, and I’ve enjoyed watching the presentations I didn’t see.

I gave a presentation at Blitzweekend about starting a company. It was a mixture of a few things including:

how Standout Jobs started from within the Montreal tech community
my personal history, and use of blogging & social media to build a reputation locally and beyond
raising capital - the difficulties, tips, etc.
my current struggles with balancing the 20,000 foot strategic view and day-to-day issues

The presentation is a bit longer than I intended it to be, but I’m pleased with the results. A bit more practice would have helped, and more point form notes instead of what I had written up to use. But I hope people enjoyed the presentation and got something out of it. Anyone?

Anyway, if you’re interested in learning more about Standout Jobs, where it came from and some of the lessons learned so far (and you want to see me “in action” - after all, who wouldn’t?!?!) please check out the presentation and let me know what you think.

March 6th, 2008

17 Responses to “How To Launch a Startup: Ideas, Acceleration, Raising Capital and More”

#1 James Christensen March 6th, 2008 at 2:45 am

Do you think this is applicable across the world?

#2 Audiomecca Webmaster March 6th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

I think that it is a great presentation. Some of the ideas are just what young entrepreneurs need to learn about from some one like you and I bet they went away from the presentation with more optimism than when they came in!

#3 heri March 6th, 2008 at 4:43 pm

ben,

i can tell you this was a great presentation, i got to talk to many entrepreneurs/teams who told me it was very inspiring, and who wished you were there on saturday or sunday to give them some advice.

thanks again,

#4 James March 6th, 2008 at 7:11 pm

Hey Ben, this is a strong presentation and some great guidance. Particularly your point that as a founder you never stop raising money. I had never heard that before and never recognized it until you said it, but it’s true.

We’re building a prototype and raising money at once. Through that process I’ve found you just have to get used to running the two streams and do your best with them.

Now the second balancing act - running the big-picture business and detailed execution at once - presents an additional challenge.

It seems to me the most natural fit in most startups is to have the technical founder more focused on the details of execution, especially in the early days when breaking new ground is such a priority. But that just be in our situation and with our team.

#5 Ben Yoskovitz March 6th, 2008 at 7:55 pm

@heri: Nice to hear the feedback was good. I stupidly forgot to tell everyone where I blog, but hopefully they can find me. And they’re welcome to ask any questions…I’m not TOO hard to find!

#6 Ben Yoskovitz March 10th, 2008 at 3:10 am

@James Christensen: I don’t see why not…I’m sure some things are different when it comes to raising capital, for example, but the struggles and issues in starting a startup are (in my opinion) universal.

@James (from adhack): Thanks for the comment. I agree regarding the separation of work between the technical founder and a non-technical one. But, any founder that’s not neck-deep in execution is going to be in trouble later on. So it’s hard to separate things TOO much.

#7 Jiansbond March 11th, 2008 at 6:43 am

Ben mentioned a good site to read up on the VC funding process called ” venture —”. Can someone please clarify which site he was referring to. I tried to reply the video a couple of times but still could not make the second word.

Thanks alot !!!

#8 Ben Yoskovitz March 11th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

@Jiansbond — The site I mentioned was Venture Hacks — http://www.venturehacks.com — definitely worthwhile.

#9 Jiansbond March 11th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

Thanks Ben !!!

I honestly discovered your blog yesterday and now I’m addicted

A lot of good information here, thanks for sharing.

#10 Ben Yoskovitz March 12th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

@Jiansbond: Great. Were you at Blitzweekend?

#11 Jiansbond March 12th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

Unfortuntely I’m not in the vicinity, I’m in the NYC region. In addition, I already have a solid concrete idea I’m currently pursuing. Planning to launch in May/June, if you are interested then I’m definitely interested in getting your feedback on it. I will contact you once the prototype is ready.

Best,

#12 Rom @ PR4 Directory March 12th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

This blog has been proving to be an important addition to my bookmarks!

Ben, thanks you for sharing that very powerful and insightful presentation. And don’t worry to much on forgeting to mention about your blog on your presentation. I am pretty sure they would remember your name and would find their way here as well

#13 James Christensen March 13th, 2008 at 1:01 am

Gotcha Ben — thank for the info.

#14 Ben Yoskovitz March 14th, 2008 at 2:24 am

@Jiansbond: Well I’m glad you found the presentation useful, even if you’re not in Montreal.

Please do keep in touch on your project, happy to help where I can.

#15 David March 17th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Thanks for the presentation ben, It had a lot of interesting information

#16 Ben Yoskovitz March 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

@David: Glad you enjoyed it!

#17 Denis Canuel March 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

Ben, it was great..! Thanks for coming, it’s always great to have entrepreneurs encouraging the future generation

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