Stephen Baden on his experience during 4 days in the valley

And last but certainly not least … Stephen Baden talks about his experience during 4 days in the valley.

“My name is Stephen Baden, I am a fourth year computing science student at the University of Alberta. Me and a few friends won a national competition to develop a windows phone 7 game in 48 hours and are putting it towards starting a games company here in Edmonton. We are called Bitshift games and you can check us out at www.bitshiftgames.com.

Going down to the valley and being able to talk with a lot of successful entrepreneurs was a great experience. The big piece of advice they gave us, I’d like to share with you, and that is: Just do it. That was the consensus gathered from everyone we talked to, as there is no way to truly learn about running a startup than actually doing it yourself and making your own mistakes. Another important thing learned in the valley is what VCs look for most in a startup, and that is, the team. Above all else, it is your team which is the main selling point of your business. A statistic given to us, was that roughly 60% of startups in y-combinator leave with a completely different idea than what they came in with. Everyone has an idea, but not every business has a team that is passionate and completely dedicated to their vision.Those 4 days in the valley have motivated me even more to keep pushing on with our startup, and I will use the information gained in the valley to help turn Bitshift Games into a success as well as to help flourish the startup scene here in Edmonton, especially with students.”

Derek Dowling on his experience during 4 days in the valley

Derek is our youngest participant to date but perhaps the most enthusiastic.  It’s awesome to hear what he has to say about his experience:

My name is Derek Dowling, I am a second year Computing Science student at the University of Alberta. Being both the youngest student, and the only one without an actual Start-up in mind, I was different from the other participants. Despite this fact, I learned a great deal during my time in the valley in terms of the basic steps to creating a successful business and in determining what I wanted to do after graduating from the U of A. I am currently employed at Invidi Technologies Corporation, which is the most nontraditional start up you can imagine. Here I am working in the research group as a summer student. I believe the reason I was chosen to participate in this trip was due to my enthusiasm for Start-ups and my ability to connect and relate with people which is sometimes difficult for techies.

I learned way too many things on my trip down to the Valley, but I will try and share some of the best advice I was given. The first and arguably the most important thing I learned is that failing is not the end of the world. In the Silicon Valley, failing is very much a part of the learning process – what you learn from those failures is incredibly valuable.  Often the experience you gain, the people you meet, and the team you build will be enough to get make your second or third attempt a success. Something like 1 in 10 start-ups actually survive to make profit. With that being said I was also told that if you are going to fail, fail fast! 

Another lesson I learned, was to sincerely meet and talk to as many people as possible. There are so many interesting people in the San Francisco area that are from all over the world. Not only are you likely to make a business contact, be given advice on your start-up or who you should be talking to, but also hear cool stories about their travels and time spent in other parts of the world. Oh, and get some business cards printed, contact information is important! 

Finally, a strong team is more important than a great idea. Your team is who you will be spending all of your time with, for this reason it is important that they are efficient, easy to get along with, and are able to adapt fast. If you have a team that can execute quickly and with good quality, it is easy to pivot or try new ideas. A good team is often more valuable to investors as well.

For the future, I plan to continue my work as the co-creator of a University Game Programming Club in which we are making arcade games for the Xbox360. I am also dabbling in web languages for personal use, and hopefully in the near future will be acting as a Startup Edmonton representative at the University of Alberta. Next summer I hope to find summer work in the Silicon Valley to increase my knowledge and get a feel for what the Start-up culture is like from first hand experience. I am currently looking for the right opportunity in terms of a  team and an idea to conduct my own Start-up as well.

Adam Metcalf on his experience during 4 days in the valley

Continuing our series of guest blog posts by 4 days in the valley participants, we present Adam Metcalf to share a little bit of information about himself and his experience in Silicon Valley this May.

“I am Adam Metcalf. I’ve always worked on side projects during school. Lately, they have been apps for Android devices (gamesand public transit helpers).  I’ve also been working with some friends to design a music provider service for restaurants and bars.  We aim to provide *just enough* customization for restaurant and bar owners to administrate music being played at their venue through our service. There is a lot of music out there and we intend to keep places current. As well, we will provide digital jukebox features through mobile devices to those locations that want them.

 The one thing I noticed about the valley was the attitude of people.  Everyone was excited to hear what you do and quick to suggest ideas or people that can help. It is a more open society, no one is hiding what they are working on afraid that someone will steal it. Execution and people matter just as much as the idea, if not more.  Another cool thing I learned was that successful entrepreneurs who didn’t have a formal business background were able to pick it up as they went and learn from their mistakes. With the trip over and now that I am back in Edmonton, I plan on finishing my masters degree and perusing my music provider service idea with all the advice and connections I’ve gained on the trip.”

Enrique Fernandez on his experience during 4 days in the valley

Enrique Fernandez, one of the original attendants of 4 days in the valley talks about his experience during the 4 day trip in May 2011 –

“My name is  Enrique Fernandez. Apart from being a PhD candidate in the Engineering Management program at the U of A, I’m also building an application for managing knowledge with a couple of colleagues. Nowadays, people use so many different platforms to create and discover knowledge that information overload or knowledge fragmentation are rather the norm. We want to enable people to efficiently and effectively capture, use and share knowledge.

Our latest trip to California was a fantastic experience. It was a pleasant surprise to discover how approachable and helpful  VCs and entrepreneurs are in the Bay area; they not only shared their stories and granted advice, but also politely listened to our startup ideas and provided feedback. They all pointed out that the only way to learn how to build a startup is by doing it. Another piece of advice was to carefully select the team that you will work with (including the investors). Many people we talked to emphasized the intensity of starting something up – so much so that they suggested having an honest talk with your spouse early on, in order to set realistic expectations. Lastly, I got the sense that while there is a lot of money available for those entrepreneurs that want to build a company, it’s not doled out to just anyone …  a prototype, or better yet, some customers are first steps before seeking venture funding.

My next steps include keeping in touch with my new friends, and continue participating in events organized by Startup Edmonton and the C100. There is where we can meet capable people who share the entrepreneurial spirit and who can partner with us. Me and my business partners are planning on applying to AccelerateAB and have our eyes set on next year’s Tec VenturePrize. One thing I’m certain of: we need to build our prototype and take it to the market, tune it and then approach the investors. Funding is not necessarily an issue, but rather ensuring market validation.”

YouSendIt interview about 4 days in the valley

David Quail took the time to sit down with one of the 4 days in the valley Sponsors – YouSendIt – to chat about the 4 days in the valley program.

May 2011 Students announced

After combing through an overwhelming number of awesome applications we were able to select 4 students to attend our May, 2011 session of 4 days in the valley.

Without further ado, our inaugural session will include the following kick a#$ students from the University of Alberta.

Liang Shi

Bio: Liang Shi – 25% musician, 25% painter, 25% coder and 25% researcher. Mixing the beauty of art and the awesomeness of technology is my life goal. Holding a bachelor in Electrical Engineering and doing my master in Computing Science, I work in diversified areas with focuses in Computer Vision, Graphics and Augmented Reality. My passion is to bring cutting edge research into industrial products. One of my work in Video Re-targeting was commercialized by Nokia in 2009. Currently, I am the Lead Engineer at Scope Technologies, developing brand-new gaming platform. In the recent Start-up Weekend Edmonton, I established Sizmio, a geo-based audio sharing site. My role is to oversee the development and innovation of mobile and social strategy, design and infrastructures. For my spare time, I do everything involving making mess.

What do you want to get out of the weekend? Inspiration. It’s a great opportunity to be involved in the most fast-growing startup community. Meeting amazing people, learn from their stories; watching pioneer companies, feel their culture and passion.  And finally, hacking at a startup event.

Adam Metcalf

Bio:  I am currently finishing off the thesis requirement of the Masters
program at the U of A while starting up a company.
For my thesis, I constructed a framework for artificial intelligence
on a physical pinball machine. This project mixes a high performance
vision system with a custom hardware controller to create artificial
players. In my spare time I always learn with projects and my current
focus is on Android development. So far the projects have been transit
helper apps (ETSStops), games (Missile Defense), and wallpapers (Game
of Life Live Wallpaper). The atmosphere of valley is something that
seems special and I am excited to check it out and hopefully learn
something to bring back to help with my own future startup.

What do you want to get out of 4days in the valley?  I want to get a feel for what the valley is like and see how it
differs from Edmonton. I also hope to learn something that will assist
my future startup when it launches. Lastly, I want to have a lot of
fun with other startup people!

Derek Dowling

Bio:  I am a second year computing science student. I am highly enthusiastic, passionate about learning, and love to network and administrate large projects and people. In my free time I like to watch NFL, learn new programming techniques, work on my websites, and contribute to a number of extra-curricular groups. This summer I am working as a student intern for a Company called INVIDI, which specializes in Marketing. In the summer I also plan to do a lot of road biking, and get a working prototype of ready for one of my hopefully future products.

I am very proud to be a co-founder of the Video Game Artwork and Design club at the U of A, which was started in March and has grown to 17 members, and the website I contributed towards making in February in 48 hours at Start-up Weekend. Another project I am very proud of was the small game that myself, as lead designer, and 5 others created in a course at the U of A. We spent well over 100 hours each, and have been nominated for best artwork and design. Finally, it was very flattering to be one of the four chosen out of 60 to go on this great trip to California.

What do you want to get out of 4 days in the valley?

ANY tips that experienced entrepreneurs would share in taking ideas from the imagination to production state.  How they got started with their own ideas. The best way to assemble a quality team and to push through to create a profitable product.

Stephen Baden

Bio: As a 4th year computer science student I’m pretty new to this local developer scene, so I still have a lot to learn. Recently me and 3 friends won first place in a national competition to build a windows phone 7 game in 48 hours. We are using the winnings to open up our own game studio to keep making great games. You can check us out at www.bitshiftgames.com.

What do you want to get out of the weekend?  I hope to meet some great people and learn about how startups are made and the process involved in building one. Any insights into turning an idea into a business.  Also to have fun. That would be cool too:)

Enrique Fernandez

Bio: I hold a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from ITESM, Campus Guadalajra (Mexico, 2003), and I’m curently pursuing Ph.D. studies in the Engineering Management program at the University of Alberta. Additionally, I am actively involved in the design and development of a knowledge management application with a couple of friends, whom I serendipituosly met in one of the PhD-level courses. We are very excited because we strongly feel there is a huge need for people and companies to effectively codify, utilize and share knowledge.
I also have some experience building companies. My first two attempts (retail in 2003 and education in 2004) were big flops. Things turned out much better during my third attemp in 2005, when I co-founded Apliatec, a company to provides automatic inspection solutions (using machine vision systems) to the automotive industry in Mexico. The company is still operating and is doing pretty well. Although I’m currently thinking of cashing out since I’m looking forward to move to Edmonton, or the Bay Area… which brings me to the next section.

What do you want out of the weekend?

I am eager to visit the place which Paul Graham refers to as being full with “rich people and nerds.” The Valley is a unique ecosystem. I expect not only to visit awesome companies and talk to smart founders and VCs, but also to be friends with and learn from the other 4DitV participants, all of them bright and hands-on entrepreneurs. It’s all about the networking, and I believe this experience will be very valuable in that regard.      

My first interview out of University

by David Quail – About 1 month after graduation from the University of Regina with a Computer Science degree, I attended my first interview.  2 kids about 22 years old wearing Bermuda shorts, flip flops, and ragged looking t-shirts welcomed me at the door (I was wearing dress pants, a shirt and tie).  They led me into their board room, where on the middle of the floor sat an old picnic table.  We chatted about the job, about how they still didn’t know exactly what product they were building, but that it was going after a general pain.  They were using php, but thinking about changing to Java.

I still remember thinking to myself “what am I doing talking with these bozos?”  I left the interview thinking about how I couldn’t wait to go talk to Sasktel, or SGI … companies that clearly had their sh#$t together unlike these dudes in their $10 tee shirts.  In hindsight, I really wish I’d had someone tell me that taking that job would have been the best career decision I could have ever made.

Things worked out well for me.  I took a job at a company called Saflink in Edmonton, ended up by some strange twist of events starting a Attassa with 2 awesome friends, was able to get that company acquired, and had the time of my life doing it and can’t wait to do it again.  But it was mostly luck that I was exposed to the startup world.  That experience really inspired me to make more students in Canada aware of the possibility of starting a technology company.  The valley is a fantastic place … but there’s nothing in the  water here that makes people smarter.  There’s no reason you can’t make something big in Edmonton, Regina, Toronto, or Gull Lake Saskatchewan!  72 valley hours is a great way to start spreading that message.

72 hours in the valley launched

by David Quail – Tonight, we’re wrapping up a few last minute details before launching 72 hours in the Valley.  We’re super excited to get this rolling and bring students down to Sillicon Valley from Canada.

Special thanks to

• Atlee Clark and Katherine Bar at the C100.
• Ken Bautista and Cam Linke at Startup Edmonton
• Mike Macgregor and Tara Graham at the University of Alberta
• Dwayne Mercredi, Piruze Sabuncu and Rod Frey for your continued feedback
• And to everyone else who I know will chip in and make this a success!