Cdling Capital Services

Navigating Change for Angel Success

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 15:22:00 -0400

“Angel investing - one of the leading sources of capital for the innovation economy - is undergoing rapid transformation and growth, with new social media entrants, legislative changes, and the explosion of the start-up environment.” - Angel Capital Association Summit 2013

At Startup Grind 2013 conference in Silicon Valley I hosted the “No Harps or Hallows in Angel Funding” section designed to explore the changing early stage funding context. Coming up in April, ACA Chairman David Verrill and Board Member Jean Peters have invited me to join a related panel: Crowdfunding: Wisdom of Crowds or Greatest Fool Theory? at the Angel Capital Association’s 2013 Summit: Navigating Change for Angel Success.

Click through for a collection of insight from these great exchanges with:

Jessica Scorpio, co-Founder, Getaround
Jeremy Liew, Partner at LightSpeed Ventures
Jeff Clavier, Partner at SoftTech VC, and
David Verrill, Chairman of ACA, Founder/Managing Director at Hub Investment Group, LLC

Here is an idea: Let’s take a woman from Canada, transplant her to Silicon Valley and disrupt the automobile industry. That is the story of Jessica Scorpio and Getaround, her startup in “sharing economy” that has attracted over $14-million in investment.

“The biggest force of change in early stage investing right now is that individual investors are getting less disciplined on valuation and that is creating upward pressure on seed and Series A round valuations.” says Jeremy Liew, Partner at LightSpeed Ventures. He cautions, “that a gaggle of small investors is inferior to a lead investor as someone has to have the economic motivation to do the heavy lifting when heavy lifting needs to be done.” This is a man who was ready to invest in SnapChat ($485,000) just 25 mins into his first meeting with them.

Jeff Clavier has a top 20 Cdling Score out of more than 22,000 investors and founders that we have ranked for California and when I asked him for his views on crowdfunding (20 min mark in this video) he says that his firm in in favor. He sees it as the institutionalization of the family and friends round and another source of validation for business models and demand. And certainly not a source of competition for established early stage investors.

David Verrill shares this perspective:

“The ACA Summit in San Francisco this April 16-18 has a whole “sleeve” of sessions devoted to the (expanding) ecosystem that is involved in helping startups get funding and the resources they need to be successful.

The ACA has expanded its mission to serve accredited angels, angel
groups, family offices, and platforms. There may well be other players in this space in the future. The value proposition of each must be proven out through the success of their investment in time and money. Personally I think the more important aspect of investment is the time (and expertise).

The obvious topic to discuss is Crowdfunding. The ACA is bifurcating
crowdfunding into accredited and non-accredited, and is focusing on the accredited side of the equation.

The US startup space is a $50 billion market (angels and VCs), and with the new players that will more than likely expand. The notion of angels (or VCs or any player in the ecosystem) having their space threatened is taking more of a contractionary view. Sure the existing players will have to modify how they work, who they partner with, etc., but there is room for everyone to contribute to startups, and the benefits they bring to their investors, employment, and our economy.”

OSC Exempt Market Review - Comments on OSC Staff Consultation Paper 45-710

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:49:00 -0500

March 8, 2013

John Stevenson
Secretary
Ontario Securities Commission
20 Queen Street West
19th Floor, Box 55
Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S8

Fax: 416-592-2318
Email: jstevenson@osc.gov.on.ca

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

RE: OSC Exempt Market Review - Comments on OSC Staff Consultation Paper 45-710

As the Founder and owner of Cdling Capital Services Inc. and the Founder & Director of the Toronto Chapter of Startup Grind, I am pleased to provide these comments on OSC Staff Consultation Paper 45-710. I am also the National VP of Startup Advocacy for CATAAlliance Invest CrowdFund Canada (ICC).

My primary issue for this letter is the advancement of investor protection measures that are designed for the current era of low cost, globally funded startups that we live in. This context is a direct result of new media forms, driven by new enabling technologies including ubiquitous broadband internet connections, low cost computing and powerful mobile computing devices.

My purpose is to pass on the advice that Marshall McLuhan might offer. At first any new media (or in this case the financing methods enabled by the new media), looks like something that came before it. An email looks like a letter. TV seems like radio before it, and so on. But eventually it becomes apparent that the new form is not the same as the old form. They have different dynamics and effects that demand different responses from us.

Crowdfunding is not a choice. To deny its adoption and significance is the equivalent of calling the internet a fad and adopting the position of an ostrich with your head in the sand.

Therefore, as you move to accept your responsibility to cope with this reality, please do not try to impose old frameworks for risk mitigation in this new context.

You can actually introduce more risk by doing so.

Who Is Cdling and Startup Grind?

Cdling (pronounced “seedling”) is an internet enabled technology platform that builds trust between investors, startups and the experts who serve them. We are developing a ratings agency that is designed for the era of globally funded, low cost startups. The Cdling platform recognizes and rewards the prospecting work that mentors, advisors, subject matter experts and analysts contribute to a healthy startup ecosystem. Using social network, financial and competitive analysis and prediction markets, Cdling produces Cdling Scores, which are a merit based measure of influence (more precisely, social capital) across the startup funding ecosystem. So far we have developed Cdling Scores for more than 2,200 of Ontario’s top innovators through the Ontario Cross Border Technology Innovation Ecosystem (OCTIE) Study, conducted under the supervision of Ryerson University with a world class advisory group and, using the method developed through OCTIE, more than 22,000 investors and founders in California.

Today, Cdling has 1,268 members and more than 600 startups in our community.

The Cdling community is emerging in remarkable ways:

Designers 25%, Hackers 45%, Hustlers 28%
United States 37%, Canada 22%, European Union 14.5%
Rest of the World 25.8% includes: China, India, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Venezuela, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Japan and the United Arab Emirates
more than 60 city/regions are represented in the Cdling community.
35% have advanced/post-graduate degrees.
Subject Matter Expertise: Computer Science 60.4%, Engineering 7.5%, Marketing 6.2%, Business Admin 5.5%, Management 5.4%, Finance 5.3%, Economics 4.6%
Sectors Covered: Biotech 2.1%, Cleantech 1.6%, Communications 41%, eCommerce 9.9%, Enterprise 10.4%, Entertainment 2.3%, Finance 8.4%, Government 1.3%, Hardware 2.5%, Health 4%, Incubator 3.6% Investor 3.4%, Legal 1.5%, Media 32.4%, Mobile 1.3%, Other 4%, Social Media 17.3%, Software 12.4%
Average years of career experience: more than 8 yrs.

Startup Grind is the fastest growing blog and meetup network emerging out of Silicon Valley. We have Chapters in 40 locations in 15 countries and the Toronto Chapter has attracted more than 750 Founders in less than one year with no government subsidies. Startup Grind Toronto’s mission is to inspire, educate, and connect the Ontario startup community with the smartest startup minds. Our guests so far have included Eric Migicovsky (Founder of Pebble Watch), Sherwood Neiss (co-author of the crowdfunding framework adopted in the JOBSAct and Howard Morgan (co-founder of New York Angels, Partner of First Round Capital). For more details on the top startup minds that we are connecting to Ontario see:

Startup Grind Toronto

Startup Grind 2013

In addition to my roles with Cdling and Startup Grind, I think it is useful in this context to note that I focused my MBA on the relationship between social capital and corporate value and have led my Social Capital Value Add thesis through two global “crowd sourced” competitions, having it published as a ChangeThis manifesto and being selected as a finalist amoung 248 entries from 48 countries in the Power Of US: Re-imagine Media competition. I also designed and taught the first post-graduate level social media courses in a full time program in Canada.

OUR INPUT - The Medium is the Message

”The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media

Regulators must consider the Internet and social media based nature of crowdfunding and the impact of this on the way we consider risk protection measures. Traditional protections that were designed to reduce instances of fraud may not be as effective – or may in fact be counter-productive – in an on-line and networked communications environment. We have the following broad recommendations.

1. Facilitate New Reputational and Investment Analysis

Where any individual can readily communicate with anyone else, new methods for reputational analysis are enabled. We accordingly agree with the proposition in the Staff Consultation Paper that the crowdfunding exemption could be used to sell securities to any investor, regardless of income level or “sophistication”. In technology and social media start-ups, limiting participation based on “sophistication” would create a void of opinion and expertise from key contributors such as academics, experienced technology industry players and new participants such as recent graduates who are a source of innovation. Excluding these sources eliminates important social signals on the prospects and features of particular companies and projects.

Simply put, the broader the spectrum of participants, the more likely the “wisdom of the crowd” and “the right expert, for the specific question, at the right time” will be brought to bear. This is not a theoretical concept. Tools that leverage social networks for reputational analysis and risk measurement have been deployed to measure social and entrepreneurial influence – for example, Klout,[1] PeerIndex [2] and Cdling Scores.[3] In a crowdfunding environment, these tools and many more like them are used to evaluate an offering and the reputations of the people behind the offering.

From a traditional securities regulatory perspective, it can be argued that analysis by “the crowd” is only as good as information that is provided by the issuer. This is only true if there is a scarcity of information. With the vast increase in the amount of publicly available data on markets, business models, products, and virtually every other subject, the problem is not lack of information – instead, what investors are missing is the ability to assimilate, critique and use information. This is why in the public company realm, an industry of highly paid analysts has emerged to put publicly available information in context and make it understandable and useful to investors. Crowdfunding supported by robust social media has proven to do the same thing on startups.

The Staff Consultation Paper also addresses the specific question of investment limits for individual investors. We believe an arbitrary threshold should be avoided. Any fixed dollar limit on investment will inevitably result in a clustered distribution around the limit.

If you set investment limits, link to income distribution not arbitrary thresholds.

If you must, explore a limit like 10% of annual income for “unsophisticated” investors (dislike these definitions). Make it an undertaking of funding portals and issuers to get contributors to certify in terms & conditions.

Regulators, politicians and everyone involved in this debate must understand that a $ limit of $1,000 or $2,000 or $10,000 would display obvious ignorance regarding the social dynamics and distribution of contributors to any wise Crowdfunding.

Any social movement like Crowdfunding or Wikipedia or an election campaign works with individuals contributing along a “power law” or “long tail” distribution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail

An arbitrary imposition of a limit would cluster people around that limit and eliminate signals for a large range above the limit.

This would distort the signaling effect that is required to enable the “crowd” (actually opinions from a group of focused experts rather than a mindless crowd) to sort “good” investments from “bad” investments. This would effectively increase the risk of crowdfunding particularly for less informed participants who rely on social signals more.

These limits would be particularly terrible for crowdfunding in Canada where we need to generate continuity, consistency & quality of signal with a relatively small “crowd” (inherent in our small population) in order to attract bigger crowd funds from more distant market participants in the USA & beyond.

2. Encourage Engagement over Social Media by Issuers and Investors

A wider range of active and engaged investors, located globally, with diverse insights will promote greater accountability by issuers. We accordingly disagree with the restriction on the use of social media as construed in the consultation paper but agree with a ban on “advertising” by issuers. First, “advertising” is a product primarily of broadcast media like radio, television and newspaper that is paid for by the “advertiser”. “Advertising” is a one-way communication in which information is controlled solely by the advertiser and it can be used to reach and mislead investors, particularly ill informed late adopters. On the other hand, Social Media is an inherently reciprocal communication where information is transmitted via social networks. Issuers must be encouraged to communicate through social media channels. In order to reach potential investors without advertising, issues need to win the trust and endorsement of communities that can share their offering with wider constituencies. In other words, social media is essential because it subjects the issuer and its information to the scrutiny of everyone needed to signal the quality of the offering. Social media will reduce fraud, not increase it.

Thank you for this opportunity which I offer in addition to the input that has been submitted via ICC. I would be more than happy to meet with your team at anytime to demonstrate the Cdling platform and advise more specifically on any items where you think my expertise would be helpful.

Sincerely yours,

Michael Cayley

[1] http://klout.com/how-it-works

[2] http://about.peerindex.com/

[3] https://sites.google.com/a/cdling.com/cdling/moneyball-cds-explained

Live webcast coming up at 6: 30 pm of Startup Grind Toronto...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:04:27 -0500

Live webcast coming up at 6: 30 pm of Startup Grind Toronto with Marc Garneau at Fasken Martineau.

A/V production courtesy of Murray McKercher and InfoComm Canada.

FI, Michelle Scarborough, Rajesh Narayan join OFFICE HOURS

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:37:00 -0500

The list of participating investors and mentors for OFFICE HOURs, Startup Grind 2013 has expanded to more than a dozen leading startup minds, including Adeo Ressi, CEO of the Founder Institute, Michelle Scarborough, partner of Smart Ventures and Chair of Canada’s National Angel Capital Association and New Delhi investor Rajesh Narayan, Partner at Opdrage Venture Partners.

Also participating from the FI network will be Blumberg Capital EIR Misha Chella and Golden Gate Ventures Jeffery Paine with more to come.

Startups qualifying for OFFICE HOURs will receive Advanced Standing at the Brandery, one of the top ranked accelerators in the United States. And a point of differentiation in the review process for TiEQuest, the annual business venture competition that features investments of up to $1,000,000 to top teams and various cash prizes and in-kind services from sponsors exceeding $150,000 in value for contest winners. In 2012, TiEQuest attracted more than 225 entrepreneurs from 51 cites across North America.

TiEQuest & Cdling Ratings to work together - $150K prizes & $1-million investment at stake

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 08:26:00 -0500

TiEQuest, the annual business venture competition hosted by TiE Toronto that features an “Expression of Interest” for investments of up to $1,000,000 to top teams and various cash prizes and in-kind services from sponsors exceeding $150,000 in value for contest winners, has agreed to use Cdling Ratings in its review process whenever possible.

“Last year over 225 entrepreneurs from 51 different cities across North America participated in TiEQuest”, says Karl Miranda, Associate Director responsible for TiE Toronto operations. “Cdling ratings will help our reviewers as we continue our quest to discover and support the best startups in 2013.”

We can not say enough about this break through. TiE is one of the most important and influential startup networks in the world. Most people outside of Silicon Valley do not realize the historic role that pioneering engineers from India played in the creating the most successful tech companies in the world. While there have been other instances, this is the first time that we have been able to talk about a clear case where real money is on the line and Cdling ratings will have an impact on the decisions being made.

Last date to register for TiEQuest2013 is Jan 31, 2013 (11:55PM, EST) at www.tiequest.org

TiEQuest was started in 2005 with the purpose of helping startups and new businesses. TiEQuest helps bridge the gap between up-and-coming business people and the investment industry. The competition helps generate new ventures and give entrepreneurs the encouragement and the support to help them succeed and turn their dreams into reality.

TiEQuest provides its contestants an opportunity to present to well-known angel investors, venture capitalists and fund managers. Many of theses professionals were on the panel of judges/mentors so they get to know the competing ventures first hand. Sponsoring firms offered an “Expression of Interest” for investments of up to $1,000,000 to top teams. In addition, the winners received various cash prizes and In-Kind services from sponsors exceeding $150,000 in value.

The contestants of TiEQuest include existing and emerging entrepreneurs, patent holders and/or applicants, university students and alumni. Over 225 entrepreneurs took part in TiEQuest 2012. Contestants came from business schools, life sciences, engineering and technology departments of various universities in Ontario, Entrepreneur Assistance programs of the Ontario Ministry of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Board of Trade, Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Corporation. In addition, a number of contestants were referrals from banks, accounting firms, law firms, universities and other entrepreneurial associations and organizations connected with building entrepreneurship. The contestants came from 51 different cities from all over North America.

In continuation of this tradition TiEQuest will be looking for pragmatic ventures which have the potential to grow into profitable businesses.

Cdling Rated Startups get Advanced Standing at The Brandery

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:00:00 -0500

One of the top ranked seed accelerators in the United States has decided to grant advanced standing to Cdling Rated startups.

“We’re always looking for new ways to find the highest potential startups for our accelerator,” says Mike Bott, General Manager of the Brandery. “We think that Cdling Rated Referrals will be a great additional datapoint to help our team identify the best possible companies for our program.”

The Brandery is a seed stage venture accelerator, which has been ranked as one of the top 15 programs in the United States the past two years. They run a three-month-long program in Cincinnati, Ohio focused on turning your great idea into a successful, brand-driven start-up. Leveraging the regional strengths of design and marketing, The Brandery aims to give startups an edge in both user experience and user acquisition. Started in 2010, they have graduated 25 companies. The 2013 cohort will include 10 companies, with each receiving $20,000 in seed funding, mentorship, and the opportunity to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program. More details can be found here.

Cincinnati, Ohio, one of the Top 5 Consumer Marketing regions in the world. Cincinnati is home to 10 Fortune 500 Headquarters including Procter & Gamble, Kroger, and Macy’s. The region is also the home of leading marketing, branding, design and advertising service companies such as Possible Worldwide, LPK, Landor, and Nielsen. Cincinnati has one of the largest collections of Brand and Consumer Marketing talent in the world.

Startup Grind 2013 - OFFICE HOURs

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 02:22:00 -0500

Demo Days & Pitch Competitions need to be reimagined.

When Derek called me up on Boxing Day to suggest that we add OFFICE HOURs to Startup Grind 2013, he gave me two criteria:

1. We don’t want to waste anyone’s time. Quality matters.

2. We are trying to start lasting friendships that are needed to survive the Startup Grind.

Our mutual disdain for live pitch competitions was established when we first met, so factoring that in was already part of the equation. Like Mark Suster, it’s not that we think Demo Days and Pitch Competitions are useless, we just believe that they could be re-imagined to serve everyone better.

Here is our first step in that direction:

In order to qualify for Startup Grind 2013 OFFICE HOURs startups must gather 10 opinions on Cdling so that we can deliver a Cdling Rated Referral.

A few days before the conference we will send a ranked list of all of the qualified startups (could be few, could be a lot) to all of the participating investors.

To participate, an investor must agree to do a minimum of 3, 10 minute, one on one meetings with startups they select.

Once we get back the selections from each investor, we will introduce them to the Founders via email and let them sort out the logistics of their meeting.

We are not taking any fees for any of this.

Meetings can take place in a dedicated meeting room at the conference or after (reservation schedule for the room will be available through a shared google doc.). Face to Face or via phone or Skype.

The startup can be located anywhere.

This means that Startup Grind Chapters everywhere can offer this valuable opportunity to their local communities.

Only the best startups will get 10 credible opinions. Participating investors will get a free global stream of deal flow that will be valuable even if only to compare to their usual channels.

No “pitch competitions” or “who knows who” judging panels. Your startup does not boil down to the 30 seconds that it attracts in a pile of submissions or a crowded hall.

Your ability to connect with these investors depends on who believes in you. If you are an investor and you are interested in getting an alternative point of view on your typical deal flow and contributing 30 mins to an hour of your time to provide feedback to a promising startup, please contact me at the email below. The list of participating investors will be published below.

If you have any questions please visit Cdling’s Frequently Asked Questions or email me at michael at cdling dot com.

These world class investors, mentors and experts will be participating in OFFICE HOURs:

Chris Yeh, Wasabi Ventures
TK Kuegler, Wasabi Ventures
Mike Bott, The Brandery
Derek Smyth, OMERS Ventures
Matt Leibowitz, Plazacorp Ventures
Erick Schonfeld, DEMO Mobile*
Roham Gharegozlou, Rising Tide Fund
Thom Kozik, Fix Challenges, Inc.
Steve Perricone, Pilot Mountain Ventures
Tim Flannery, Pilot Mountain Ventures

Eric is searching for the most promising pre-launch mobile startups to feature at DEMO Mobile.

Cdling Rated Referrals

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:38:00 -0500

Even when investors, mentors and experts dedicate their full time and life to spotting the next big thing, it can come walking straight through their door and they miss it.

We love the honesty of Bessemer Venture Partners Anti-Portfolio page. It is a badge of honor among VCs to have the courage to share stories about the ones that got away but all would rather have had the insight available that would have supported a different decision and gave them the billion dollar ride of their life.

At the same time, there are Founders working away in hacker houses, Estonia or where ever, who feel they can not possibly boil their life’s work down to a demo day or pitch competition. We love why Mark Suster doesn’t do demo days.

Here is the story from Bessemer’s Anti-Portfolio page:

Cowan’s college friend rented her garage to Sergey and Larry for their first year. In 1999 and 2000 she tried to introduce Cowan to “these two really smart Stanford students writing a search engine”. Students? A new search engine? In the most important moment ever for Bessemer’s anti-portfolio, Cowan asked her, “How can I get out of this house without going anywhere near your garage?”

IT’S THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF INNOVATION

Outliers trying to get in. Insiders trying to sort quality signal from noise. These are the problems that Cdling is designed to solve.

Over the second half of 2012 we did a series of OFFICE HOURs experiments in Toronto, New York and Baltimore.

We are grateful to the investors who have worked with us so far. We have learned a lot from each pilot.

Why did they give us a try? They value an alternative point of view on their trusted networks for deal flow. And the low cost of launching a startup has dramatically increased the amount of noise that they face. As one investor we talked to recently said, “When the amount of crap walking through the door increases by 10x, you are a lot more likely to get some on you!”

We were delighted by the success that Montreal based startup Bunch had leveraging Cdling to make things happen for them. But to be honest, investors have been faster to pick up our value proposition than startups. We think that will change as we are able to report how Cdling has already helped startups get themselves funded.

Why go through the hassle of collecting 10 credible opinions about your startup on Cdling?

Think of it as picking your own panel of judges for a demo day or pitch competition; or assembling your dream team advisory group. If you are working on the next big thing, you want the 10 best people in the world sharing an opinion about your startup and for every startup, those 10 people will be a little different.

Some will know you and your team better than anyone. Some will be the world’s top subject matter experts in your area. And as many as possible should have established reputations in your local or better still, the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem (for follow on rounds of financing all roads lead to Rome :).

One of the most sensible things we have seen written on an investors website goes something like this:

“We do not accept unsolicited business opportunities. Our team is ever-present in the local community, and your networking skills should be put to work for a quality introduction to us.”

Cdling enables you to put your networking skills to work and get the attention of the investors that you want to work with the most.

Investors want the same thing that you do. They don’t want to rely on the best intelligence sitting around the boardroom table at a Monday afternoon Partner’s meeting. They want the best intelligence in the world available at their table to support better decision making.

Make it easy for them.

1.Get 10 opinions that count. (Here is how.)

2. Request a meeting with an investor.

When we provide a Cdling Rated Referral report to an investor we use our Cdling Scores and other profile checks to enable the investor to quickly and easily understand the quality or weight of the opinions that have been shared.

On Cdling (powered by Y-Combinator alum Inkling Markets), each person that shares an opinion is putting a measurable portion of their real world reputation on the line for you. Cdling Scores matter.

Unlike simple voting, our approach to collecting insight around your company is not a popularity contest. We are using methods that have proven to be very accurate in a variety of different applications.

Developing quality opinions about your startup is part of an iterative, lean approach that dramatically reduces the amount of time that you need to spend trying to connect with investors. We want to free you to focus on selling great products to paying customers. It’s like the difference between gradually developing a LinkedIn profile and submitting a resume to a job posting. One is an investment and long term asset, the second is a cycle of activity lost in time.

Visit Cdling’s Frequently asked questions or email michael at cdling dot com at anytime.

OFFICE HOURs NYC

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 20:38:00 -0500

Do you know a startup that is ready to meet one on one with Howard Morgan, Nikhil Kalghatgi, Shai Goldman or TK Kuegler?

Or how about a one on one meeting with Erick Schonfeld as he searches for the best mobile startups to showcase at DEMO Mobile?

Over Thanksgiving weekend, these world class investors will select startups to meet with for 10 minute, one on one meetings. How can your startup be selected for one of these opportunities? Click here to learn how.

Cdling (pronounced “seedling”) is a platform that builds trust between investors, startups and experts across global startup communities. Want to learn more? Thank you to Howard, Nikhil, Shai, Erick and TK for working with us across the New York startup community to create these opportunities for some promising Founders.

Thank you party!

On the evening of November 27, Cdling, in collaboration with Ultra Light Startups NYC, Picatic and Goodwin Procter LLP is hosting a private thank you party at The Alley NYC! Here are the details! http://www.picatic.com/cdlingofficehrsnyc

Give us an opinion of the hottest startup in NYC now!

Click to browse NYC Startups

If you have any ideas on how we can better connect to the...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:39:10 -0400

If you have any ideas on how we can better connect to the startup ecosystem in NYC, please contact me at michael at cdling dot com.

Nikhil Kalghatgi's selections for OFFICE HOURS

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 16:22:00 -0400

First we want to thank the top players from across the startup ecosystem who confidentially referred all of the startups who have been considered for this opportunity.

As you can imagine, the most important elements of our report to Nikhil evolved out of our Cdling Scores for players, although there are also some startups who have used Cdling to get themselves through the door.

We would have released this earlier, but we were working with a few startups to confirm that they could attend. So while it may not be a surprise to those who have been selected for these meetings, I apologize to anyone who was working towards this opportunity and is only getting this news released now.

We are working hard to try to create meaningful opportunities for both the startups and the investors that we serve. If you were not selected, remember that this can be a reflection of your stage or Nikhil’s interests and not a judgement on what you are doing.

Nikhil’s final selections for OFFICE HOURs tomorrow at Gowlings and the schedule:

4 pm - Shelflife

ShelfLife is the future of collecting with next-generation e-commerce and collection management tools. Whether you collect action figures, H&M designer sales, skateboards, Japanese kaiju, video games, or books, ShelfLife will provide everything you need to make your collecting experience faster, cheaper and more fun.

4:10 pm - Uken Games

Uken is one of the truly cross platform gaming companies around. We build fun social and mobile games that make people stare, smile, jump, and feel awesome inside.

4:20 pm - UNATA

Unata supplies technology that allows retailers to connect their loyalty program to digital platforms such as mobile & web, automatically personalizing content for every user so as to enhance the at-home and in-store shopping experience and thereby increase customer loyalty. The platform includes a real-time analytics & marketing platform that delivers all the benefits of online marketing to bricks & mortar operations, allowing retailers to monetize new data and become more efficient marketers.

Break

4:40 - BUNCH

Bunch is a mobile platform to share and discuss your passions with like-minded people. The Bunch iPhone app is live in private beta and has had 1.1 million pre-signups via a Facebook marketing app. Bunch will test launch Sept 2012 in Canada, with a US launch to follow.

4:50 - Shiny Ads

Allows (small) advertisers to build their ad banner, set up their campaign and pay for it all in an automated fashion without the need of a direct sales force. The advertising is automatically placed in the web publisher’s ad server and all payment and optionally refunds are handled automatically.

Startups - you can pitch, ask for advice or an introduction or just forge that relationship for future consideration.

Thanks to Nikhil and everyone who participated in this Cdling Alpha experiment. We have learned a ton!

Earn a VIP Seat, Front & Centre

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 13:25:00 -0400

UPDATE: Shelflife is the winner!

Our Startup Grind Toronto Fireside Chat with Nikhil Kalghatgi is sold out.

But one local Founder can still earn one VIP seat, front and centre.

It is very simple. The startup that uses the Cdling platform to gather the most opinions about their potential from different individuals by noon, Thursday October 25th gets a guaranteed seat.

You know how it is done.

Here are the FAQs on Cdling to share.

Feel free to shoot me any questions at michael at cdling dot com.

Sample Email - Simple, straight. Get opinions that count.

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:19:00 -0400

We have dug a little further into the story of how Bunch reached out to some of the most credible investors, experts and Founders in the country to use Cdling and get in front of Paul Singh at 500Startups.

“Once I figured out what to do, I kept it short and straight forward,” says Bunch CEO and co-Founder, Andrew Sider. Bunch currently has 20 different opinions shared on their Cdling profile, from 13 different players. Andrew says he sent the note below to 13 people and within a day or two he had received the results he needed.

Here is the sample email:

TO: xxx
FROM: Andrew Sider
Subject: reference on cdling please?

I need 10 positive references on Cdling to secure a meeting with 500 Startups on Monday.

Can you please do the following today?

Sign up for Cdling using LinkedIn: http://cdling.com/desktop/

5-10 mins later you’ll get an email welcoming you to the alpha group

Go to Bunch’s profile: http://www.cdling.com/desktop/companies/365

“share an opinion” when Bunch will raise $10m

Thanks for helping!

Andrew

Thanks Andrew for sharing this with us.

While Andrew’s email focuses on securing the meeting with 500 Startups, the opinions he gathered continue to qualify Bunch for other potential investors.

Have you built your startup’s reputation on Cdling?

You can start here: www.cdling.com

VC. Gangnam Style. in Toronto with SoftBank Capital's Nikhil Kalghatgi

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 23:25:00 -0400

THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT! But one Founder can still earn a seat.

Nikhil Kalghatgi is surpassing my ideal as an NY venture capitalist.Softbank Capital’s portfolio includes Media (Huffington Post), Entertainment (Zynga), Commerce (Gilt Groupe) and advertising (Buddy Media). This Fireside Chat should attract a different slice of the Toronto startup set, less upstart and more offshoots - i.e. Founders who bring with them experiences from these established sectors in TO.

Get your tickets here.

Nikhil’s style is Gangnam. Our first exchange on Twitter was about his Twitter bio, now updated from: “I’m a VC. And this is crazy. But here’s my term sheet. Call me maybe?” which was so last summer to: VC. Gangnam Style.

You can read his official bio here. This is going to be fun.

OFFICE HOURS @ GOWLINGS

Nikhil is also giving us an hour for one on one meetings with promising prospects that fit his investment profile, in an “Office Hours” format just like First Round Capital’s Howard Morgan and 500 Startups’ Paul Singh. Cdling Capital Services Inc. will work with MaRS Commons and the MaRS Mentor Network to incorporate traditional referrals from across the local ecosystem and the Cdling platform to deliver a report to Nikhil on October 21 and we will announce his selections on October 22. @cdlingHQ or email me at michael at cdling dot com with any questions or for more details.

We are grateful to our friends at Gowlings who are graciously hosting us for both OFFICE HOURS and the chat.

REBOOT: "Ask a VC a Favor" in Baltimore/D.C.

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:35:00 -0400

UPDATE Nov. 21

Riffing on the “Office Hours” added to Startup Grind events with First Round Capital’s Howard Morgan and 500Startups’ Paul Singh, back in early October Wasabi Ventures Managing Partner, Tom “TK” Kuegler decided to select 5 promising startups for 10 min, one on one sessions in an exclusive hour just prior to Startup Grind Baltimore’s October 30th fire side chat event.

That was before a lady named Sandy decided to put the plans of millions of people on hold. While the Startup Grind event has been successfully rescheduled to December 4 in Baltimore, unfortunately TK can not be on hand to meet face to face for the hour before hand.

Genacast Ventures Joins the Search!

The good news is that Gil Beyda from Genacast Ventures is joining the search for great startups in the Baltimore/D.C. region!

Genacast Ventures is a seed fund that invests up to $1 million in technology-centric Internet start-ups in the northeastern US.

A partnership between serial entrepreneur Gil Beyda and Comcast Ventures, Genacast brings the best of “been there, done that” start-up experience and seasoned venture investing.

OFFICE HOURS, Cdling Rated Referrals - UPDATE, Dec 3, 2012

Based upon the experience of our most recent OFFICE Hours pilot in NYC, we talked to Gil and TK today and we are changing our approach. To sum it up …

Get 10 credible opinions about your startup on Cdling and you can request a meeting with either TK or Gil or both. Your request will trigger the creation of a Cdling report on your startup that will go TK and Gil. Once they receive the report, TK or Gil will make the decision on whether to schedule the meeting.

If your startup would like to meet with Gil or TK to make a pitch, ask for advice, seek an introduction here is how to advance your startup on Cdling. There is no deadline. You don’t need to be a Baltimore based startup (but you will need to be a match for these investors if you expect to get a meeting). We will create these reports for the first 10 startups that qualify. If you have any questions contact Founder, Michael Cayley: michael at cdling dot com.

Attention mentors, subject matter experts and investors in the Baltimore/D.C. region. You know these startups better than anyone. Genacast Ventures, Wasabi Ventures and Cdling look forward to your participation!

Fundraiser for Ripped off Laptop

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 15:52:00 -0400

At the last Startup Grind Toronto event we hosted, we had an unpaid intern get his MacBook ripped off of the registration table while he was volunteering.

We bought him a new one.

That is a fairly major set back for an unfunded, pre-revenue startup.

We would be grateful if you kicked in.

A few factoids to help you along:

There are now 450 in the Startup Grind Toronto Meetup Group.

450 x $4.44 = $2,000

200 x $10 = $2,000

1 x $2,000 = $2,000 or in other terms, a lot of product dev.

The optimal solution is in here some place.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated and will be personally recognized.

Kind Regards,

Michael

Emergence - full credit to Susi Sie! Cool vid. The emerging...

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:04:00 -0400

Emergence - full credit to Susi Sie!

Cool vid. The emerging Cdling community is cool too.

If you think of us in terms of the latest social gadget, our user numbers are not impressive, but we are not a consumer internet company. We are a ratings agency that is designed for the era of low cost, globally funded startups.

It is better to think of our user base as a specialized research panel. When viewed in these terms, we are pretty excited about the amazing people who have stopped by to take a peek at Cdling. We are grateful for a share of your attention. We know that thus far, it is difficult to see the benefits that experts receive for your participation on Cdling. We are still a work in progress for Investors and Founders too. We will work hard to earn your trust and to deliver value to you. Please, never hesitate to provide us positive or negative feedback through the site or you can email michael at cdling dot com at anytime.

In Canadian terms, our community could already lay some interesting claims if you compare us to domestic networks of Founders, mentors, academics, angel networks or membership in venture capital trade associations and the like. But those comparisons are not on target. It is our aim to deliver value in a global context.

This overview is based upon a quick look at each Cdling player:

Designers 25%, Hackers 45%, Hustlers 28%
United States 37%, Canada 22%, European Union 14.5%
Rest of the World 25.8% includes: China, India, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Venezuela, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Japan and the United Arab Emirates
more than 60 city/regions are represented in the Cdling community.
35% have advanced/post-graduate degrees
Subject Matter Expertise: Computer Science 60.4%, Engineering 7.5%, Marketing 6.2%, Business Admin 5.5%, Management 5.4%, Finance 5.3%, Economics 4.6%
Sectors Covered: Biotech 2.1%, Cleantech 1.6%, Communications 41%, eCommerce 9.9%, Enterprise 10.4%, Entertainment 2.3%, Finance 8.4%, Government 1.3%, Hardware 2.5%, Health 4%, Incubator 3.6% Investor 3.4%, Legal 1.5%, Media 32.4%, Mobile 1.3%, Other 4%, Social Media 17.3%, Software 12.4%
Average years of career experience: more than 8 yrs.

Gender: 20% Women. 80% men. In 2010 only 8% of VC backed Founders in the US were women (Source: CBInsights). Cdling does not bar players based upon gender, who you know or where you live. Women on Cdling are more likely to be Founders or Developers.

We are grateful to the Partners at Round 13 Capital, Real Ventures, the co-Founder of StartupNorth, the co-Founder of HighScoreHouse, the co-Founders of a few Y Combinator graduates and many others who came on to the Cdling platform to support Bunch in our recent experiment with Paul Singh from 500Startups.

On Oct 25, Cdling will support SoftBank Capital on OFFICE HOURS in Toronto.

On Oct 30, Cdling will support Wasabi Ventures on “ASK A VC A FAVOR” in Baltimore/D.C.

Catharsis: A Whole "Bunch" In One Story

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:29:00 -0400

I would like to start this post off with the word “validation” but from a purely business perspective, this is still just a feel good story.

Back at the beginning of August Dave McClure wrote a post entitled VC Evolution: Physician Scale Thyself. I had been working on a post with similar themes, “Do Investors Need to Compete?”. At the time I complimented Dave on Twitter for his use of Vitruvian Man as an illustration. He “Favorited” the tweet. That’s not the cathartic story.

In my old talks on Social Capital Value Add, I have a slide that uses the same illustration to make the same broad point that Dave applied in his post to the VC biz. Cdling is SCVA applied.

You can dig into all of the ideas in the links above: Distance matters less. Experienced, credible investors will use Cdling to connect through their real world reputations with other reputable investors, faster. Startups anywhere can benefit.

It seems fitting that this story comes together with the visit to Toronto of Paul Singh, Dave’s Partner at 500Startups.

Paul is a VC that lives in Washington, D.C., his fund & the incubator it operates is based in Silicon Valley. They have done 20 deals in Canada and have investments in more than 20 countries. On September 10th we were sitting in Toronto and the startup that was the top selection for a meeting with Paul was Bunch, who’s co-Founder came in from Montreal.

Bunch landed the meeting by pushing through Cdling’s shortcomings and making our value proposition work for them. They enabled us to deliver to Paul a very granular, easy to understand report by collecting more than 10 opinions from credible investors, subject matter experts and experienced Founders.

Check out Bunch’s profile. They collected opinions from some of the top VCs, influencers & tech Founders in the country.

I talked to Andrew Sider, the Co-Founder & CEO behind Bunch afterwards. We had exchanged a few emails leading up to Paul’s visit as he tried to figure out how to make this opportunity work for his startup. They already had great referrals to Paul. Great backers. Connections to other reputable Founders. But in this era of low cost, globally funded startups - even this great team was having trouble cutting through the noise. Once he decided to go for it, Andrew said he sent a short note to the people who matter most, with a simple statement: he had decided to use Cdling, will they help him?

We are grateful to everyone who participated. Thanks to Jolt & MaRS Commons for working with us to make it happen. It would be nice if this story ended in a really valuable way for everyone.

FYI - On October 25 Cdling will support SoftBank Capital and on October 30 Cdling will support Wasabi Ventures. Startups, mentors and investors in NYC, Baltimore, Toronto … or anywhere … are invited participate.

With a startup you are pushing out an idea. You will typically...

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:35:56 -0400

With a startup you are pushing out an idea. You will typically go through several iterations, pushing out a new design, or a different marketing approach … each time pushing through a new cycle of activity. Then at a certain point, you will start to see signs of “the PULL”.

That is when your users start to pull things out of you. They want you to fix something that doesn’t work or implement a new feature. Ideally you are iterating every week or day or even more often to solve problems. Soon you are getting feedback faster than you can react.

That’s real traction. It doesn’t have to be about huge user numbers (though that is always nice), but when users are starting to care enough about what you are doing to help you improve it, that is probably the time that you should consider going out to raise some outside capital to help you keep pace with the opportunity and figure out how to scale a real business.

Above, I am paraphrasing Paul Singh, Partner at 500Startups who joined us for a fireside chat in Toronto on September 10th. That is the kernel of wisdom that stuck with me as a unique insight from someone who needs to have his finger on the pulse of this kind of moment in a startup’s cycle in order to do his job with a fund that is probably the highest velocity seed stage investor in the world.

You can hear the full hour of audio at this link. There are a lot more nuggets to glean, it is worth the listen.

You can check out ITBusiness.ca’s full coverage here or if you are short for time, take four and half mins for their video recap above. Check out the photos here (including a great panorama of PlayThink’s live sketch). Or click here for a short voice over of the amazing live sketching that Patricia Kambitsch at PlayThink did to capture the major themes and ideas.

Feedback & Improvements from Paul Singh OFFICE HOURs

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:01:00 -0400

Thanks again to Paul Singh at 500Startups for working with us to bring OFFICE HOURS to Toronto. Congrats to the startups from Toronto and Montreal who Paul selected to meet with!.

From Cdling’s perspective this was a great improvement over our first experiment with Howard Morgan. We learned a lot from the cycle with Howard but we had to push all aspects of it. Not that Howard made it harder in anyway, but everyone else involved was simply uninitiated to the prospects presented by an awesome global class investor open to meetings in such a transparent way, and we had to chase people afterwards to get feedback.

This time we were getting feedback full blast as the event approached and we have had several hour long sessions with amazing founders, mentors and investors, who have been full of both straight forward and complex input on how we can improve.

We had many more startups who pushed through our shortcomings in UX, ask questions, figure us out, reach out for very credible opinions and use the system to make things happen for themselves. WE CROSSED A WHOLE BUNCH OF VALIDATION POINTS FOR CDLING. Thank you to the startups who discovered our MVP. You saw us for what we are. Another lean startup just like you.

The best news of all is that, “How can I help?” and “I think you guys are on to a good thing.” were comments made with greatest frequency. We are grateful.

Everyone we talked to understood that we are a work in progress, that we recognize and apologize (in the most sheepish Canadian manner possible) for our shortcomings but these experiments are an essential part our our lean customer development focus.

Before moving on, we realize that we have not heard from everyone. And not everyone will be so understanding! If you have any input, positive or negative, please email me at michael at cdling dot com so that we may have an opportunity to listen fully to your thinking.

Here are some highlights of the most specific feedback that we received:

1. Get your language straight: Internally we tend to think of “making a trade” or “a bet” as a form of sharing an opinion. From our earliest days, we wanted to stay focused on being consistent with the idea of “sharing an opinion” and steer away from the perceived gamble of a “bet” and the potential complexity of “making market trades”. During recent changes we have melted more of the “market” activity into the background of the user experience. We have more to do. In the short run, we have replaced “Place a bet” buttons with “Share opinion”.

2. Adding comments: We previously only had the ability to add comments to a startup profile while you were expressing an opinion against any of our milestone questions. We have had several occasions now where startups want to release links to news like traction indicators or their performance at a pitch competition or similar, which would encourage players about their prospects. The new ability to add comments without expressing an opinion against the milestones, enables startups to share more freely and it also enables players who already have a position, in fact all players, to share information that can back up their position. For example, if a player already has a prediction about when company x will hit a milestone and they read a TechCrunch article that analyzes the opportunity in this startup’s sector, a player can share this link which can lead to an increase in the value of their position (i.e.their reputation as a player on top of innovation.)

3. Improve Flow of Engagement: “I need to send this to my most cherished advisors, mentors and investors - these are the most important contacts in my life! They need a VIP workflow.” Ouch. We hear this the loudest. You will notice incremental changes. We still don’t want to mediate that invitation and exchange because it is really valuable to you. We don’t know how much we should be involved. We need to learn more about the exchange of social capital from users. Soon no login will be required to see startup profile pages. This way when you send the link/url to your startup profile, your trusted connections will be able to see it to get oriented without going through the hassle of logging in. We are going to publish a sample email that you might want to adopt. We still need to authenticate anyone who shares an opinion though and LinkedIn is our best way to do that. Oh yeah, and we are ditching the waiting list. We are still screening every member who joins. And you can expect us to close the gate or introduce other quality controls on who is admitted as we move forward.

4. The Sting of Transparency: We had one Founder who we greatly respect proactively engage us and politely tell us, “You are fucking with my business man! This is basically “Hot or Not” for startups!” and we know there have been a few emails floating around exploring these sentiments. We can see why at this stage, it can feel that way. We are asking for some patience on this one. We are a Founder driven business. We are constrained, moving methodically towards a larger picture. We have not released our Cdling Scores and that whole aspect of our UX - the part where you can clearly and intuitively see the real world reputation of the players expressing opinions - is not apparent yet. We have a thesis that we are not making the market for your startup, we are only mediating the existing market. We are shining a little broadband into an area that was essentially in the dark and that is going to benefit startups in remarkable ways. As we move into beta, we are thinking that you may want us to introduce a kind of special status that you can claim for your startup like “stealth mode” or something more accurate that lets you establish a signal that is aligned with your current posture towards the market.

5. Resources Page: We now have almost 450 startups (about 100 from NYC and initiating coverage on >40+ Baltimore/D.C. startups asap!) and almost 700 players. Wow. What a great Cdling community. Take some time to check them out. They come from over 60 city/regions. Over 35% have post graduate degrees. 20% of them are women (mostly Founders & developers). The quality of this player set is emerging as a tech market researchers’ dream panel of talent, experience and expertise. This has not gone unnoticed by service providers for this community. And we have had a few approach us. So we are considering ways to introduce quality resources like legal advice, banking services, consulting, recruiting, design … without introducing advertising that will clutter the experience. Look for something on this that is not crap. If it seems like crap, tell us and we will kill it.