StartupEmpire

Canada's Startup Conference

Diesel Playhouse

November 13th - Toronto, Ontario

StartupEmpire is Canada's only grassroots conference for startups. Created for entrepreneurs and by entrepreneurs, StartupNorth aims to educate and inspire by connecting you with other entrepreneurs, mentors and the ecosystem of support needed to create and operate a successful startup in Canada and the world.

StartupEmpire, the conference, is being produced by the team that has created StartupNorth.ca, DemoCamp, Founders & Funders, and and Startupindex.ca. StartupNorth.ca is Canada's most popular community of web entrepreneurs and DemoCamp has been voted Toronto's best "un-conference" and has been held in over 15 cities attracting over 10,000 individuals.

 

 

 

Download the final schedule here (360k PDF)

 

 

 

 

 

The Starting Lineup… Conference Agenda

• Don Dodge

  

  Don Dodge is a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks. Don is currently Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. The goal is to help VC's and start-ups be successful with Microsoft…

  Full Bio

  Don Dodge

  Don Dodge is a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks. Don is currently Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. The goal is to help VC's and start-ups be successful with Microsoft, and together, provide great products for our customers. He writes a daily blog, Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing.

  Don has been in the software business for more than 20 years. He started his software career with Digital Equipment, aka DEC, in the database group. He worked with 5 software start-ups over the next 12 years. Forte Software was the first multiplatform object oriented development environment. AltaVista was the first search engine on the web. Napster was the first P2P file sharing network. Bowstreet was the first web services development environment. Groove Networks was the first secure P2P collaboration platform. Now he is at Microsoft... “the biggest start-up in the world”... working with VC's and start-ups in the greater Boston area.

  Don, a native New-Englander, holds an MBA from New Hampshire College and a BS in accounting from the University of Southern Maine.

• Hugh Macleod

  

  Hugh MacLeod is a cartoonist and professional blogger, known for his ideas about how "Web 2.0" affects advertising and marketing. After a decade of working as an advertising copywriter, Hugh started blogging at gapingvoid.com in 2001. He first started off just publishing his cartoons, but as time…

  Full Bio

  Hugh Macleod

  Hugh MacLeod is a cartoonist and professional blogger, known for his ideas about how "Web 2.0" affects advertising and marketing.

  After a decade of working as an advertising copywriter, Hugh started blogging at gapingvoid.com in 2001. He first started off just publishing his cartoons, but as time wore on he started blogging about his other main interest i.e. marketing.

  In 2004 he wrote "How To Be Creative" and "The Hughtrain", which both got widely read in the blogosphere.

  In 2005 he scored his first major blog marketing success with EnglishCut.com, a blog he started with Savile Row tailor, Thomas Mahon. It tripled Thomas' sales within six months.

  Since mid-2006 Hugh's main occupation has been helping a small South African winery, Stormhoek "rise above the clutter" in the wine market by using Web 2.0 tools to get the word out. Sales have gone up fivefold since then, thanks to Hugh's marketing efforts.

  Since 2006 Hugh has been constantly engaged as a public speaker, giving talks in both Europe and the US, talking about Web 2.0 and the ramifications it has on business.

  Hugh's basic mantra about blog marketing is "Blogs are a good way to make things happen indirectly", a point lost on many corporate types.

• Howard Lindzon

  

  Howard currently manages a hedge fund and has done so since June of 1998. The fund has evolved into a long only fund with approximately 50 percent in equities and 50 percent in private investments. In the Summer of 2006, he created Wallstrip. In May 2007, Wallstrip was purchased by CBS…

  Full Bio

  Howard Lindzon

  Howard currently manages a hedge fund and has done so since June of 1998. The fund has evolved into a long only fund with approximately 50 percent in equities and 50 percent in private investments. In the Summer of 2006, he created Wallstrip. In May 2007, Wallstrip was purchased by CBS and he continues to work with CBS and Wallstrip today.

  Howardwrites one of the most popular financial blogs at howardlindzon.com with over 50,000 unique visitors/month. He (through his hedge fund) has made many successful angel investments including Rent.com (sold to Ebay in 2005 for $415 million), Lifelock (lead investors include Bessemer Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) and Internet Brands (NASDAQ). Through his hedge fund Mr. Lindzon is currently invested in a number of new media and internet businesses including,MyTrade.com, Limos.com, Covestor.com and Blogtalkradio.com. Mr. Lindzon received an MBA at Arizona State University and an MIM from The American Graduate School of International Management.

  Howard is a partner in two other funds called Knight’s Bridge Capital Partners.

• David Cohen

  

  David Cohen is the founder and Exective Director of TechStars. David has a soft spot for technology startups and enjoys helping innovative early stage technology companies succeed. He also has a passion for Colorado and believes it’s a fantastic community for any startup. The Colorado TechStars program combines…

  Full Bio

  David Cohen

  David Cohen is the founder and Exective Director of TechStars.

  David has a soft spot for technology startups and enjoys helping innovative early stage technology companies succeed. He also has a passion for Colorado and believes it’s a fantastic community for any startup. The Colorado TechStars program combines these passions with capital, connections and real-world experience to provide a unique opportunity for early stage startups.

  David is a founder of several software and web technology companies including Pinpoint Technologies (now ZOLL Data Systems) of Broomfield, Colorado. While at ZOLL Data Systems, David was also the CTO. The company was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL) in 1999. You can read about it in No Vision, All Drive [Amazon]. David was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder.com, which was sold to SonicSwap.com in 2006.

  David is also an active startup advocate, advisor, board member, and technology investor who comments on these topics on his blog at ColoradoStartups.com. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Center of Innovation at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

  David’s hobbies are technology, software/web startups, business history, and tennis. He has two amazing kids who always seem to be teaching him something new.

• Austin Hill

  

  Austin Hill has been creating technology start-ups for 15 years. He is co-founder of Montreal technology startups Akoha and Standout Jobs, where he currently serves as CEO (Akoha) and Chairman (Standout Jobs).

  Austin was a founder of Zero-Knowledge…

  Full Bio

  Austin Hill

  Austin Hill has been creating technology start-ups for 15 years. He is co-founder of Montreal technology startups Akoha and Standout Jobs, where he currently serves as CEO (Akoha) and Chairman (Standout Jobs).

  Austin was a founder of Zero-Knowledge Systems (renamed Radialpoint in 2002) and as its President helped the company raise $75 million between 1997 and 2001. He also served as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Zero-Knowledge Systems, CEO of Synomos Inc. (a Zero-Knowledge Systems subsidiary), and Executive-Vice President of Research for Radialpoint. Radialpoint was honoured by Deloitte & Touche as one of Canada’s fastest-growing technology firms in their 2006 Technology Fast 50 award.

• Lane Becker

  

  Lane Becker is co-founder and President of Get Satisfaction, a web startup dedicated to fostering new methods of communication and collaboration between companies and their customers.

  Lane is a co-founder of Adaptive Path and currently sits on the Board of Directors…

  Full Bio

  Lane Becker

  Lane Becker is co-founder and President of Get Satisfaction, a web startup dedicated to fostering new methods of communication and collaboration between companies and their customers.

  Lane is a co-founder of Adaptive Path and currently sits on the Board of Directors. Adaptive Path is a user experience strategy, research, and design consultancy, known for, among other things, coining the technology terms "blog" and "ajax." While with Adaptive Path, Lane ran the consulting business and, as the creator of the New Ventures program, developed strategic partnerships with early-stage startup companies to provide them with long-term support for their product ideation, design, and launch strategies.

About StartupSchool ...

StartupSchool is a unique set of sessions that will take place at StartupEmpire. Over the course of two days, attendees will go from concept to a fund ready start-up. StartupSchool is hosted by Rick Segal from JLA Ventures and the Blackberry Partners Fund. Rick will be joined by a number of leading entrepreneurs in each session who have real world, hard knocks experience.

From the napkin all the way to asking for the coin, you will hear real world information, mistakes to avoid, and get facts you can immediately use.

In addition, every attendee will receive a DVD packed with sample materials for starting up a company, tools, products, and gigabytes of information you can use. The DVD is effectively a "Start-Up in a box", saving you thousands of dollars in start-up costs."

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