In September 2019, the DMZ welcomed five companies from countries around the world to participate in DMZYYZ, a two-week, intensive soft-landing program in Toronto designed to accelerate business growth through access to coaching, customers, capital and community in Canada.

The participating companies included:

• Handiss (Lebanon)
• SmartTerm (Jamaica)
• RioAnalytics (Brazil)
• BankZee (Hungary)
• Zyntern (Hungary)

On the final day of the program, we sat down with each founder to chat about their impressions of the Canadian startup ecosystem. Here’s what they told us…

1. Canada’s diversity and openness is a strength

 
In 2018, Canada welcomed 321,065 immigrants. Almost 1 in 5 Canadians speak more than one language at home. Canada’s population reported 250 ethnic origins and ancestries. These are just a few of the statistics that reflect Canada’s diversity. 

Canada’s diversity, progressiveness and openness is often seen by people at home and abroad as a strength, since these attributes have a positive relationship with a healthy economy and thriving society. The founders we spoke with agreed.

“Before coming to Toronto, I hadn’t imagined a city like it existed,” said the founder of Brazil’s RioAnalytics. “You hear people say that Toronto is a great city, but you really have to come here to experience it. I want my team, as well as my family, to be exposed to this level of diversity.”

Kata Ludvig, the co-founder of BankZee from Hungary agreed, adding: “The thing that surprised me most about Toronto and the DMZ community was the openness of its people. People from around the world move here, and it’s easy to see why – Canada is accepting and diverse, making it a great place to run a global business.”

Banksy’s founder had an additional perspective on the matter, saying, “Being a female founder, I didn’t know what to expect. But I felt absolutely supported during my time here.”

2. Canadians care about creating impact – not just profit

 
Social enterprises are on the rise, Millennials and Gen Z are asking more questions about impact, and climate change is an issue that’s top of mind. In Canada, social and environmental issues are talked about openly and often – and our visiting founders noticed that too.

The founder of Jamaica’s SmartTerm commented, “Going into the Investor Zone, we saw that the investors here have interests beyond simply making money – they’re interested in our ideas and the impact we’re trying to make to improve education. Finding thoughtful investors who actually believe in your mission is really exciting and encouraging.”

Creating positive impact is not only good business, it’s also the right thing to, and many of our international founders noticed that this is a prevalent attitude in the Canadian startup ecosystem.

3. Support for startups in Canada is extensive

 
Our visiting founders shared a similar sentiment: Canada offers superior support for both domestic and international startups.

Handiss’ founder discovered that through the DMZYYZ, he was able to test and validate his idea in a Canadian market. “Having B2B meetings here in Canada showed me the pain points people are facing and how we could adjust our business model to bring our business to Canada,” he said. The founder of SmartTerm added to this point, saying, “I learned that the way we explain, sell and offer education in Jamaica is different from the conversation in Canada. So, when we tap into the Canadian and North America market, we’ll have to pivot our messaging a lot. I wouldn’t have known the extent of this had I not been here on the ground.”

The founder of Banksy also agreed that Canada is a great place to grow a startup. In fact, while she was here, she was able to meet with four of the five major banks, secure a large customer, and expand her network substantially. “Coming to Canada through a program like the DMZYYZ is a major boost for your startup. For a foreign company, like mine, it’s a gateway into the Canadian market, and you get to tap right into the middle of the network, surrounded by experienced mentors and customers.” 

A similar sentiment was shared by Attila Balogi, the founder of Zyntern. He said, “If you’re thinking of coming to Canada or North America, there are lots of incredible resources to help you. Being part of DMZYYZ saved me months – if not years – of time, plus money. Before I arrived, I was already being connected to the right people in Canada. It’s a faster, more curated route than doing it alone.”

Want to learn more about DMZYYZ and how to apply? Check us out at https://dmz.torontomu.ca/dmzyyz/.

6 weeks, 15 companies, 35 workshops, 3 prizes of $5,000!

The Basecamp program allows DMZ to get back to its roots – helping student entrepreneurs build viable, sustainable businesses. The six week annual summer program provides customized, intensive coaching and mentoring from DMZ EiRs (Entrepreneurs-in-Residence), workshops headed by the likes of Google and culminates in a pitch competition. Its university cohort just wrapped and all three of the winners are Toronto Metropolitan University students! 

By the end of the program, winners don’t just receive a $5,000 prize, they also have a validated business model tailored for long-term success and receive the opportunity to become a ‘DMZ Fellow’. The fellow network provides up-and-coming entrepreneurs the opportunity to immerse themselves in the startup ecosystem with access to Ryerson’s Zone network, ongoing coaching from DMZ EiRs and other resources that prepare them for DMZ’s official incubator, validator or accelerator program. 

“Canadian post-secondary students are the future pace-setters and will determine the success of our country,” says Natasha Campagna, director, DMZ Sandbox. “The Basecamp program allows skilled, talented, creative students to get the experience they need to manage a business, get introduced to STEM and become the innovative leaders of tomorrow.”

So, who won $5,000? 

Omar Said, Founder of Smart Eyes

Omar is an Electrical engineering student at Toronto Metropolitan University and a promising tech founder. Smart Eyes is a mobile application that uses real-time video processing tool to show visually impaired users the objects obstructing their path. “My participation with the program was instrumental in driving my business forward.The mentors I connected with included founders who raised millions of dollars in funding like Henry Shi, founder of DMZ alum company SnapTravel, who was recently funded by Steph Curry!”

Kartik Balasundaram, Founder of Scuto

Kartik is a Business Technology Management student at Toronto Metropolitan University and founder of Scuto. Scuto’s platform enables photographers to accept payments, generate new clients and receive dispute management services. “With the help I received, I was able to learn about the fundamentals of finance for early-stage startups, refine my business and effectively tell our story to people who aren’t our customers.”

Annie Chen, Founder of Menuless

Annie is an Interior Design at Toronto Metropolitan University and founder of Menuless, an ordering application that saves customers time by allowing them to make their bill payments directly from their phones. Through her participation in Basecamp, Annie brought forward her passion to make a global impact through design thinking and technology. Her biggest takeaway from Basecamp was learning how to get out of her comfort zone. “I learned that coming up with an idea is easy, but running with it and trying to make it a reality is hard. I learned to always put yourself in uncomfortable situations, because that is how you learn and improve the fastest. The hustle never stops and neither should you.”

Look out for updates from the upcoming Basecamp high school cohort, set to take place July 22 – August 21 – truly the next generation of tech entrepreneurs!

Have an innovative business idea but don’t know where to start? We’ve got a program for you. Visit dmz.to/sandbox to learn about our programs, or follow us on Instagram at @DMZSandbox.

Reach out directly to our Sandbox programs lead Haseeb Khawaja at haseeb1.khawaja@torontomu.ca.

Last month, DMZ Sandbox was invited to attend the President’s Cup at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China – the number one educational institution in Asia.

Now in its sixth year, the President’s Cup – an initiative that aims to discover, cultivate and enhance students’ entrepreneurial skills – took place as part of the university’s incubator x-lab.

And this year, for the first time, the conference extended its invitation to international delegates. Representatives from Germany, Georgia, Japan, Singapore and Canada participated as a result.

“Canada’s participation in international pitch competitions importance is two-fold. For entrepreneurs, it broadens their understanding of global business markets. For Canada, it positions us as a powerhouse on an international level” says Peter Bowie, DMZ Advisory Council Member.

RTA School of Media graduate and DMZ’s Sandbox Student Grant recipient Josh Gonsalves, founder of Contraverse – an end-to-end VR production and distribution company for innovative and exceptional story-driven virtual reality – attended to represent the Canadian delegation.

Each presenter had a five minute pitch, followed by a question and answer period. The audience included investors from high-calibre investment firms and global influencers.

We spoke to Josh about what he learned from this exciting experience.

Learn about your audience

Knowing your audience prior to an international competition is crucial to ensure you speak the masses’ language. It’s not limited to your choice of words when presenting, but understanding that coupling your presentation with effective visuals and simple messaging allows global investors and entrepreneurs to gain a better grasp on your product.

“The DMZ’s pitch coaches helped me shape my presentation effectively through the use of imagery prior to pitching at the President’s Cup” Josh states.

Challenge your comfort zone

Josh powered through the nerves that came with presenting to a large audience.

“I now have a lot of empathy for individuals that get butterflies and nerves right before presenting. It was a humbling experience. I knew I was representing an entire nation and I told myself  – for the next 12 minutes I need to shut all these feelings of discomfort off.”

Embrace a global perspective

“Being around similar mindsets with a global perspective on business helped me work through different challenges.” Josh explains how delegates discussed different obstacles they’ve faced as first time entrepreneurs, from raising investment rounds, to prototyping and resource availability from different parts of the world.

For Contraverse, pitching in Beijing and gaining feedback from world-leading investors was invaluable. Tsinghua University is eager to welcome back Toronto Metropolitan University’s entrepreneurs next year at the President’s Cup.

Have an entrepreneurial idea but unsure about where to start? Visit the DMZ Sandbox to learn more about our programs.

Canada is in dire need of more talent, with tech vacancies poised to reach 200,000 by 2020 nationwide. If Canada doesn’t bring in more high quality talent into the national startup ecosystem, our cities won’t be positioned to grow into true tech powerhouses. According to a recent CBRE report, a lack of available tech talent is a major issue for many cities with burgeoning tech sectors.

Fortunately, VanHack, a startup headquartered in Vancouver focused on recruiting tech talent, is picking up the slack to help develop tech clusters in cities across Canada. “We bring the world’s best tech talent to you,” says Ilya Brotzky, founder and CEO. Since launching in 2015, VanHack has helped nearly 600 individuals find work in Canada, growing over one hundred percent year-over-year in the process.

But VanHack isn’t just your typical recruiting service. The company brings international tech talent to Canada. As an immigrant himself, Brotzky understands just how transformational living and working in Canada can be to a newcomer. “As an immigrant from the (former) Soviet Union, this is really personal for me,” says Brotzky. “It’s great to help other people have the experience I had.”

Focusing on helping immigrants find work in Canada is at the core of what VanHack does. In fact, the majority of VanHack’s clients comes from countries that aren’t as economically developed as Canada. In other words, VanHack is helping skilled workers come to Canada and not only improve their quality of life but contribute to impactful growth for our ecosystem.

That’s why many of VanHack’s clients are willing to relocate to smaller Canadian cities. Whereas most Canadian software developers will head to Toronto or Vancouver, VanHack brings folks to smaller cities like Kamloops, B.C. “It can be a win-win-win. Win for the company, win for the candidate, win for the city” says Brotzky. “If we bring 50-100 hires to a city, that’s 50 or 100 families that are now contributing to the local economy.”

Shaking up its approach to recruitment in new and successful ways, VanHack brought a group of 20 female senior developers from all around the world to companies based in Toronto and Waterloo as part of their new recruiting initiative “Leap.”  VanHack’s video coverage of the event showcases how it is a far more dynamic recruitment style than the typical “see job post, contact company” approach.

Creating more in-person events is a top priority for 2019 with a focus on bringing companies to tech talent, not the other way around. “We’re seeing it as a new way for international recruiting,” says Brotzky, “the next way to hire.”

Familiarity and a fresh perspective are key elements to the success of GrowthGenius, a Toronto-based scaleup that automates B2B prospecting.

GrowthGenius uses data-driven AI to generate more outbound sales. But Will Richman and Brandon Pizzacalla, co-founders of GrowthGenius, never had any past experience in sales.

Initially an obstacle, the longtime friends (since high school) now see their unfamiliarity with traditional sales-culture as a reason for GrowthGenius’s success.

“A big hurdle that gave us an advantage early on was that we started with a completely fresh understanding of how to connect with someone through cold outreach” said Richman, CEO and co-founder of GrowthGenius.

“A lot of sales organizations are broken. They get caught up on the terminology, the process, and how things have been done… We don’t focus on how things have been done in the past. We want to help folks out and bring immediate results”

Taking a counter-culture approach to sales has led to a few disagreements between the company’s founders and more traditional sales teams, including some GrowthGenius employees.

But the approach seems to be working.

In a little under a year, from September 2017 to July 2018, GrowthGenius grew a customer network of two in to 40, generating an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of over $1 million.

Solving a major pain-point for companies (in their case it’s helping businesses reaching the ideal customer) is another element to the company’s growth.

“Helping people close deals is so valuable and it’s something so many companies have trouble doing”

GrowthGenius does that by acting as an extension of a business’s sales team. After analyzing past sales data, GrowthGenius can extrapolate that information to create and send one-to-one email copy for targeted audiences, an entirely automated process.

From there, all the sales team has to do is focus on positive responses rather than waste time with prospecting.

Pizzacalla describes the process as “the future of sales” because now, and definitely in the near future, “no one is going to be doing the work that can be done by machines.”

Solving a particular pain-point and learning to sell their product at an early stage are two key lessons Richman and Pizzacalla would impart to other entrepreneurs.

Another is building your business with the right team members.

“The earliest people in the business” said Pizzacalla, “you should know them for a long time.”

That’s exactly what Pizzacalla and Richman did with GrowthGenius. Duncan McCall, head of customer team, partnered with Richman in a past business venture. Ryan Nahas, head of sales, was Pizzacalla’s roommate.

Doing so ensures you know how a team member will likely react in all sorts of situations, both good and bad.

It’s also important to onboard people who have a different set of skills, adds Richman.

As a business grows “you’re going to be doing very different things” said Richman, “and if you have the same skillset you’re going to fight over the same turf.”

Building a business solely with close friends isn’t exactly scalable, of course, so GrowthGenius’s founders recommend hiring through referrals.

About fifty percent of the 24-person GrowthGenius team were recommended by friends or current employees.

“If you’re bringing on awesome people they’re going to bring in other awesome people”

Marie Chevrier spent years building DropGift, a startup that allowed users to send gift cards through Facebook, pouring her heart and soul into the project.

Soon after (and rather suddenly) a leading competitor to DropGift was acquired by tech giant Facebook. Chevrier and her team were left with no real future opportunities in the space. Startup setbacks, like what happened with DropGift, can happen at any time. An essential skill for entrepreneurs, then, is being able to bounce right back.

“For me, that first business was kind of like my MBA” said Chevrier, now CEO of Sampler, which helps brands distribute physical product samples to digitally targeted customers.

DropGift may have failed, but, as Chevrier now understands, the experience gave her the core skills necessary to launch Sampler. Understanding that failures are part of the entrepreneurial process is essential to keep in mind when building up a startup. Sampler, for instance, faced more than a few setbacks early on.

In its infancy, Sampler used Facebook as its sole platform to connect audiences with brands. But, as the Sampler team soon found out, being beholden to Facebook caused some problems.

“Every time Facebook changed their policies, we would have to jump through 20 hoops” said Kelly Stewart, head of marketing at Sampler.

Eventually, after growing increasingly frustrated, Stewart, Chevrier, and the Sampler team decided to change their operation entirely. To remove the obstacle of Facebook entirely, Sampler created their own platform to connect with audiences.

An ongoing issue became an opportunity for growth.

“Don’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board, no matter what stage you’re at… It can be a huge payoff if you’re willing to take that risk.”

Setbacks in a startup setting can, of course, come in many forms. Problems can be tangible, like a software glitch, or a valued employee may suddenly leave the team. The latter situation is something Chevrier dealt with recently at Sampler, when a key operations employee decided to start their own entrepreneurial venture.

“Instead of looking at it as an ‘oh crap we’re screwed’ situation… I decided to make it into an opportunity and go deeper into their role.”

So, before the team member departed, Chevier spent time working alongside them, gaining a newfound understanding of the business, especially aspects she hadn’t paid attention to in a while. The lessons learned were also invaluable when rewriting the position’s job description, which had evolved drastically since the initial hire, something other startup executives should consider doing, says Chevrier.

Finding the silver lining isn’t always an easy task, especially when your business is on the line.

When facing a serious problem, one that you don’t think can be remedied, Chevrier has a strategy for that, too: get some rest.

“Everything is better after a good night’s sleep… Give yourself the trust that you’ll figure it out once you’re well rested.”