Startup School
Next Startup School: Startup School 6
November 6/7 2010. University of Calgary. $599/seat +GST. Limited to about 10 people.
Proceeds go back into the Canadian startup scene.
Note: Robots and Pencils Inc. will appear on your credit card statement!
Important: this IS NOT the Startup School run by the amazing folks @ YC. If you are looking for that, please go here: http://startupschool.org/. What Paul, Jessica and the team at YC organize once a year is amazing and the videos are must watch. It turns out most of the names using ’startup’ are overloaded so my apologies for any confusion.
OVERVIEW
bout the course
It is two days and its mission isn’t to inspire you. Its mission is to significantly increase your chances of creating a successful business. Their are plenty of events which bring out plenty of speakers who inspire very well. I’m interested in giving you as much actionable knowledge and direct feedback as possible. Their is no filler (but lunch and snacks are provided 
).
ake Aways
In addition to the practical knowledge learned during the school. Most of the files, documents, contracts, spreadsheets, term sheets, grant applications and presentations Michael has created over his last 12 years will be provided to the course participants (under NDA, and with redacting).
Alumni of the school are also invited to the startup school online community.
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ESTIMONIAL
“Michael somehow crams the knowledge and wisdom gained from the experience of running several startups and reading the top hundred books on entrepreneurship, management, and startups into a two-day course. Michael truly shocked me with the breadth and depth of his knowledge of everything relating to startups. He was able to provide an in-depth, insightful answer virtually every question asked of him over the two-day course, often backing his response with direct personal experience drawn from his various startups.
I’ve attended a couple of “startup/entrepreneur school” events in the past, and entered Michael’s startup school a bit worried it would be a lot of review. That was a completely misplaced worry, however, as Michael’s perspective having been “in the trenches” offered a truly unique insight into what’s needed to build, finance, and manage a successful startup.
If you’re thinking of starting anything, or even if you already have, invest in spending two days with Michael – it will be the best possible way to increase your odds of success.”
- JACK NEWTON, co-founder and CEO, Clio – Online Legal Practice Management Software
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AGENDA – DAY 1 – SATURDAY
| SATURDAY | EVENTS |
| 9:00AM | We’ll get settled in and make the introductions, and go over the plan for the day. Each of us will list our 3 vital objectives we need to be covered over the 2 days. Prepare for a day of learning and practice, not just lectures. Don’t be shy. There will only be a few of us and we will get to know each other well |
| 10:00AM | Understanding your personal objectives + The Psychology of influence + Overview of 3 successful models of successful company building (with video). |
| 12:00PM | Working Lunch + Angel Investors. |
| 1:00PM | The 10 classic mistakes you really shouldn’t make. |
| 2:00PM | Word of Mouth Marketing/SEO/Adwords OR Understanding how to attract, retain, and manage investors/advisors/mentors. |
| 3:30PM | Pitch Practice I + The Pent House Diagram Here we all pitch our current businesses or ideas-under-test to each other. Afterwards, I’ll walk through a key pitching concept (the pent house) I’ve created and used to win over investors, staff, and awards at financing forums. We’ll also look at real winning/losing pitches. |
| 4:00PM | Break. |
| 4:15PM | Art of Financing + Financing Instruments and Financing Documents Understanding bootstrapping, angel investing, and VC (pros/cons of each). Understanding, what and when to use common, participating preferred, and debentures. Pre-money, post-money, bridges, notes, etc are all covered. We will start to create this documents for your business here. What do you have to look like to be fundable. What does series-A, series-B really mean, etc. What if an investor isn’t sophisticated, etc. How to do options for staff, founders, board members and advisors. Do patents matter, etc. |
| 5:30PM | Overview, discuss Day 2, go home. |
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ESTIMONIAL
“MJs hair is the best in the industry…. kidding. I started our company close to four years ago and MJ has been a great mentor – it’s not often you find someone with technology start up experience at MJs level in Calgary. MJs experience and advice on raising capital and building the right products have been instrumental to our success. I would highly recommend him to any entrepreneur serious about building a great company”
- MATT DOREY, Founder, Curve Dental
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AGENDA – DAY 2 – SUNDAY
| SUNDAY | EVENTS |
| 9:00AM | Review, F@W, and rest of the work we didn’t complete above |
| 10:00AM | Art of Valuation + Term Sheets + No Shops + Capital Structures + Exits Walk thru real capital structures, dilution tables, and what a due diligence and closing documents look like. We will go through real example of an acquisition and a few due diligences here. Understanding the true risks of under/over capitalization. How to protect against a down-round. What is a defensive vs. offensive term sheet clause and how to know what you can push back on. |
| 11:00AM | Vital Objectives Workshop + Working Lunch OR PR/Media managment: Ensure we’ve covered off the 3 vital objects for each person. Here we will make sure every person got there most important items acted on. |
| 1:00PM | Pitch Practice III + Super Confrontation Challenge OR How to speak on panels, to bloggers and the media. Here we will pitch to each other again and go through the super confrontation challenge. It is painful – on purpose. The super confrontation challenge is to force out the issues all your friends and family have been letting you get away with. |
| 2:00PM | Low Burn Experimentation + Market Tests How to make sure you’re building something people want. How to run a focus group, and a market test, and how to make this automated. Advanced product management. 1 line split tests. Etc . |
| 3:00PM | Grants and getting what you want TeleFilm, IRAP, SR&ED, LOIs and Definitive agreements. |
| 3:45PM | Break. |
| 4:00PM | Eric Ries, Reid Hoffman, Paul Graham, Mike Maples, Don Keough, and DHH models OR WorkShop time. Topics such as: Battle of the airwaves, customer vs. product development strategies, 90/10 vs 50/50, Times to doubling, Math tests, 10 ways to fail, F5,000,000, etc. |
| 5:00PM | Boards + AGMs + Tools + Accounting/Auditing How to pick and structure a board. How to run an AGM. Tools all startups need to know about. Role of accounting and auditing processes. |
| 6:00PM | Pitch Practice IV + What’s on the CD Final pitch/workshop session and a walk thru of the documents you get on the CD. |
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ESTIMONIAL
“”Michael J. Sikorsky’s Startup School is an incredible learning experience. His share-all approach was very refreshing and allowed everyone to become intimately involved. It was awesome to hear first-hand about the many lessons (both the good and the bad), that were learned over the years as he built and sold successful technology companies. This 2-day course is packed with real-world examples and actual business case studies that will help any entrepreneur become a better business-person. If you’re a start-up entrepreneur, you need to take this course.”
- KORY ARSENAULT, Founder, eSchedule Inc.
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COSTS
The intensive 2-day Startup School costs $999/seat + GST. You can pay by credit card or request an invoice (just email me).
Note: Robots and Pencils Inc. will appear on your credit card statement!
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ESTIMONIAL
“Besides being one of the smartest guys I’ve met, MJ has also had the experience of a startup entrepreneur. His insights have catapulted us light years ahead in terms of business thinking. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that he will save us tens of thousands (if not millions, hopefully) of dollars down the road.”
- JON LAM, Founder, Ph03nix New Media Inc.
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FAQ
: Why the weekend?
: To allow people who currently work full time or already have a startup and don’t want to lose
momentum during the week.
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: Why so much? $999 bucks is a lot of money…
: Short answer: it is a filtering exercise and a math exercise (in particular can you apply the equity equation we go over in the course?). Also, proceeds go back into one of the alumni company!
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: What if I don’t have a startup? I’m an independent consultant or I already own my own business?
: No startup, no problem. Same if you already have a business. Startup School is about building great companies. If you’re an independent consultant looking for a way to scale your time you’ve found it.
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: Why are you doing this? You must be busy?
: I am. As mentioned above, I feel that this course needs to be taught and no one is doing it.
MORE TESTIMONIALS
ESTIMONIAL
” At the end of the first day, I was speechless with the value I was receiving; by the end of the second day I felt fully equipped. MJS is overflowing with invaluable information. Michael’s wealth of knowledge, learnt from going through the fire, is enough to fill a semester of school and I think that we just scratched the surface! Thank you for teaching from the heart about the goods that matter. This is the kind of stuff of which business school should be made. Start-up School provided me with:
- knowledge
- real, practical examples and,
- a priceless network.
All of which give me the tools I need to make smart business decisions as I move a “functional” company into a national top producer. I feel so indebted to MJS and Camille.”
- IVA DE SOUSA, Concierge On Call Inc.
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ESTIMONIAL
“The weekend was so much more than I anticipated. To be honest, I had no idea how far your business capacity and experience stretched; I always have an interest to learn (hence my eagerness to attend) but your startup school material taught me more than ever expected.By far, the most effective part of your template is the presentation. How does someone keep a class of ten completely attentive for 10hrs a day? Your presence as a speaker is one of the best I’ve seen. What added even more to your presentation however, was your ability and willingness to transition mid-topic to something new, and return to key points which were left behind. Not once did I feel like we entered a topic and left it unsatisfied. I know certain details could be elaborated upon to a much greater extent, but for the purpose of the course I feel the details were sufficient.
I thought the content of the course was great as well. The valuation of a new business has always been a mystery to me. I knew there was more than looking at the accounting books. The distinction between investor and founder centered ideologies cleared up a giant question on the valuation theme. It gave me a way to conceptualize conflicting questions I’ve had into two categories. You asked for constructive feedback, and I’ve had a difficult time trying to find one, so I hope this doesn’t sound like a reach.. The only potential piece of construct I will pose for the topic of valuation, is that (for what I was expecting) we spent more time than necessary. With 2 days, and as much material as I know you have, I thought we dove a bit deep into the numbers and concepts. That said, I TOTALLY understand why we did. The course, as you mentioned at the beginning was designed to be molded in the direction of discussion and class interest. The topic of valuations was very interesting. I think it is more of interest to investor centered entrepreneurs seeking their in and out, and therefore perhaps why my thoughts on this topic length are such. These are hindsight thoughts, however, as I was just as interested in the material as the rest of the class while in the discussion.
Pitching was fantastic. Being able to speak about plans among NDA friends was a great idea. I think that verbally presenting my idea and listening to feedback let me move in a greatly positive direction. I can hear your metaphor of ‘not worrying about being murdered on the way to class… so don’t worry about having your idea stolen’. But my worry has been that my idea (although not new) is highly stealable. Compared to the tech-minded ideas, I do think my idea is easy to walk away with, so again, it felt good to speak the idea aloud.
I think the size of the class was perfect. Ten active and attentive people can produce great discussions and ideas. I also liked the 9-10 hr days back to back. Again, for the purpose of the course, I found this timeframe worked great.”
- DAVID A., (stealth startup)
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ESTIMONIAL
“If you are thinking of launching a startup, don’t waste another minute thinking about whether Michael J. Sikorsky’s start-up school is worth the investment. In a jam-packed weekend, we learned in detail from a true pro, who speaks from the heart and from experience. The topics we covered were relevant to brand-new startups and those who wish to engineer a fresh start. MJ dove into detail whenever we requested and addressed questions to everyone’s satisfaction. He was very responsive and informative, passionate about getting the message across and clearly delivered on the courses promise to give everyone a transformational experience.
I’d highly recommend the Startup School for anyone serious about giving their startup the maximum chance of success.”
- LORAND SZOJKA, JITR Inc.
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ESTIMONIAL
“Not only was start-up school filled with so much information, it actually brought everything together for me. I am like many others who has had many great opportunities and experiences but what do I do with them? I came away from MJ’s start-up school with a new direction, I began to see how to put things in order and how to pursue my ideas. MJ is one in a million, anyone would benefit greatly from spending any amount of time with him let alone an entire weekend.“
- TREVOR C., (stealth)
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ESTIMONIAL
“Startup school is an eye opening experience. MJ has the ability to focus in on the questions that most entrepreneurs have and custom tailor it to your business problem as a startup. He gave us to tools we need to understand and solidify our business ideas into solid strategies and how an investor would view it. He took the time to riddle my business full of holes at the firing range to show me not that I was wrong or how my business is a bad idea, but where to move my thinking to enable the armor that will make my business successful. Blue sky visions start flying from the runway, and not 30k ft in the sky. These are things that only an experienced entrepreneur can translate and Michael Sikorsky does it flawlessly.”
- BRUNO STEPPUHN, ZenSoft Studios Inc.
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ESTIMONIAL
“In terms of the start-up school, this is a really important idea. Especially for Canada: I’d worked with Canadian start-ups for years before doing my own and there has been a persistent gap between “idea”
and “business”. It stems from not understanding the mechanics of a start-up… as opposed to the passion
for doing one. And this is a huge difference! Start-ups in the Valley, for example, don’t seem to suffer from this lack: the experience seems more
ingrained. My guess is that there are plenty of people whose career looks like this: developer at StartUp
A; director at StartUp B, C-level at StartUp C. Plus these companies live in an eco-system that is pretty
well stocked in terms of information, advice and the like. Life for our southern cousins seems a little
easier.
The start-up school would seem to bridge this gap, at least partially. When you first mentioned the idea
and the price point, I instinctively thought about the usual inspirational weekends that are low on
tangible deliverables. To me, not much in terms of value: I don’t need to be enthused. 
Once you
explained the mechanical approach you had in mind, I had a very different mindset.
From my perspective two years into an unsupported start-up, I would have *gladly* paid for someone to
take me through the various details (how to set a valuation, how to make a Telefilm pitch). When I think
of the time/stress of figuring some of these things out for the first time… oy! Time is the one single
commodity that just cannot be replaced. Spending a weekend and a thousand is nothing… if
you know and appreciate what you’re getting into.
It’s really an investment in the early success of your company: to get escorted to the 80% threshold is
really a big break. That last 20%… well, that’s the magic part, isn’t it? “
- MATTHEW TONER, Founder, Zeroes 2 Heroes Inc.
CONTACT ME
Have any questions? Just ask: http://www.killingmichael.com/contact/