Vancouver Startup Week 2019

Max Lytvyn, a Grammarly co-founder and its current Head of Revenue, talks about how Grammarly went from a niche product to a global brand, describing calculated risks you can take to realize the potential of your business.

As a startup, it can be a challenge to sell to large enterprise customers. From RFPs, to procurement and legal - it's a whole new world from small startups. Join JP Cheung, Head of Sales at DataTrue, along with others to talk about the tips and tricks (from experience) on how to sell to large customers.

“With more than 39 percent of B.C. residents owning their own company or running a side hustle, British Columbia is the most entrepreneurial province in Canada—"

Vancouver Start-ups make our cities more sustainable and innovative. Discover inspirational stories from 3 local innovators in sustainable urban development. We’ll have a panel of three delegates that give their opinion on the start-up scene in the City. Learn more about start-ups being healthy for the social, economical, and environmental well-being of our cities. Learn from experts about the intangible consequences of fast exit strategies and explore together if there is such thing as ‘too many start-ups in a city’.

Hosted at Dudoc Vancouver, a Walas Innovation Centre. Sustainable Urban Development I Access to Innovations | European Practices | Platform for Dialogue. Join our events and community. Proud member of World of Walas.

Harness the power of creativity and innovation for solving complex wicked business problems. Get your creative confidence to get your board, investors, executives and teams aligned not only on the problem but working creatively, analytically and collaboratively to solve them.

In this workshop, we have demystified the art of problem solving that is deeply human centered. Borrowing fundamentals from first principles, behavioral science, strategy, systems thinking and product management, learn the tools to solve problems from product development, innovation, building differentiation, rebuilding business models, market expansion, customer retention among others. Learn the superpowers that enables startups to progress from launch phase to growth and then to hyper growth!

This workshop will introduce this in a highly immersive and interactive format so that you can start applying these tools right away. And yes, we get asked a lot but the answer is a big NO – You do not need to be a designer to learn and apply human centered design in your life and work.


What you will learn:
- Core fundamentals
- Examples
- Audience Activities
- Framework and Toolkits

Who is this workshop for:
Startup CEOs, leaders in companies who desire to reignite innovation in their teams. This workshop builds on existing skills and amplifies them with superpowers for solving your wicked business problems in a creative and fun way.

Why Attend Now?

We can think of a few reasons:

1. You have a hunch of an untapped problem in the market and solving it could make a huge difference. You want to validate and build on that as quickly as possible

2. You want to grow - both bookings and control your leaky bucket. You need to get it right as this hinges on upcoming funding rounds and team morale

3. You want to reimagine your existing offering and humanize the experience, brand and business model so that it is memorable and sustainable

4. You have a product or service that you have taken to market, now is the time you are thinking of growing with scale. You need to operationalize product management and growth

Increase awareness, expand your sphere of influence and create a brand that people love and trust.

The last decade has seen a rise in playful workplaces, from ping pong tables, dogs in the office, playstations, napping pods, and bean bag chairs. Yet, employee engagement rates haven't budged. Shouldn't creating a more playful workplace have changed this? The issue is that organizations are typically catering to one type of play, and just copy what other organizations are doing. In this interactive session, we will discuss what organizations get wrong about creating playful workplaces, the eight play personalities, and how your organization can use the eight play personalities to create a more playful framework in the workplace that looks beyond the ping pong table.

Join Startup Vancouver Community Leader and Blue Ocean Strategy workshop practitioner Colin Weston as he shares startup case studies that show how you can create new customer value rather than compete over saturated market space in order to make the competition irrelevant.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: Go From Disorganized & Overwhelmed to Highly Productive, Confident & Successful with Self Coaching

Featuring women influencing national startup ecosystem, including impact investor, and feminist social entrepreneurs. Panel includes women of diverse cultural backgrounds. Themes: What does it mean to get paid as a woman? What does it mean to hold power as a woman? What challenges and advantages do women have in building a new social economy? Five unique voices share stories of doing business while female.

Schedule
6:00pm - 7:30pm: Panel Discussion
7:30pm - 9:00pm: Potluck

Yes, it's a potluck! Stay after the panel to eat together and get deeper into conversation with the panelists and a wicked community of socially minded changemakers.

Accessibility & Getting Here:

Groundswell is wheelchair accessible, with elevator access to the 4th floor of the Sun Wah building from the lobby. Washrooms are gender neutral and wheelchair accessible.

From the lobby, take the elevator up to the 4th floor and head down the hallway to your right. Do not take the escalator up from the lobby unless you like figuring out mazes!

The Sun Wah parking garage is locked at 7 pm so if you are driving, please find street parking.

Before Google, Facebook, and Uber were sued for gender discrimination, they were startups with a great idea and passionate people.  How can startups attract and retain diverse talent, market to a broad audience, and not (accidentally) marginalize potential investors?  Instead of correcting costly blindspots down the road, startups can build a collaborative, inclusive culture from the beginning.  Founders are often so focused on the product that organizational culture becomes not only a tertiary concern, but an overwhelmingly complex topic.  In addition, increasing inclusion will only improve overall potential for a greater audience and a greater capacity to increase exposure to your brand, culture and services/products.  Experts in tech, startups, organizational culture discuss your concerns (yes, your actual concerns because this is an interactive session!) in a pub quiz and give tips on how to address them.  We will be discussing:

• Creating a strong inclusive culture that attracts diverse applicants and is receptive to course corrections
• Marketing strategies that showcase your organization’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion
• Raising money for underrepresented entrepreneurs
• Reaching international (greater!) audiences

Don’t end up in the annals of discrimination history; do culture well from the start to launch your organization to greater heights.

Part of the entrepreneurial journey is facing risks. When developing our financial projections, we often default to the typical three scenarios approach – worst, baseline and best case scenarios – to help us plan for those unexpected catastrophic fires.

Come join us for an interactive session where we will map out the pros and cons of the three scenarios approach and explore a modern alternative that will help us navigate more clearly around the unknowns. We will dive into some existing tools, together with our spreadsheet models, to step through how this technique can hash out the “what if” scenarios.

To wrap up, we will see how we can take advantage of this technique to better our confidence when reaching
out for funding.

The City of Vancouver has a long-term vision for the city to achieve the goal of zero waste by 2040. Is going zero waste possible, and can startups make a difference?

With this overarching goal on everyone's minds, we're putting our heads together to discuss the changing face of sustainability in startups. Topics of discussion include what are the challenges around being a startup that helps people be zero-waste, or being a startup that wants to be zero waste? And at the end of the day, can startups really make a difference? We'll also be talking about the City of Vancouver's plan towards 2040, which includes policies and actions to help stimulate, support, and allow Vancouver to become a zero waste community. What role can startups play in helping this city achieve its clean green dreams?


Join us on September 18th for an interactive discussion on zero waste startups, and how it might affect us as consumers in the long run. We'll be welcoming a handful of speakers to share their expertise, and opening discussion up to the audience to share their experience!


AGENDA


5:45pm - 6pm: Doors open, registration


6pm - 6:20pm: Refreshments and mingling. Grab a snack, grab a seat and make yourself at home


6:20pm - 7pm (approx): Panel session; questions and input from the audience are welcome - think of yourselves as bonus panelists!


7pm - 7:20pm - Additional Q&A and room to wrap up the panel discussion


7:20pm - 7:30pm: Social time; grab a drink and carry on the conversations with the people around you

Join three of B.C.’s top innovation leaders for a candid and engaging discussion. The panelists will discuss their career paths from private sector executives to three of the most influential leaders in B.C.’s tech industry. We’ll also get their input on the current state of our provincial tech sector and what we need to do to become the next major global tech hub.

Panelists
Raghwa Gopal, President + CEO of Innovate BC
Jill Tipping, CEO of BC Tech Association
Jeanette Jackson, CEO of Foresight Cleantech Accelerator

Agenda
08:30 – 09:00: Registration
09:00 – 09:45: Panel discussion
09:45 – 11:00: Networking

Location
The Salon Pommard Ballroom at the Sutton Place Hotel. You can directly enter the ballroom from the outside of the hotel, through the door next to the Sutton Place Wine Merchant.

This ACETECH hosted workshop normally runs for $250 per attendee, but some complimentary spots have opened up for #VSW2019 pass holders. If you are interested in attending this workshop, please register here using code VSW2019. If you have registered, but are no longer able to attend, please email events@acetechbc.ca to let them know to open your spot up for someone else.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

Start-ups, emerging and growth companies:
In Tech startups, emerging and growth companies RTM strategy impacts all of the functional areas in the Tech organization. From the CEO and the Board, to the functional heads of Finance, R&D, Product Development, Sales, Marketing and HR high-performance RTM strategy impact them all. The Tech RTM workshop is designed for Board, CEO, and CEO direct reports in emerging Tech companies.

Mature tech companies:
In more mature Tech companies the course meets the current and future needs of Marketing, Sales, Channel and Business Development strategists and tacticians. This group would include product marketers, channel marketers, channel developers and channel managers.

WORKSHOP CONTENT

This workshop examines six key foundational aspects of any tech routes to market strategy:
- Fundamental routes to market economics
- The variety of routes to market options and when to use them
- The direct routes to market option and its variants
- Indirect channel options both single and multi-tier
- Required channel organization resources
- Strategic questions and issues to resolve

Channelcorp Partners Bruce and Margaret Stuart will deliver the session.
Bruce Stuart and Margaret Stuart created Channelcorp in 1989. This independent Vancouver based firm is a leading global RTM and channel consultancy and strategy education firm specializing in consulting with and educating management teams of innovative, entrepreneurial and high-performance software, hardware and telecommunications firms. Channelcorp has delivered consulting and executive education assignments “on the ground” in 25 countries in NA, SA, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, including Japan and China. The firm has published 13 books, and in excess of 500 articles on RTM strategy and execution in the global technology industry and educated thousands of tech industry executives around the world.

Interactive mastermind session focused on channeling your leadership voice with Guest Expert, Humaira Ahmed, Founder of Locelle.
About this Event
Gender stereotypes kill a woman’s self-confidence and the best way to break stereotypes is to speak up and take action.

Hervana, Locelle, MyCEO and Women in Tech World are partnering to host a mastermind session where you will get to share your ideas and experiences, learn how to harness your leadership voice amongst gender stereotypes in the work place and be supported by successful women and peers.

Join us in this casual mastermind workshop where the main goal is to get women together, learn from each other and inspire you to make bold moves to accelerate your career or business.

The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Saving Time & Cash for Eating REAL FOOD on a Budget - The System I Used to Cut my Food Bill in Half, Save Time & Start Eating Healthy Again

Its almost 11 months into the legalization of Cannabis and the opportunity to get on the Green Rush is viable for entrepreneurs to explore. So where does one start? There are so many avenues from growing to retail to e-commerce of ancillary products/services and or being a service provider or educator. But it's not as straight forward as other industries. There are rules and compliance issues that still lay in the grey on top of regular challenges of any startup.  What does this mean for women and minorities that are entering the industry successfully? To address these areas is to bring in insights from leading industry advocates who are paving the way for prospects to pursue Cannabis as a business. Each Panelist brings a specific perspective of what the success will look like for entrepreneurs who want to enter this industry and will explore the social issues/challenges as well as the business mindset required.

With the largest tech companies investing billions on data infrastructure and data-driven start-ups innovating faster than many established businesses, sound decision making is paramount. Leaders can no longer rely solely on reporting tools, analytics platforms and a few skilled experts to determine the fate of the business. Today’s thriving businesses are implementing integrated operations that freely exchange critical data in real time across the entire organization. This requires the adoption of a data driven company-wide culture. A culture where everyone is asking the question - “What is the business problem we want data to solve?”


This educational panel discussion will address the exponential impact of building a data driven organization for business survival with data analytics at the forefront.

'Diversity' is becoming a big thing in business these days. Gender diversity, racial diversity, LGBTQ diversity, etc. But one area that is too often glossed over is Cultural Diversity. While many companies see the value of having different cultures in their company, they fail to provide adequate training to promote actual understanding of the cultural differences; and too often, what training is done relies on cultural stereotypes ("Chinese are like this" and "Germans are like this") which are all too often inaccurate, and only contribute to misunderstanding and confusion. This 90 minute presentation will show you an entirely new perspective on not only understanding cultural differences, but also eliminating culture-based stereotypes and biases, and empowering your teams to harness their Cultural Diversity to make your business far more successful!

Our sincerest gratitude to Thinkific (thinkific.com) for not only sponsoring this event by providing a great venue, but also assisting with organizing and publicizing the event!

As giant tech companies move into Vancouver, local companies face an increasingly competitive market for talent. Merging ideas from marketing and employee engagement, Jalapeño will discuss how to make top talent want to work at your company. Everyone is familiar with the idea of a marketplace brand but not so much the idea of the workplace brand. Today the burden of business is not competition or profit, but the scarcity of resources, human resources. Everyone is invited to share their diverse experience in this interactive discussion on employer branding.

Learn more at www.jalapeno.app

As your community RBC, our purpose is to help our clients thrive and communities prosper. We would like to know more about your business, and how we can help you to succeed. As one of our valued business clients, we are inviting you to our annual Business Networking Expo event.

This is an exclusive networking opportunity, to meet and greet with other local businesses. Representatives from ADP, Small Business BC, Granted, Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, Futurpreneur, IEC-BC, RBC Group Advantage, Moneris, RBC Small Business, Yaletown BIA, TEC Canada and WorkBC will be joining us and will detail how they can be a valuable resource in your business success.


*This is a free event. A VSW pass is not required to enter. Please email Maninder.Sahota@RBC.com to register

Location: RBC Homer and Nelson Branch 
996 Homer St, Vancouver, BC V6B 2W7

Learn how to solve product/market fit problems 10x faster and cheaper in this hands-on workshop. Using a method originally born at GoogleX, we’ll show you how to answer key uncertainties prior to development by using ultra-fast prototypes and simulation-based testing.

This event will consist of two sessions:

12-12.40pm: User Testing
Learn how to run unbiased tests using world-class techniques from Prototype Thinking Labs. In this crash course, we'll show you the right & wrong ways to conduct a user test.

12.50-1.30: User Recruiting
How do I find my target user? What if they're hard to reach? How do I convince users to test with me if I can't compensate them? Get all of your biggest questions about user recruiting answered in this group coaching session led by Olivia Wong, co-founder of Prototype Thinking Labs.

China Canada Cleantech Innovation Centre, in collaboration with China’s Ministry of Science & Technology, is developing the first Canada China Innovation & Investment Summit that will promote cross-border collaboration in science and technology. A key objective of the event is to demonstrate that Vancouver can act as the Canadian leader with respect to innovation collaborations and relations with China.

Topics of discussion:

• Development of future technology such as 5G, AI
• Role of the government: Bringing technology in Canada (Programs and assistance for startups)
• How to build the sustainable partnership using technology
• Issues regarding intellectual property

Jack Ma reminded us at the World Economic Forum last year that "everything we teach should be different from machines." To prepare for a future of automation and artificial intelligence, we must continue to do the things that make us uniquely human. Today, we live in a world where Google has all of the answers and it is our responsibility to ask the right questions -- questions that stem from curiosity and empathy. The ability to understand a problem will profoundly influence our capacity to solve it. Before we can innovate, we must first ask the necessary questions: who cares and why? Join is for QUP: A workshop on building curiosity and empathy. Over the course of an hour, we'll use play and competition to explore how these critical skills can be learned and developed in your office, classroom, or home.

China Canada Cleantech Innovation Centre, in collaboration with China’s Ministry of Science & Technology, is developing the first Canada China Innovation & Investment Summit that will promote cross-border collaboration in science and technology. A key objective of the event is to demonstrate that Vancouver can act as the Canadian leader with respect to innovation collaborations and relations with China.

Topics of discussion:

• How startups achieve commercialization and eventually exit
• Complementary advantages of China’s VC ecosystem
• Canadian technology companies doing business in China