Zack Storms and Tim Lynn are the co-founders of Startup TNT, which is a community of entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, innovators and startup supporters that gathers every week to have fun, share stories, and build great companies.
Since its launch in 2019, Startup TNT has raised over $7M+ for 50 local companies across the Prairies, and aims to raise another $1M+ this fall, with Summit VI.
Are you located in Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina or Winnipeg? If so, and I highly encourage you to, check out their Thursday Night Tradition in your town!
Interested in learn more about their Investment Summit VI? Visit them online!
Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.
Zack Storms and Tim Lynn are the co-founders of Startup TNT, which is a community of entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, innovators and startup supporters that gathers every week to have fun, share stories, and build great companies.
Since its launch in 2019, Startup TNT has raised over $7M+ for 50 local companies across the Prairies, and aims to raise another $1M+ this fall, with Summit VI.
Are you located in Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina or Winnipeg? If so, and I highly encourage you to, check out their Thursday Night Tradition in your town!
Interested in learn more about their Investment Summit VI? Visit them online!
Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.
Jon:
Have you ever thought about being an investor? Besides investing in RRSPs and RESPs and mutual funds and all that stuff, have you ever thought about supporting Alberta born and bred companies, local companies, Edmonton, Calgary, and the rural districts? Well, our next guests have a great plan and a great way of doing it and teaching you about how to invest. Welcome to Shift. Today, I've got Zack Storms, Tim Lynn from Startup TNT. Welcome fellas. Thanks for joining us.
Tim:
Oh, thanks for having us.
Zack:
Thanks for having us, Jon.
Jon:
Now, Startup TNT. That's a pretty explosive name. I've been working on that one. Where did it come about? How did this idea originate?
Tim:
Well, TNT actually stands for Thursday night tradition. It has a bit of a double entendre, where people are like, "Oh, it's like dynamite. It's blasting things off." But honestly it's Thursday night tradition because our happy hour is every single Thursday, and we've been meeting every single Thursday for 171 weeks now. This will be week 172. We started in Edmonton. And really the core philosophy of TNT is about bringing people together to have fun, make friends, and eventually build great companies together or do great things together. So have fun, make friends, build companies every single Thursday, Startup TNT.
Jon:
Wow, that is unreal. 172 weeks, is that what you said?
Tim:
This is a week of 172, right now.
Jon:
Consecutive weeks?
Tim:
Yeah.
Jon:
Well first off, that's a lot of beer.
Tim:
That is a lot of beer.
Jon:
Secondly, that's incredible perseverance and an incredible testament to what you guys have built.
Tim:
Yeah. It was tricky through COVID.
Zack:
Yes. There were some dark weeks during COVID. That was like 16 months.
Jon:
Right. So how did you do that? Was that all online beer and you'd?
Tim:
Yeah, it was-
Zack:
We did some fun stuff.
Tim:
Yeah, it was on Discord. We drank at our desks in the dark in the winter. It was a time.
Zack:
There were challenges, yeah. It was hard to get away because everyone was at their house. So there was no end date. It was just, people just kept drinking. And it would go so late. And I think it was hard on people.
Jon:
Thursday would bleed into Friday. And yeah.
Tim:
Off the hop, back when we... It was the first two, three weeks of COVID. It was like, "Oh, I can't see anybody." Because nobody had really gotten into any semblance of routine. Their entire lives got up ended. And it was like, "Oh, this is a place to hang out with people. It's like social reprieve." And then, by about May, people were like, "Oh, I'm so tired of Zoom. By Thursday evening, this is the absolute last thing I want to be doing." So it was a bit of like pulling teeth to be able to make it happen.
Jon:
No kidding.
Tim:
But it was a good time.
Zack:
Yeah.
Tim:
We made it through.
Jon:
Right on.
Tim:
January 1st, 2021 was when we got back in person, and everybody was quite excited.
Zack:
July 1st.
Tim:
What did I say?
Zack:
July 1st. Yeah, you said June.
Jon:
July 1st, yes.
Tim:
[inaudible 00:03:07]. My bad. Yeah.
Jon:
No, that's all right. Okay. So what was that like when you finally got to see people face to face? Pretty stoked, I imagine.
Zack:
I think that was pretty special. And it was Canada Day. Canada Day was on a Thursday.
Tim:
Rented out Hawrelak Park.
Zack:
Yeah. We rented out a space in Hawrelak Park. The city council here gave us the permission to drink beer and have a barbecue in Hawrelak Park.
Tim:
Well, not us personally. The entire city had that permission.
Zack:
And so we took full advantage of it. It was actually quite exciting. And we had about 50 people show up.
Tim:
Brought a keg, had a little barbecue.
Zack:
Tim hooked up a keg.
Jon:
Made friends, built businesses. Wow. That's unreal.
Zack:
There was a hot wings competition. Do you remember?
Tim:
Oh yeah, the hot ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jon:
Oh, you did... Really, you did hot ones?
Tim:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jon:
Absolutely, man. Yeah. Now, are you ready for this?
Zack:
Yeah.
Jon:
I have yet to go to one of these Thursday nights.
Tim:
What?
Jon:
I know.
Tim:
You probably shouldn't be admitting that on air, right now.
Jon:
Well, I know. I wanted... That was intentional because now I've committed myself. By admitting that I've committed myself to have to go to the next one.
Zack:
You have to go this Thursday, John
Jon:
This Thursday. That's right.
Tim:
Are you an Edmonton or Calgary?
Jon:
I'm in Edmonton.
Zack:
Oh, okay. Well, I'll see you in a couple days.
Tim:
We will see you in a couple of days.
Jon:
And you're both based out of Edmonton?
Zack:
We're both in Edmonton. So yeah, we still go to the Edmonton one.
Tim:
Yeah. We'll be here in Edmonton at Say Uncle or Northern Chicken. It actually doesn't have a name on top of the door because they're in the middle of renos, and they open up just for us. But yeah.
Jon:
Really?
Tim:
Between like Jasper F and 102nd Street on a hundred, or between Jasper and 102nd Ave on a 104th Street, just next to [inaudible 00:04:41].
Zack:
Yeah. And we don't, you never know what's going to happen, Jon. Last week was a really big week because it was the pitch marathon so it was kind of a special night. So this week, we don't know. It could be really quiet because a lot of people came out last week. Or it could be like people are excited. They're like, "Hey, that was fun last week. I'll come back."
Tim:
That's true.
Zack:
We just don't know what's going to happen.
Tim:
I'm expecting-
Jon:
Let's see if there's more.
Tim:
Zack says quiet. I say intimate. Intimate is my favorite happy hour.
Zack:
Intimate's actually quite good. It's kind of like this. It's like a one hour podcast with six different people.
Tim:
Yeah. Well, that was my [inaudible 00:05:10] TNT was when it was just six people. You just hung out and got to know people properly. You just sat around the table like it was a happy hour after work with a few of your friends. And some people came, and you got to know each other. And you just sort of shared stories around the table. A nontraditional networking event where it's quite intimate.
Zack:
We were often less than 10 people back in those days.
Jon:
Okay. So that was the genesis. Zack, you started it, these intimate little groups. Tim, you came on shortly thereafter.
Tim:
[inaudible 00:05:41]. Yeah. I got introduced by Arden from Accelerate Fund, actually. I met up with him. I was trying to get into the startup space in Edmonton. And I was like, "Where do I go? I've done this outside of Edmonton, but now I want to do something from home. Where do I find the people who are actually doing stuff? I don't need to do the 101 stuff, lean business, whatever. Let me just go and hang out with people." He was like, "Oh, go to Startup TNT." And I show up.
Jon:
That's fantastic.
Tim:
I show up. The door is locked. There's two people there, Zack and the owner of Polar Park. And they're sitting at the bar working on a newsletter. And I was told that there was this newsletter seminar, and it was Zach making the newsletter on Mailchimp for the first time.
Zack:
I had just learned how to use MailChimp a couple weeks prior. So I was like, I'm going to teach other people how to do it."
Jon:
Right. So why not put on a seminar?
Tim:
Yeah, why not?
Zack:
Tim was the old attendee.
Jon:
Okay, so let's go... Now, tell me exact, tell the listeners exactly what Startup TNT is. I get it. You're meeting. You're networking. There's pitch competitions. You did the Great Prairie Pitch last week, which I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a little bit of it. And man, my mind was blown. I loved it. It was so cool. But take us right back. I'm a complete neophyte. Someone comes in. They hear this podcast. They go on Thursday. What's going to happen?
Tim:
Do you want to do it or me?
Zack:
I will... You know what? Why don't we, I'll start it. And then, you jump in.
Tim:
Sure. Deal.
Zack:
Because Tim and I sometimes describe it differently. But you know what? The Thursday night tradition is at our core. Great things happen on Thursdays. Bring people together to accomplish great things on a Thursday. So we started with a happy hour to just bring people together. But really the mission is to build a great startup community and to build out more sophisticated angels that want to invest in that startup community. I think that one of the things we often forget about when we're building awesome startup communities is the importance of building up the local angel community. And so a big part of our focus is to simultaneously raise money for local startups while training and introducing new investors into the ecosystem. And so, that's why we run something called the Startup TNT Investment Summit, which has now raised seven million dollars for 50 companies, Jon.
Jon:
Right on.
Zack:
In less than three years, two and a half years.
Jon:
That's excellent.
Zack:
Bringing people together and then investing in great startups and increasing our collective knowledge about fundraising best practices.
Jon:
Okay, so now, let me just stop you there for a second. Hold on a second, Tim. So now, you've said a lot of really cool things. And I'm, again, right at the base level. And I'm like, "Hmm, I'm interested. I want to support the ecosystem somehow." I have no idea how to invest. I have no... Everything you just said is like, "Whoa, I'm slightly intimidated." So if I come in, and I'm completely oblivious, how do you scale someone up, so to speak, to get them comfortable with the whole idea?
Zack:
Tim, why don't you take this one?
Tim:
You go for it. Yeah. That one's squarely in your job. You were Edmonton lead for so long. [inaudible 00:08:45].
Zack:
That actually is the point of our investment summit process. It's an eight week process to bring people together so that new angel investors, like brand new, never Angel invested before, are working hand in hand with seasoned angel investors. It's hands on, peer to peer learning focused on making an enjoyable process, where you get to know people. And at the end of it, you actually invest in a great local startup or maybe more, depending on what happens.
Tim:
And I mean, it was designed... I mean, this whole process is designed around how Zack and I like to learn and do things. You can sit in a classroom and learn what happens in a textbook or whatever. Or some of my favorite classes in university were where it was essentially a big project all the way through, where it's like, look, you have to do this. And you have to learn all of the stuff in order to be able to do it, but we're working towards something.
And so, one of the things that I wanted to just add was that Zack sort of outlined how it's a whole bunch of bringing on new angels. It's also about helping make it easier for people who do know how to invest to be able to invest more effectively. So what we're doing is, with the happy hour and the pitch marathon and some of the other work that we're doing is attracting the startups to be able to be a part of the process. So then, we're doing the top of funnel work for angels, which is you'll know the super angels in Edmonton off the top of your head, the Ray Muzykas, the Blaines, the Ashifs, the people where they're spending an inordinate amount of time and money on their own personal branding. We're doing that. And then, we're working together as a group, as effectively one collective angel, on this process.
We have 20, 30, 40 companies that apply at the top end. And then, we're putting the rails on a process where the angels are doing diligence and narrowing it down from that to a top 20, big top 20 public pitch night, top 10, top 5, and then the finale. And these angels are pre-committing $5,000 each to the hat, which it's the minimum. And so, we don't take any carry or anything like that. The angels pre-commit that 5K. So it's this group, it's effectively this group project where we're working together, new people, people who are seasoned. And then, the seasoned people are asking questions and doing meetings. And new people are sort of learning along. And they're intelligent in their own right, just not necessarily experienced on the angel side, but experience in business or in other areas. And so, then it ends up, over the course of eight weeks, being a fantastic learning experience for everybody. I mean even the seasoned people continue to learn things. Zach and I have done 15 summits, I guess, over 15 streams. And we continue to learn new things from the people we have around the table every time. So it's [inaudible 00:11:26].
Jon:
That's cool. So the summit, it's eight weeks. Is it, how many times a week do you meet?
Zack:
The investors meet weekly.
Jon:
So you meet once a week for eight weeks.
Zack:
It's basically like a screening and due diligence process team base where they divide up the work. They meet with the companies. They review additional information. They create a Slack channel. We create a Slack channel where people share information. And then, they basically report back weekly. And then, there's a couple of big public events. There's a big pitch night for all top 20 companies that are in the process. And then, at the end is the summit finale where the top five deals all pitch live to the investors. But also the community's invited, and the investors are making decisions live, right then and there, about who the winner is and if any additional deals are happening. And every summit we've done, additional deals happen because people get excited.
Jon:
Is that right? Yeah. So you take the 5K that... So I come in. And I'm like, "Yes, I want to be involved." I cut a check for 5K. And then, that goes into the pool. And now, I'm considered an angel investor.
Zack:
And everyone gets an equal say. There's a democratic voting process. So everyone divides up the work and gets an equal say in who we invest in.
Tim:
So you would be, for example, investing in the Edmonton Company. So we would get the 20, 30, 40 companies from Edmonton to be applying. You would be in the group of the Edmonton investors. We would then, the Edmonton investors would be working to narrow down from however many down to twenty, ten, five, and then ultimately that one. And your 5K would go to that one Edmonton company as an equity investment or however it's structured. And then, you would then have the opportunity to, one, invest more into that Edmonton winner. So you could do, there's people who invest six figures into the companies. And then, company number two was really awesome. I really wanted that one to win. And then, other people raise their hands. Like, "Yeah, That one totally should have won." And then, number three's really good. And then, the Calgary Company, that one looked really cool. We saw that pitch in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. And then, we syndicate it all up and write checks altogether as a collective stronger unit.
Jon:
And there's the giant check presentation too to the Winners. Okay.
Zack:
Yeah.
Jon:
Now, you mentioned something interesting. You mentioned a number of other jurisdictions there. So you started Edmonton, and you guys are expanding pretty rapidly. This is catching on. Where are you guys now?
Zack:
We are now fully across the prairies, Jon. So Edmonton and Calgary, Saskatoon and all of Saskatchewan, including Regina. And we just launched in Manitoba. Manitoba's been running a happy hour for two and a half months now, since mid June. And so, this fall we're going to be doing the Startup TNT investment summit six. We do it twice a year, every fall and every spring. It's going to have four streams for Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Edmonton, and Calgary. Those four streams. And there'll be a winner from each stream. There'll be an investor due diligence team from each stream, and there'll be 20 companies in each stream going through the due diligence process.
Jon:
That's fantastic you guys. It's so cool. It's so exciting. So when companies go through, they win, what's the next step? Are you guys just helping with that feeding process to get companies up and running, those startups that are coming in for an investment? Or do you play a role down the road?
Tim:
Yeah, so I guess, maybe for context on what typically a winning company would have had... What the problem is that we're working to solve is it's really, really challenging to raise between 500K and 2 million because it's 500 or a mill or whatever is quite big for friends and family. And then, it's also way too small for venture. It's uneconomic to write checks that are that small generally, other than folks like Panache or Accelerate Fund, where they have a concerted strategy, and it's built into the economics. But it's not a traditional check size. And so, it's really hard for those types of companies to raise. And so, typically, the companies that are coming through aren't... It's not like somebody just came up with an idea, and now they're pitching it. And, "I need some money to be able to quit my job and think about this for a while." It's, "I've been working on this. I..." Typically will have a product. It depends on the industry, of course. But typically, will have a product and will have some semblance of market traction, whether that's some revenue in sales or whatever the market traction is.And then, it's... Typically, they're raising one or one and a half or two million bucks.
And then, the role of us in post winning is we also have a VC fund that invests into the winners. And so, with that, we then have... There's a network of angels that's investing into the company. And then, we have two people that are joining, we call it like sort of a little bit of an advisory group for the company. One that's an active entrepreneur, has recently raised a series A or B, is pretty boots on the ground, has gone through that path recently, and can sort of help show the ropes. And then, the other one that's a traditional venture partner that's, we'll call it somebody that wants to help institutionalize the relationships that we have around the table and can then sort triage. "Company needs this. And then, I go through Startup TNT." There's all the angels. There's all this stuff. And they're out forging the relationship path for the company and just bashing down doors for them.
Jon:
Right, okay.
Tim:
Because we're at the point now where our brand is typically stronger than the startups. And so then, we can use that as the path, similar to how a VC would down the line when they're at series A or B and stuff like that. It's just, like I said, it's uneconomic, generally, for VCs to be doing stuff at that stage, at this stage. And so, we want to help them get to series A. And so, that's also... Typically, angels don't do that, which is why we built the VC fund. Because typically angels will write the check and be like, "Send me updates and maybe something will happen." And now, [inaudible 00:17:04] actively try and work with these companies to help get them there.
Jon:
Okay. And now, what about... So you describe some of those warm handoffs to the VCs or to that group of advisors that can help them out. What about partners in the ecosystem, like Alberta Innovates or Innovate Edmonton or Platform Calgary and stuff? How do you work with organizations like that?
Zack:
Yeah, I mean honestly the pitch marathon last week is kind of, I think, a great example of our approach to that. And that was a 200 company pitch marathon over two Zoom streams in nine hours. And-
Jon:
That's pretty intense
Zack:
There was 35 part organizations that helped us co-host it. And those organizations, they didn't just help cohost. They helped promote it. They helped recruit some of the companies. And now, we're at the point where there's 200 companies that applied, and there's an opportunity for the different organizations to look at which ones are a good fit for their specific programming. So this is a lot of what we try to do behind the scenes. We actually ask all the companies that apply, not just the pitch marathon but to our own summits, "Can we share your applicant information with partners in our network that might want to reach out and help you with their own programs?" And so, we try and work really, really hard behind the scenes to just do those, like you're saying before, those kind of soft handoffs, warm introductions to partner organizations, accelerators, incubators, service providers-
Tim:
Other investors.
Zack:
-The TDA network [inaudible 00:18:27] as an example.
Tim:
Yeah, and I guess one of the things to be, I guess, really explicit about is that we're not an entrepreneur support organization like Innovate Edmonton or Platform Calgary or whatever. That isn't the core of our programming. The core of our programming, again, is for the investors. Our mantra or stated thing internally is to be the best angel investor in town. But what that comes with is to be helping the entrepreneurs because you need to be building them up in order for them to be investible. And so, we do some degree of in investment readiness type programming, some sort of courses and blogs and some stuff like that. But the point of that is that we want to work with Innovate Edmonton or Platform Calgary or Co.Labs or Cultivate or North Forge or whoever the partners are in any given city to help them with their programming. We're not coming in trying to wedge them out. We're coming in trying to help them get investment ready to help them get to where they need to be and helping support where they need to be.
And I guess, the angels are doing diligence on the companies, and it's actually interesting because they come out of it saying, "This is really helpful as a boot camp, putting them through a bit of a friendly grinder." Because the angels are just asking questions, and the entrepreneurs are like, "Well, I've never actually been asked that before. This is... I should probably get that ready. I've never built a data room before. I've never really had a conversation about this level of depth on the pitch deck before. I've never been asked about this business model part before."
Zack:
I was kind of laughing when you used the word program because, depending how you define program, you could argue that our happy hour is a program. But the point is we try to take this approach with our programming to make it feel and seem as real world as possible. So that's why it's experiential, hands on, learn by doing, and a little bit less formal programming, so to speak. But-
Jon:
That makes sense.
Zack:
The company, especially for companies that don't raise money, this is super, super valuable. You're learning. You're kind of going through a process to learn about your business and ask all these questions about your business while building relationships with local investors. And that's probably the biggest hurdle to raising money or building a company in general is building relationships with people that are help you along the way.
Tim:
Because I remember trying to raise a million bucks. And people were like, :Yeah, just go talk to the rich people in your town." It's like that's not, there's no list. That's not how this... And it's an angel investment. It's based on relationship. You need... It's like, "Oh, it'll probably take you three to six months to raise the money." It takes you like three to six months to build a relationship with somebody to the point where they're able to write that check. And you have to also be building your business along that path. And so, we're helping expedite that relationship for them.
Jon:
[inaudible 00:21:15]. Sorry, go ahead.
Zack:
Well, I just want to share one fact for everybody that doesn't raise money the first time they go through a summit. I should actually update the numbers, but I think it's between 8 and 10. So close to 20% of all of the funded deals actually raise money in their second or third time around, like quite a few.
Jon:
Okay. So the first time is-
Zack:
Yeah. Quite a few companies didn't raise money when they first went through. A lot of those companies actually went on to raise money in other places. And that's super valuable. And a bunch of those companies came back six months, 12 months later, and then raised money from the group. So both of those things happen for companies that [inaudible 00:21:47] the investment.
Jon:
Okay, and that's kind of referencing that or alluding to that critical element that entrepreneurs need to have. And that's perseverance. Right? And not, if you don't fail fast and just keep at it. That if you don't make it, doesn't mean your idea or your product is a waste of time.
Tim:
Well, that and we're not the arbiter of truth on what a good startup is. It's a group of people that have an opinion, and they sort of work together. And everybody's got a different opinion. And so, they might just not be comfortable with the idea or whatever, but somebody else might really love it and might be able to help in a different way or come at it with a different angle.
Jon:
Yeah. Now, in your assessments, how does Alberta look? There's a lot of talk about how Calgary's popping, and Edmonton's popping too. But we always tend to compare ourselves to our neighbors down south. There's certainly a lot more money in terms of, well a much larger population, more VCs, more cash. But what are our strengths in Alberta?
Zack:
Well, I am American, Jon. So as an expert American, I can tell you they're freaking awesome. Love this province.
Jon (advertisement for Learn How Alberta innovates):
There's so many stories of innovative breakthroughs happening right here in Alberta, from startups to well established large scale organizations. The spirit of continuous reinvention and innovation deserves to be shared widely. And there's one place that does just that. Learnhow.albertainnovates.ca. Check it out today. Learnhow.albertainnovates.ca. Now, back to Zack and Tim from Startup TNT.
Zack:
I've lived in Alberta for 10 years, and I've been pretty active in a startup community since then, although I started in more of an academic environment. I got super active in the last five years. And I feel like the transformation is just tangible. You can feel it. You've got proper senior entrepreneurs, now, that are raising big series B rounds, big series A rounds that provide inspiration for junior entrepreneurs, provide inspiration for new investors looking to get involved. They provide stories to tell. They're like, "Yeah, this can happen here." Companies are raising at high valuations. Companies are being sold. This isn't just something that happens in California and never happens here. It does happen here. All this is really, really good for the ecosystem. And I think one of the big things, and I know Alberta Innovates has been actually quite influential in all of this, is that a lot of the service providers have changed their own mindset over the last five years.
Tim:
I guess the thing that's interesting about places like Silicon Valley or Boston or New York or wherever is that there's entrepreneurs that have done something directionally similar to what the new generation of entrepreneurs are doing, and they made a boatload of money doing it. And then, now, they create their own organizations that are interested in helping companies. And they're writing checks, and they're doing all of the things that you hear about in those big, big places. And even similarly in Calgary, you have the folks that are down there that have done entrepreneurial things that are then writing big checks and creating organizations that are able to help startups. And I mean, here, we have a few of those super angels as well. But here, in Edmonton, we have a few of those super angels as well.
But the role of Alberta Innovates is really to mimic those, that gap that we have on... We don't have a whole depth of really tech based entrepreneur people that have a billion dollars that are just like, "Yo, we just got to do this. This is important for the community. I don't really care about the money. I just want it to happen," type situations. Which you can't crowdfund that. One, it's not effective. And two, it's not really possible. Alberta Innovates is really, really helpful in mimicking what exists in other communities, where it comes from the private sector, which comes instead from Alberta Innovates here to help make it happen.
Zack:
If I have the opportunity to reiterate this... Do your colleagues listen to this? I think that Alberta Innovate has actually done a pretty good job reviewing a lot of their funding practices to try and be a little bit more nimble, try a few small things out, and then invest more money in the things that are working. And I think there's an opportunity to do more of that as a funding body, not just Alberta Innovates but other funding bodies, where the funding bodies are acting a little bit more like nimble investors, trying some small things out, seeing what working, and then investing in more of those things, and trying to bubble up good ideas to the community. And so, I'm happy to give some more feedback on any of those topics, Jon.
Jon:
Let's save that, the rest of that feedback, for Thursday. But I want to ask you guys about, maybe this is taking you out of your realm of expertise, but storytelling. When we think of-
Zack:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:26:35] with that realm jump.
Jon:
Yeah, excellent. Because when you think about all of this activity that's going on, and you think about the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Alberta, how big is that? It's not 4.2 million people. But we're trying to work together as a group, as a lattice that kind of supports these entrepreneurs. And I don't know, let's throw a number out there. Let's be really generous. Let's say it's a million people, which that's only a quarter of the population. So now, in terms of storytelling, we're not going to convince all 4.2 million people. But how do we tell stories about the benefit of the work that we're all doing to create this environment in Alberta and in the other provinces, in the work that you guys are doing in the other prairie provinces to build this economy that's diverse and vibrant and appealing for VCs to come in, for startups to grow and thrive? How do we get better at storytelling?
Zack:
Well, I think that... We think about this question a lot actually, Jon, because I think, I agree. Storytelling is a big, big component to what we need to do as an ecosystem. Because, actually, it was a podcast Tim introduced me to called The History of Ambition. And I thought it was just really smack on.
Tim:
I introduced you to that?
Zack:
Yeah, you did.
Tim:
Sure.
Zack:
And it was this VC, and he was talking about the importance of trying to attract the top quality people in the world, like the top quality university students, to think entrepreneurship is the ideal, the top path. That's where I want to be. If you look at the history of the world, that maybe at one point it was going into finance. Or maybe it was being a doctor or a lawyer. Or it was different things at different points in time. But culturally, we might be at a point today where we can get the top graduates from all the best high schools and all the best universities to be thinking to themselves, "Entrepreneurship is my first choice for a career path." And that, I think, would actually probably be the most impactful thing we could do to diversify our economy and basically build out a sustainable future because all the best and brightest people, they're thinking about entrepreneurship as a career path.
Jon:
[Inaudible 00:28:54].
Tim:
And I guess further to that, I think that is now probably top of mind for people that are in high school trying to figure out what they want to be doing. And in university, they're sort of picking CS, computer science, over finance and sort of pursuing that as a concept. The second part, that's as a career path, as a broad based whatever, sure. They're on that path now. How do we get them to think Edmonton or Alberta or, hell, even Canada is the place to be doing that? Let alone, as opposed to moving to one of the whatever cities that are on a map, SF, New York, Boston, London, Hong Kong, whatever, wherever they may want to go that they see is more sexy. We have to work on making Alberta, Edmonton, Calgary, whatever, sexy by promoting the stories that we have here of the fantastic companies. Edmonton and Calgary both have a deep amount of companies that are super interesting at all stages of life. And it could be deeper, of course, but most people don't even know that things exist here.
Zack:
When I think and-
Jon:
Right. Yeah.
Zack:
Jon, when I think about storytelling, I think about it in this way. How do we get the entrepreneurs to tell their stories and think about their pitches, to tell their stories and just amplifying that story? And so, at Startup TNT, all 20 companies that are in our summit program, they get to tell their story publicly. We try and amplify that message. And they do it at the finale. And the pitch marathon's actually the best example of our most successful way of doing this. You bring so many entrepreneurs together, it just creates a lot of buzz. I think something like a thousand people tuned in to watch the pitch marathon, at some point, or attended an after party during the day. And there was five to ten different media inquiries and articles and interviews from that. And that's just this really awesome opportunity to tell the story to a more general audience, using entrepreneurs themselves. It also becomes inspiration for all those young people or just people in general that are looking at a career to be like, "Yeah, I want to be part of that story."
Tim:
Yeah. In an ideal world, we're talking about people that are in high school or university that are working on what they want to be doing with their life. It's also helping making people comfortable to be able to make a career shift. Ideally, maybe ones that have made enough money and now are like, "Okay. Well, I have a whole bunch of experience, especially on the op side." My classic example in Edmonton is PCL and other construction companies tend to have a quite fantastic retention strategy around stock based comp and all that sort of stuff. But similarly, it exists in the startup land, just with a little bit more risk. But the skills are extremely, they transition really well. Like, a project manager to a product or project manager in a startup is actually quite fantastic. And so, how do we help convince those people that career shift is lucrative, sexy, awesome for the community, all of these great things? How do we that the? That's a genuine question. I don't... We've had a few of them, and they've been quite successful in their career paths. One of them worked with us. He was at PCL. Then he moved to New Zealand. Then he came back and took his project management skills, worked with us as, effectively, our lead of ops. And now he's the COO of a seed stage startup here, actually working out of the same building that we're in.
And so, how do we create more of those stories to help, to those that... You can't do it with everybody because it's not for everybody. But for the chunk where it does make sense, where the personality makes sense, we need to be able to help unlock that pathway for us to be able to build community.
Zack:
I was just laughing at our... It's a challenge for us as an organization. Our goal is to get quality people to help us for a short period of time and then join a local startup. We constantly have to find new people. But hey, it's good for the community. That's what it's all about.
Jon:
I love it. You guys, the work you're doing is exciting. You guys are very energetic and great to talk to, lots of great ideas, great insight. And I could go on for hours, I think, chatting with you guys. But I'm going to be out this Thursday.
Tim:
I love it.
Jon:
And I'm going to say to all our listeners, go and check out one of these Thursday night events. So you guys are there in Edmonton, but it's also happening in Calgary and happening in the other jurisdiction. Someone else is leading those ones. But where did they go for more information?
Tim:
Startuptnt.com.
Jon:
Startuptnt.com. All right. So they'll go there. They'll check-
Zack:
Yeah, we got a packed fall. So we got our investment summit this fall. There'll be public events. There'll be lots of fun, happy hours. If you want to get involved, just start by joining us in a happy hour. That's a great way, first step.
Jon:
Great way to start. And not just as an investor, a potential investor. If you're a startup too, you could go. And it's not like you refuse anybody's-
Tim:
Startup. If you're a startup, like an entrepreneur or an employee, if you're looking at being an employee, if you're one of those to use the-
Zack:
Students.
Tim:
Yeah, students. Or to use the example of the PCO project manager, if you're sort of vaguely interested in startups, and you're like, "I kind of want to explore this world," feel free. If you're an investor, either an active one or somebody that's looking at it, or hell, even if you just, you're like, "Hey, I listened to this podcast, and this sounds pretty cool. Zack and Tim sound like they're kind of interesting. And if they want to have a beer with me, that sounds fun." So that's also cool. We're all about serendipity. We have a really no idea. The only hurdle to showing up is the interest to be able to give some of your time to hang out with entrepreneurs, and that's a high enough bar to be able to make the happy hour a good time.
Jon:
Right on. No, that's great, you guys. I appreciate that. Thanks for joining me today and sharing your insights and wisdom.
Tim:
Sure. Thank you, Jon.
Zack:
[inaudible 00:34:43]. Yeah. Thanks for having us, Jon.
Tim:
Thanks for the great [inaudible 00:34:43]. It was fun.
Jon:
Thanks for joining us on Shift today. Thanks to our guests, Tim and Zack. It was great fun. You can find us at shift.albertainnovates.ca or contact us at shift@albertainnovates.ca. On behalf of everyone here, take care.