Startup ecosystems can be fragmented, competitive, and hidden to newcomers, which is detrimental for local startups and community growth. The Startup Ecosystem Canvas seeks to provide local entrepreneurs with a clear list of resources for every stage of their startup journey, and outline a basic framework for communities to map their ecosystem.

With applications for the Ottawa Founder Institute coming to a close, we are excited to release the Ottawa Startup Ecosystem Canvas, which is currently in Draft v2 below! It was developed by the Ottawa Founder Institute and local leaders Nolan Beanlands and Shawna Tregunna.

This is just a DRAFT, and more input is needed, so please leave your comments on this collaborative Google document to help us complete the list. There are definitely omissions on this current version.

Are you looking to build a startup in Ottawa? Then apply to the Ottawa Founder Institute today!

Startup Stages

There is no one right way to build a technology company, but for the sake of simplicity we have outlined a basic, common, sequential framework.

1. Idea Stage

This is where new entrepreneurs get inspired, learn best practices, develop skills, validate ideas, and begin to build their team and product.

A. Inspire

• Startup Media: Centralized local information, listings, and news. (i.e. startup blogs/ publications/ lists/ FB groups/ newsletters)

1. BetaKit

2. Ottawa Startup Digest

3. Ottawa Tech Watch

4. Startup Ottawa

5. TechVibes Ottawa

6. TiECon Canada

7. The Invest Ottawa Network

8. TON (The Ottawa Network)

9. Startup Ottawa

• Inspirational Events: Open, inclusive, beginner startup events (i.e. Startup Weekend, idea fairs, and inspirational meetups)

1. Capital Drinks

2. ESAX Networking

3. Internet of Things (IoT) Meetup

4. IOT613 Conference

5. OCE Discovery

6. Ottawa Business Ideas

7. Ottawa New Business Expo Events

8. Ottawa Social Entrepreneurs

9. Ottawa Technology Startups Meetup

10. Networking for Nerds

11. PebbleOTT

12. Startup Weekend Ottawa-Gatineau

13. We Are Wearables Ottawa

B. Educate

• Best Practices: Beginner knowledge-sharing events. (i.e. beginner events that serve to educate more than inspire, like Startup Founder 101, etc).

1. ambiSHEous StartUp Self Weekend

2. CollabSpace Meetup Group

3. Engineering Innovation Ecosystem Meetup

4. Entrepreneurs' Power Profit Mastermind - Ottawa

5. L-SPARK Meetup Group

6. Marketing Workshops for Small Businesses: Ottawa

7. SaaS Ottawa

8. Startup Founder 101 Ottawa

9. Startup Grind Ottawa

• Training & Feedback: Skill & Idea development. (Ex. bootcamps and comprehensive training programs, like Founder Institute, etc)

1. Big Data University Meetup

2. BrainStation

3. Founder Institute

4. Junior Achievement Ottawa - Company program

5. Impact Academy

6. Lean Practices Ottawa

7. Lean Startup Machine Ottawa

8. Startup Canada Tour

9. The Ultimate Investor Pitch Guide

C. Validate

• Team Formation: Resources for teaming up. (i.e. events or other resources that facilitate early-stage recruitment and cofounder matching)

1. AccelerateOTT 2016

2. BNI: Business Networking International

3. CoFoundersLab

4. eSAX: The Entrepreneur Social Advantage Experience

5. Ethos Networking

6. FounderDating

7. Fresh Founders

8. Ottawa Entrepreneur Seminars and Networking

9. Ottawa Entrepreneurs

10. Startup Canada

11. Startup Canada Day on the Hill

12. The Ottawa Network

13. The Ottawa Small Business Network

14. Women's Network of Ottawa

15. YOW Civic Tech

• Build First Product: Hackathons & resources to build. (i.e. hackathons and other builder-focused events and resources)

1. DECODE '16 - Legacy

2. DevOps Ottawa

3. Full Stack HACKS - Devs & CEOs

4. GreenCity Protohack Ottawa

5. HackerNest Ottawa Tech Socials

6. Ontario Centres of Excellence

7. Open Data Ottawa

8. Ottawa Ladies Code Club

9. Ottawa Space Hackers

10. Random Hacks of Kindness

11. Time for Another Round - A Pebble Hackathon

2. Launch Stage

In this stage, entrepreneurs establish and formalize the company, develop the product, get feedback from customers, and prepare for the next step.

A. Start

• Establish: Law firms & banks for startups

1. AGB Lawyers

2. BDC

3. BMO Bank of Montreal

4. CIBC

5. Clancy P.C. + Brion Raffoul

6. Dentons

7. Fasken Martineau

8. Gowlings WLG

9. HazloLaw

10. Kelly Santini LLP

11. LaBarge Weinstein LLP

12. Merovitz Potechin LLP

13. MDK Business Law

14. Erin Engelhardt - Patent Agent

15. Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall LLP

16. RBC Royal Bank

17. Scotiabank

18. Soloway Wright LLP

19. TD Canada Trust

• Workspace: Co-working and flexible workspaces (note: “official” office space goes in 3.1.a. Infrastructure)

1. CollabSpace

2. Coworkly

3. Impact Hub Ottawa

4. L-Spark

5. Makerspace North

6. My ByWard Office Coworking

7. The Code Factory

8. WorkAway Offices

B. Develop

• Formalize: Accounting, development and HR for early-stage startups.

1. Aggregate Consulting (prepares claims for SR&ED tax credits)

2. Atomic Motion

3. Beck Accounting and Tax

4. Big Round Eyes

5. Collins Barrow

6. Connelly & Koshy Professional Corporation

7. D. Castro Bookkeeping Services

8. David Aplin Group

9. Elite Accounting

10. excelHR

11. Gary G. Timmons Professional Corporation

12. Iversoft Solutions

13. Jerome & Company Professional Corporation

14. MARSWorks

15. Mobilithink

16. N-VisionIT Interactive

17. Pixelera

18. Salopek & Associates Ltd

19. Seedless Apps

20. Tap Strategy & HR Consulting

21. Terabit

• Prepare for Seed: Incubators and advanced mentorship. (i.e. advanced knowledge sharing, later stage events and resources for startup TEAMS)

1. Hatch

2. Startup Garage

3. GrindSpaceXL

4. Lead to Win

5. Ignite Algonquin - Summit

C. Launch

• Seed Accelerators: Seed funding mentor programs (Techstars-style programs that provide funding)

1. L-SPARK

• Pitch & Demo: Show local startups for investment (i.e. demo days for companies seeking seed investment)

1. Founders on a Bus

2. Product Hunt Community of Ottawa

3. Startup Canada Demo Day on the Hill

4. Startup Ottawa: Showcase Sunday

5. Venture Demo Day

3. Growth Stage

Here, a startup proves their utility, receives recognition, and scales up. This usually requires funding, angels, VCs, and ways to connect them to startups.

A. Recognition

• Investor Networking: Connect professional investors with founders. (i.e. events or groups that facilitate connections with professional investors)

1. Angel One Investor Network

2. Capital Angels Network

3. National Angel Capital Organization

4. Purple Angel

5. The Indus Entrepreneurs - Ottawa

• Major Media: Mainstream local business press. (i.e. major local or regional publications that frequently champion local businesses)

1. BNN

2. CBC

3. CTV News

4. Financial Post

5. Le Droit

6. Metro News

7. Ottawa Business Journal

8. Ottawa Citizen

9. Ottawa Sun

B. Funding

• Angels / Micro-VCs: Seed-stage investors (search AngelList, Gust, Crunchbase)

1. Anthony Woods

2. Austin Hill

3. Aydin Y Mirzaee

4. Guy Podjarny

5. Jennifer Francis

6. Luc Levesque

7. Marco Janeczek

8. Mark Baker

9. Mason Du

10. Michael Weider

11. Parm Gill

12. Tobias Lütke

• Venture Capitalists: Series A and beyond

1. Celtic House Venture Partners

2. Mistral Venture Partners

3. Wesley Clover

4. BDC IT Venture Fund

C. Growth

• Infrastructure: Office space, HR, local business insurance. (i.e. office space/ HR/ insurance providers for capital-rich companies to grow and scale)

1. Gifford Associates

2. Hays Recruiting

3. Huntington Properties

4. Instant Offices

5. Lock Search Group

6. LoopNet

7. Metcalfe Realty

8. Oegema, Nicholson & Associates

9. Ottawa Real Estate

10. Palladium Insurance

11. Regus

12. Rhodes & Williams Insurance Brokers

13. Search Office Space

14. SpaceList

15. Summit Search Group

• Expansion: Growth accelerators/consultants. (i.e. programs and business consultants for capital-rich companies to grow and scale)

1. Accenture

2. Canadian Trade Commissioner Service - Ontario

3. Capital Park Consulting

4. Flare Consulting

5. GC+ General Counsel Services

6. KPMG

7. Orbis Risk Consulting

8. PwC

9. SOMOS Consulting Group

10. Stratford Managers

11. Stratos

4. Success Stories

Successful homegrown companies that have raised significant institutional funding, employ a large workforce, or have achieved liquidity.

1. Privacy Analytics

2. Bitaccess

3. CanvasPop

4. Foko

5. Fullscript

6. Fusebill

7. Guides.co

8. Gymtrack

9. Openera

10. PageCloud

11. Project Speaker

12. Shopify

13. Spoonity

14. Zighra

Supporters

To facilitate the steps, every ecosystem needs strong supporters.

1. Evangelists

Successful local founders who lead the ecosystem & frequently mentor newbies. (i.e. Local leaders who have taken a leadership position, speak at a lot of startup events, mentor all the programs, etc)

1. Adrian Cho

2. Anastasia Valentine

3. Andrew Foti

4. Chris Johnson

5. Colin Kinsman

6. Darrell O'Donnell

7. Dave McDuff

8. Derek Medland

9. Erin Blaskie

10. George Watt

11. Glenn Ala

12. Greg Searle

13. Greg Weatherdon

14. Jonah Hetherington

15. Karen Letain

16. Kelcey Damage

17. Leah MacMillan

18. Luc Lalande

19. Marc Bacon

20. Mike Potter

21. Nolan Beanlands

22. Neil Pearson

23. Omar Allam

24. Patti Church

25. Pierluigi Buonicore

26. Scott Annan

27. Sergio Escobar

28. Shahab Khan

29. Shawna Tregunna

30. Steve Coppola

31. Steve Wilton

32. Suzanne Grant

33. Sylvain Rochon

34. Tim Skelly

35. Walter Knitl

36. Wendy Mayhew

2. Government

Public organizations that facilitate local economic development

1. BDC

2. Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP)

3. Canada Foundation for Innovation

4. Canada Small Business Financing Program

5. Centre for Innovative Social Enterprise Development

6. Export Development Canada

7. Futurpreneur

8. Invest Ottawa

9. Investing in Business Innovation

10. Investment Accelerator Fund - Regional Innovation Centres

11. Ontario: Starter Company

12. Ontario: Summer Company

13. Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation

14. Ottawa Chamber of Commerce

15. Ottawa Entrepreneurship Centre

16. Ottawa's Innovation Pilot Program

3. Talent

Major local business or tech universities and employers that attract and retain local talent.

• Local Universities (universities with prominent technical or business programs)

1. Algonquin College

2. Carleton University

3. La Cité

4. Ottawa University

5. St. Paul University

6. University of Ottawa

• Local Employers (Major technical employers, like Microsoft or Google or large local companies, with large local offices)

1. Adobe

2. Akamai Technologies

3. Amazon

4. Apple - (Soon)

5. Bell Canada

6. BlackBerry

7. Cisco

8. Google

9. Halogen Software

10. IBM

11. Kinaxis

12. Lockheed Martin

13. Microsoft

14. Motorola

15. Oracle

16. QNX

17. Rogers Communications

18. Shopify

19. TELUS Communications

If you'd like to build a startup in Canada, the Ottawa Founder Institute is currently enrolling. Apply today!