Innovation

“The whole world was screaming about environmental stuff, and we wanted it to be hard-wired into the curriculum, into every single class, because it affects everything,” says Kineshanko. So he and partner Rob Drapala (BBA’08) wrote letters to the editor of the Vancouver Sun as part of their outreach activities.

They also organized an event at the Segal Graduate School of Business featuring Milton Wong, then SFU chancellor; Peter Robinson, CEO of the David Suzuki Foundation; and others to discuss how environmental issues affect big business. It was an amazing success. Meanwhile, the business school’s new dean introduced an honours semester in sustainability – the first ever at a business school in North America. Kineshanko was one of the first 12 students; his class project was the start-up Habitat Enterprises, which provided software for carbon credit trading.

“We ran the business from the Vancouver Public Library,” says Kineshanko. But then, like many other student entrepreneurs, they had help from SFU’s Innovation Office through the TIME Business Centre at SFU’s Vancouver Campus. TIME, which stands for Technology, Innovation, Management, and Entrepreneurship, helps alumni and start-ups by providing office space, networking events, educational seminars, mentoring, and exposure to early-stage investment funds. The facilities and services are also available to off-site business professionals and investors.

Through TIME, Kineshanko was introduced to the Western Universities Technology Innovation Fund (WUTIF) founded by Mike Volker. WUTIF became Habitat’s first angel investor. The company graduated from the TIME Centre in 2010 and has since expanded with offices in Vancouver and New York.

Another SFU company began in a garage off 41st Avenue in Vancouver. “There were six of us, and a dog,” says Mike Torillo (BSc’03, MDM’09), founder of V7 Entertainment, which now has a larger team with offices at Venture Labs at Discovery Parks Vancouver on Great Northern Way. His company designs video games for clients such as NBC/Universal and now employs industry veterans from EA Sports and Ubisoft.

Torillo advises, “Keep in contact with your SFU roots. Alumni can get valuable support.” He loves VentureLabs: “You get a nice slice of the tech sector in B.C. and people from all walks of life.” Nearly everyone in his company is 20-something, but seasoned veterans are in neighbouring ventures and V7 benefits from a wide business network and expert mentorship.

“Even if companies are in a different sector we have something in common because we are all at an early stage. I get a perspective that helps me find a new way to a solution,” he says. “It’s good to have other people who have been through it.” There is access to a cafeteria, gym, meeting and board rooms, Internet infrastructure, photocopier, printers, and a venture acceleration program.

“VentureLabs is a technology business accelerator,” says Janice OBriain, manager of SFU’s Venture Connection. “After ventures graduate from Venture Connection they can apply to VentureLabs. Venture Connection’s incubator program is for brand-new student- and recent alumni-founded start-ups, while VentureLabs and other accelerators are for companies that have financing, staff, and products in place.”

SFU Innovation Office’s venture development programs are funded in part by external partnerships with Coast Capital Savings, the Discovery Foundation, the National Research Council, B.C. Innovation Council, and Western Economic Diversification, and in part by private gifts. SFU alumni can become involved by volunteering time as a program speaker or mentor, or through a directed financial gift. (Contact Janice OBriain at jobriain@sfu.ca.)

At the core of Venture Connection’s incubator program are its mentors-in-residence. Companies in the program are assigned a lead mentor who helps them achieve their business objectives. Successful entrepreneurs such as Jim Derbyshire, Dave Thomas, and Stewart Marshall provide expert mentoring and assistance.

“We provide services to our clients across three different phases of business development – the idea, concept, and business,” says OBriain, pointing out that most Venture Connection clients are at the idea stage. “We don’t expect all ventures to succeed at this first stage. Our mission is to introduce entrepreneurship to students and support them in validating and developing ideas into new businesses.”

“The transformation of ideas to invention to innovation is mysterious,” says Mario Pinto, vice-president research. “The spark can come from anywhere and is not restricted to faculty. Why not from students? That is the question we asked when we introduced the Venture Connection entrepreneurship program at SFU.

“SFU’s models of innovation include knowledge mobilization, technology commercialization, entrepreneurship, and venture development and acceleration. At Venture Connection, SFU students and recent alumni receive the critical mentoring and support services to help their ideas take flight. We are seeing that this investment is leading the way to a new generation of entrepreneurs who are creating new jobs and expanding the economy, benefiting the region, B.C., and Canada.”

Indeed, Venture Connection provides an ideal launch pad for first-time entrepreneurs to acquire experiences. Ian Hand, associate director of SFU’s Innovation Office, says, “Venture success often happens because of naïveté and persistence. You try bold things because you don’t know not to. The chance of failure exists, but every once in a while there’s a persistent team whose disruptive technology or service really changes the world.”

Jason Xu (BBA’09) is one such entrepreneur. Several years ago Xu met mentor Jim Derbyshire at a “mentor meet” event put on by Venture Connection to engage with student entrepreneurs. “Jim enrolled us in the incubator program, and we started a company called Spotted Innovations. We worked on that company for a year, but we had too much competition, so we ran out of money and shelved the project,” says Xu.

Xu moved on to become CEO and co-founder of Battlefy, a fast-rising company in Los Angeles serving online gamers who want to organize, play, and watch e-sports like Starcraft or League of Legends, both hugely popular games. Starcraft is the unofficial national sport of South Korea with more people watching it than basketball, football, and soccer; and eight million viewers worldwide watched a recent League of Legends tournament final. “The leagues run their teams on our platform, but the broadcasters also use our platform to get content and manage it, and viewers watch games on our platform. It’s like ESPN for competitive video gaming,” says Xu.

The lessons learned at Venture Connection helped Xu start Battlefy more quickly and raise far more funds. He says, “The first lesson is iterate fast. Don’t take a long time to make a perfect product before launching. Try something quickly, and if it doesn’t work, pivot and try something else. Take weeks, not months.”