Engineering A Startup

Fatima Zaidi is VP of Business Development for the creative communications agency Eighty-Eight. She is a commentator for Global News, and writes for BetaKit, Globe and Mail and Huffington Post, and was named to Marketing Magazine’s top 30 under 30 marketers and brand developers.

Meet Peter Reitano and Jeff Goldenberg, the founders of Abacus, a lean, mean, growth-focused Facebook advertising machine. They really know their stuff (despite some questionable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs).

What does it take to launch a crowdfunding platform? Isn’t it crazy to try to enter a space dominated by behemoths like Kickstarter and Indiegogo? Why did you turn down investor money three times? Ben Godfrey, co-founder of Global Sports Inc. has the answers.

Abrar Siddiqui is co-founder and CTO of Lucova, a startup that provides brands with a platform to create personalized customer experiences. Abrar has a simple quote that he thinks about that applies to just about any startup: “you can have 99 people say ‘no’, you just need one person to say ‘yes'”.

Lyn Chen was a shy high school student with no interest in business when she (pretty much by accident) pitched her idea for edible chopsticks at an entrepreneurship event.

Something a lot small business don’t give enough consideration is branding and design. It doesn’t matter how great your product or service is, if your branding sucks, you won’t get very far.

Dinesh Kandanchatha, a self proclaimed coffee addict, is also a life long entrepreneur who has spent his life building and running companies, and now spends his time helping others build and run companies.

Robots, the internet and AIs are replacing all kinds of jobs, from travel agents to accountants. Meet Tom Martin, a lawyer who has created Lawdroid, a chatbot that provides legal help, no lawyers required.

Professor Jonathan Rose and his research team turned their work into a game changing acquisition for an industry giant. Pretty incredible for someone who grew up thinking business is…well…dumb.

Class is in session with Professor Joseph Paradi, father of everything entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto. He has seen thousands of student startups come and go, so what seperates the successes from the failues?