Leading Canadian serial entrepreneur and VC Mark Skapinker has tough love for entrepreneurs looking to expand on their big idea. “If you’re going to succeed in this business, you need to dedicate 24 hours/day for the next 5 or 10 years of your life. You need to throw absolutely every piece of energy into it so you may as well take on a big idea, because it’s as hard to do a small idea as a big idea.” Mark Skapinker is a Managing Partner at Brightspark Ventures, a Canadian venture capital firm focusing on early-stage tech companies. He has been an entrepreneur and seed investor in the Canadian software industry since the inception of the personal computer in the 1980’s. Mark is on a mission to help grow the best early stage companies in Canada, and pivot the traditional VC model to open new opportunities for individual accredited investors. In this week’s #StartupPodcast, host Rivers Corbett talks to Mark about new sources of capital and how to give back to the community.

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