Lazaridis program a daring experiment in learning to grow
This summer, Wilfrid Laurier University’s Lazaridis Institute for the Management of Technology Enterprises selected 10 companies from across Canada for a journey that will change their futures. Bankrolled by former BlackBerry co- CEO Mike Lazaridis, the institute is in its second year of test- driving a program to help ambitious tech companies achieve global success.
Last month, executives from each firm assembled in Toronto for the first meeting of the 2018 cohort of the Lazaridis Scale-Up Program. They will meet two days a month for six months in cities across Canada, with two stops in Silicon Valley. Each session will include lectures, seminars and activities delivered by U.S. and Canadian experts.
It turns out that a startup’s job — to prove that a product or service can find market traction — is the easy part. What’s tougher is maintaining discipline, passion and focus while mastering all the growth challenges yet to come: product management, branding, marketing analytics, global markets, managing risk and learning to be fundable. The Lazaridis program is actually a daring experiment in figuring out the best way to help Canadian companies learn to grow.
Canadian entrepreneurs need this help because we have so few successful scale-ups as role models. Our best growth companies tend to be snapped up by established firms before they’ve mastered the disciplines of growth. Not only do our best entrepreneurs not know how to scale — there’s so little expertise to guide them that many don’t know they don’t know how to scale.
Chris Cowper-Smith is cofounder and CEO of Spring Loaded Technology, a Dartmouth, N. S. company that just launched Levitation, a bionic knee brace that can provide support and propulsion to the mobility- impaired. With a PhD in psychology and neuroscience, and five years’ experience building the company’s research, manu- facturing and sales operations, Cowper-Smith wasn’t sure how much his company would benefit from Lazaridis’s scaleup accelerator.
“I was a bit hesitant at first,” he says. “I wasn’t sure what I was getting into.”
But after spending that first weekend in Toronto with the rest of the “Lazaridis 10,” Cowper- Smith is all in. “It was an incredible value- add,” he says. “It gave us a great chance to step back and work on the business, not in it.”
For all the complexity of growth management, the first weekend of classes dealt with a simple topic: communication. Bill Reichert, a consultant to the Lazaridis program who also runs Silicon Valley’s Garage Technology Ventures, delivered a presentation called Getting to Wow: Crafting a Compelling Summary of Your Value Proposition.
“You have 20 seconds to be compelling or go home,” Reichert announced. He then related messaging to human anatomy: “An effective communicator engages three body parts: the head, the heart and the gut.”
Think about the last pitch you heard ( or delivered). Chances are it was full of jargon and product features. Reichert recommends you ignore the traditional advice of pitch coaches: “Start with a problem.” “Tell a story.” “Show a big market.” Instead, he says, do these three things:
Be clear ( What do you do?).
Be compelling (How much better are you? How are you different?).
Be credible ( Can we believe you?).
Those messages go straight to the head, the heart and the gut, in that order.
Why should this matter to entrepreneurs who are past the startup phase? Because, says Reichert, whether you’re talking to customers, schmoozing at events, recruiting employees, looking for partnerships, training your team or just leaving a voice mail, you always need to Wow.
Cowper-Smith says he and the two Spring Loaded colleagues who went to Toronto thought they had a good elevator pitch. But after listening to Reichert, they realized it needed heart. “We talked about how our brace augments mobility,” says Cowper- Smith. “Bill said, ‘ No. You help people walk. You help people play with their grandchildren.’ ”
At another session on communication, Cowper-Smith says he and his colleagues learned they all have similar communication styles: short, direct, impulsive. That means they have to try harder to get their message across to their entire team. And at a session on corporate values, they learned that listing a few abstract concepts — such as integrity or openness — isn’t enough. “We weren’t giving examples of how we live our values every day and use them to make decisions.”
For instance, one of Spring Loaded’s longtime values is continuous learning. Just a few days after the scaleup event, Cowper- Smith’s team was debating how to express that value more tangibly. They’re now experimenting with “We evolve fast. We are curious and open. We learn from failure, and we are eager to share and grow.”
Is it too soon to gauge the impact of these insights? Maybe not. Ten days after leaving Toronto, Cowper-Smith was in Boston pitching to 20 angel investors. He had four minutes to tell his story. “Out of the gate, I changed the way I present,” he says. “I spent less time describing our product, and gave more examples of how it affects my customers’ lives.” Result: half the investors in the room sought him out to set up further meetings.
Initially, Cowper- Smith had planned to skip the third scaleup weekend, next month in Ottawa, because of a schedule conflict. After week 1, he cleared his calendar to attend. He now understands the importance of knowing how much you don’t know.
I WAS A BIT HESITANT AT FIRST. I WASN’T SURE WHAT I WAS GETTING INTO. IT WAS AN INCREDIBLE VALUE-ADD. IT GAVE US A GREAT CHANCE TO STEP BACK AND WORK ON THE BUSINESS, NOT IN IT. — CHRIS COWPER- SMITH, CEO OF SPRING LOADED TECHNOLOGY