I will start with the particulars to save those that need just that their time, then I ramble, then I provide some additional info on Mr. Segal. Actually I will fire my rant in there at the end.

Event Details:
Time:
8am - 11am

Date:
Monday April 14th

Location:
Sport Nova Scotia Building
5516 Spring Garden Rd
Class Room A/B - 2nd Floor

• About 2 1/2- 3 hours in length
• Informal/Free
• Small Groups
• Information on VC/Angels and the process.
• Sample Term sheets, documents, business plans, PowerPoints
• Example Pitch or Pitches to show what’s interesting/good/bad
• Open questions for a good chunk of time
• An understanding of my world
• A better feel for my industry and if raising third party capital is right for you
• A good place to start

Signing up is simple: Email rick at jlaventures dot com with the word roundtable in the subject line. Visit: http://www.eventbrite.com/org/53497882?s=896269

Other Dates/Cities:
April 14th Evening - Moncton NB
April 15th Evening - St John’s NF
More cities to be announced shortly.

Rick Segal

His bio from the JLA Ventures site:
Prior to joining JLA Ventures, Mr. Segal was President and Chief Executive Officer of Microforum, a leader in providing integrated e-business solutions in a wide array of industry verticals. Mr. Segal joined Microforum in July 2000 from Chapters Online Inc., a leading Canadian e-commerce company, where he held the position of President and Chief Operating Officer (1997-2000). Mr. Segal began working with Chapters Inc. in 1997 as a consultant on the technical development of the Chapters e-commerce venture. Based on this successful collaboration, he was named the President of Chapters Online in August 1998.

Prior to joining Chapters Online, Mr. Segal was a partner at the international firm of TMS Consulting from 1996 to 1998. Mr Segal worked at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington from 1992 until 1996 as Director of technical services for the Internet Customer Unit. Mr. Segal is also the author of four books on Network Management and Windows software development.

Mr. Segal serves as a director of Planeteye, HealthUnity, B5 Media, MusicIP Corporation, Sirit Inc., and Truition Marketplace Solutions.

There’s more personality on his blog bio:
One-Line Bio: Doing the Voodo VCs do in Canada

Biography - The really short version is this:
I’ve done:
The U.S Air Force, TRW, AEtna, Brightwork, Microsoft, Chapters Online, Microforum (painful!) and JLA Ventures.

I’ve written:
books, code, newspaper articles, magazine articles, speeches, presentations, rants and raves.

Interests
Digital Photography,Sailing,Movies, Cooking

Me Ranting
So this is not really music related, loosely connected - but it is relevant to the bigger picture. See also Jonny’s post: A tale of two Lobsters

We named our label From Here To There for a number of reasons - the significant one here being the physical distance bands from the east coast most overcome to reach a critical mass of people. That no matter how good you were, there just weren’t enough people here to sustain most bands. You had to go down the road.

So for similar business reasons, when I saw a post on Rick Segal’s blog The VC Roundtable Series - Call to Action, where he announced his intentions to visit communities across the country in order to do some VC outreach I had to respond to his questioning whether Halifax should be a stop or not [ and St.Johns etc.]. While larger centers across Canada certainly deserve his time, I believe it is the smaller regions that will benefit more from his visits.

If you ever meet me ask me about my music business plans I have - I have them in various states of completion for venues, social network aggregater(+) targeting bands, USB music related ventures, payment sites, a label and a jam space [those two have been funded at very low levels] and maybe another half dozen all music focused.

The issue isn’t finding opportunities, writing the plans or even finding the people you need on the east coast - finding money however has been a little more difficult. BUt I still refuse to believe it can not be done while remaining on the east coast.

See the SHARE THIS widget at the end of this post [all my posts and plenty of other blogs’ posts as well]? The company behind that [same name] just received $15 million in funding. Add to that the $6 million they already received and that = $21 million dollars for a ^%@#$ widget that has made no money. ZERO REVENUE. So I am quite confident that if you dear reader can invent a widget that actually generates revenue, you too could find yourself funded.

Point being though, I don’t think there is any individual or organization set-up or in the habit of doling out such amounts [and we’re talking about the $6 mil not $15] on the east coast. Particularly not for social media/music widget/donation payment/USB/aggregaters opportunities.

And that is not to say Mr.Segal would be either. But he is part of a small group, within Canada, that is active in the venture capital process. To have him spend 3 hours of his time introducing us to his world could prove invaluable should lessons learned eventually lead to funding for any participants on the 14th, or elsewhere on his trips across the country.

I had another more eloquent post on the matter that was lost due to a browser crash, but will sum my feelings up by mentioning that Mr. Segal’s visit itself represents an opportunity for entrepreneurs here to be funded. Whether via meeting him and eventually landing his support or via learning how to approach others from his talk - you may find you do not have to leave home to find the investment you need. And that will benefit everyone that calls Halifax home.

Quite looking forward to this - Halifax will be the first stop on his tour across the country (VC Roundtable - Block One) so let`s kick it off for him in fine style - hope to see you there.

ALSO SEE: Rick`s post Albert Lai and the Idiot Gap. Perfect reading for anyone planning on attending his session. His post was triggered by the following comment in a Canadian Business magazine article titled The Venture Gap:

As a purely business decision, you’d be an idiot to start a company in Canada, he says, unless you can get some capital from the U.S.

The article and Rick`s post address a number of issues in the Canadian VC scene and makes for a nice basic primer for folks interested in the opportunities available. Definitely worth reading.

Final note: Thanks to Jonny Stevens for assisting with the space hook-up

Related posts:

1. Rick Astley Lives
2. Music Managers Forum Canada Workshop - May 14th
3. Elliott Brood | Tonight [Mar.14th]
4. CD Release Listening Party/Fundraiser for Terratomb + Movie [April]
5. It’s a Nomination Just to be Honoured

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