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Vancouver’s Version One Ventures has invested in and worked with close to 100 startups over the past ten years.
Their portfolio includes Canadian startups Ada Support, Figure 1, Jobber, Manifold, Top Hat, and Wattpad.
Founding Partner Boris Wertz and General Partner Angela Tran have seen teams, ideas, and practices that work spectacularly well. And, they’ve seen others that didn’t work out as expected.
Now they’re sharing their experience and insights in a short handbook on the best practices for startups.
The Startup Handbook is focused on a particular stage of the startup lifecycle—post-Seed to pre-Series B. “Since we primarily invest in seed stage companies with follow-ons to Series B, we are sharing some of the advice that we give our founding teams”, Tran blogged.
This handbook is broken into three sections: building your team; building your organization; and building your investor base.
Tech Talent Canada’s audience will be particularity interested in the “building your team” chapter which includes advises on developing your hiring brand, building distributed teams, and determining compensation.
On the topic of developing your hiring brand, Version One suggests spending time cultivating key audiences. While this can be costly and time-consuming, it is always a very good investment.
Jobber CEO Sam Pillar noted they’ve had a lot of success with a strong presence at meetups. “Donating time for presentations and sponsoring events with food or drinks (if you can) is a positive signal to the community that your company is engaged and committed. Don’t be too sales-y or company focused though—you need to participate from a genuine place of interest.”
Sharing their knowledge with the masses is nothing new for Version One. The Startup Handbook is their third ebook and follows publications named The Guide to Marketplaces and Understanding Social Platforms.
You can download the handbook online. And keep in mind that it is meant to be a living document and will be regularly updated by the Version One team – so be sure to follow their blog for updates.