Jade Raymond is Managing Director and studio head of Ubisoft Toronto, where she is building a multi-title AAA game studio that is expected to go from zero to 800 employees within the next 10 years. As Managing Director, Jade is responsible for studio strategy, executive management and production oversight. Jade also serves as Executive Producer for Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell franchise. Prior to joining Ubisoft Toronto, Jade was best known as co-creator and Executive Producer of Assassin’s Creed, which won critical acclaim and multiple Game of the Year awards.  The Assassin’s Creed franchise has sold over 30 million units across all titles worldwide. Jade is also a member of the Women in Film and Television (WIFT-T) Board of Directors.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/jade-raymond/

Brian Wong is the co-founder and CEO of Kiip (pronounced “keep”), a category-creating mobile rewards network that is redefining mobile advertising through an innovative platform that leverages “moments of achievement” in games and apps to simultaneously benefit users, developers and advertisers. Backed by Hummer Winblad, Relay Ventures, True Ventures and others, the company has raised $15.4 million in funding to date.  Kiip has been listed by Forbes as one of the 4 Hot Online Ad Companies to Put on Your Watch List, and been named to the Dow Jones FasTech50 List.

Called the youngest person to ever receive venture capital funding by TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal, Brian received his Bachelors of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia at age 18, after skipping four K-12 grades. He has been recognized with many awards for his accomplishments and leadership, including: the Top 20 Under 20 awards for all of Canada; Business Insider’s Top 25 Under 25 in Silicon Valley and 18 Most Important People in Mobile Advertising; Forbes’ 30 under 30; Mashable’s Top 5 Entrepreneurs to Watch; and the AdAge Creativity Top 50.

Before starting Kiip, Brian led key publisher and tech partnerships at the social news website Digg.com, where he accelerated the company’s mobile presence by launching the Digg Android mobile app.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/brian-wong/

Jessica is Cofounder & ChiefConnector of FounderDating.  She is passionate about helping entrepreneurs through her work and is also a 500 Startups mentor. Previously, Jessica was CEO of Formative Labs and led Business Development and was GM of Platforms at Bebo (Acquired by AOL).  She holds a BBA from University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/jessica-alter/

A visionary in interactive media and monetizing online audiences, Corby led the strategy and launch of Canada’s first premium ad exchange with CBC and Shaw Media, launched iVillage Canada with NBCU/Comcast and secured rights to represent NBA.com, Warner Music Canada and Hearst Digital Media Publishing, and launched Rogers’ Audience Solutions strategy and business operations.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/corby-fine/

I love AngelList.  I truly believe it is disrupting the way early stage deals are being discovered and funded.

When I was with BlackBerry Partners Fund (now Relay Ventures), I used AngelList to virtually meet and screen tons of companies.  I set up Super Fridays for myself, filling my mornings and/or afternoons with back-to-back 30 minute calls with 10-12 companies.  I really recommend this to any young VC looking for both dealflow and honing their game.  The velocity and juxtaposition of all these entrepreneurs, pitches, and companies really taught me how to evaluate deals along the VC spectrum:

• (NO) polite and immediate no thank you
• (NOT YET) check back with traction
• (NOT SURE) send me your pitch deck so I can another set of eyes on this
• (POTENTIALLY) let me bring this up at the next Monday partner meeting and see if someone bites
• (YES) holy moly let me get John Albright right now

All told, I probably screened 150-200 companies every three months on AngelList alone.  Ultimately, after all those Super Fridays, the firm funded two great companies: PubNub and ClearFit.

Now as I sit somewhat on the other side, running Extreme Startups, I am spend time getting VCs to view our companies’ AngelList profiles.  To help figure out what companies should be doing on AngelList to help maximize their exposure, we at Extreme Startups recently had a session with Ash Fontana from AngelList to get his advice.  Ash shared some best practices that I’d like to share with our community.  His advice included a lot of great tips and some common sense details that time-crunched entrepreneurs might glance over.

Company Profiles

1. Fill it out completely.  All the sections and tabs.  Comprehensive profiles are definitely the best so that there is both pertinent and substantive information.  One good tip is for the Founder Bios – include university info as some investors search for key schools.
2. Be open / generous with information.  Specifically for the Fundraising tab, the Deal Terms should be filled out.  You don’t need to put a valuation, but some indication helps investors that look for specific price ranges or structures (convertible note vs. equity).
3. Use graphics – slides, screenshots, graphs, and videos to make a static page pop.

Key tips to stand out

• State the most original thing or function your product and company does.
• Information about the market size is key.
• Name something extraordinary about your company or founders.
• State the hardest problem you solve.

How do you get featured?

For those lucky four startups on the feature page on the front page of AngelList, what is the process to get there?  It’s curated by Ash, who uses a number of different tools to track interest and traction.  Note that there are now over 80,000 startups on AngelList, with ~100 getting added every day.  Only five get featured per week – so only top 0.5% have the chance to be featured.  We are lucky to have our alumnus Granify on the feature page!  ShopLocket, SimplyUs, and Verelo all have great profiles as well (shameless plug).

So what should you do after your profile is up?

1. Be active.  It’s a social network.  Start and engage in conversations.  Follow interesting companies, entrepreneurs, and investors.  Comment on people’s status updates.  Refer interesting deals to other people.
2. Be proactive.  Reach out to investors and advisors.  Ask for referrals and recommendations!
3. Match your offline activity to your online profile.  Add an advisor or investor?  Make sure you AL profile reflects that.  Have your network post and share your traction and successes online!

Other AngelList resources recently launched

• AngelList Docs is in currently beta, and only for US incorporated companies for now.  It’s a great resource to close your deal online, industry standard docs and no legal fees.
• AngelListTalent recently launched and helps startups recruit, while helping talent identify great jobs.  It uses a double opt-in structure, so you only get shown the jobs for the companies you follow.  It’s a great resource for recruiting.

Hacking AngelList articles

Lastly, Ash mentioned he loved and supported the hacking AngelList posts.  Somewhat analogous to the black art of gaming the iTunes stores, there are ways to succeed on AngelList outside of what is included in this post.  I just googled and found a couple of hits.  There are the most useful imho.

• http://www.seedstagecapital.com/2011/07/hacking-angel-list.html
• http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/63010/Raising-Money-On-AngelList-21-Tips-From-Two-Active-Angels.aspx
• http://danielodio.com/how-to-hack-your-funding-by-naval-ravikant-of-angellist
• http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/11062968069/hacking-angellist-or-social-proof

Final thoughts

I really hope more Canadian companies use and publish on AngelList, Gust, and others.  It’s a great way to get your profile out to Canadian, US, and international investors.  Not to mention its a great way for entire cities and regions to get noticed for great deal flow.  Maybe some young VC down south will start arranging their own Canadian Super Fridays…

Please follow me on AngelList! (and Twitter).

Jordan Banks is the managing director of Facebook Canada, responsible for leading and managing all of Facebook’s commercial operations in Canada. Currently, there are over 18 million Canadians actively using Facebook.

Previously, Jordan was the managing partner at Thunder Road Capital, which he co-founded to provide investment and advisory services to early stage technology companies across North America. Jordan was also the chief executive officer of publicly traded JumpTV, a leading broadcaster of sports and international television over the Internet. In 2008, JumpTV merged with NeuLion Inc to become the world’s leading online video and IPTV multi-platform provider.

Prior to joining JumpTV, Jordan served as the managing director of eBay Canada. As the second employee of the Canadian office, Jordan helped launch eBay Canada in 2000. Jordan and his team were ultimately responsible for growing the activity of Canadians on eBay to over one billion dollars in 2007 which accounted for approximately 25% of all Canadian e-commerce activity.

Before joining eBay Canada, Jordan managed the Licensing and International Business group at the National Hockey League Players’ Association and, a lawyer by profession, Jordan also practiced corporate law at Goodmans in Toronto.

Jordan is also a very active and dedicated member of the community. Over the course of the past two decades, Jordan has personally championed numerous efforts relating to raising money and awareness for Alzheimer’s research and care. As part of that commitment, Jordan sits on the Boards of Directors of Cogniciti, The Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases and the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care.

In addition, Jordan sits on the Board of Directors of Well.ca, the Board of Governors of the University of Waterloo and the Board of Advisors of The Mark News, andPOP.com, Polar Mobile and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Jordan is a Charter Member of C100, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurship and investment and he is proud to serve as a business mentor as part of the Next 36, an organization focused on helping launch the entrepreneurial careers of 36 of Canada’s most promising and innovative undergraduates students.

Jordan is a member of the Young President’s Organization and Jordan was previously named one of Canada’s “Top 40 Under 40” honorees – a celebrated, national program that honors leaders for their achievements in leadership, vision, innovation, community involvement and contribution. Additionally. Jordan was named one of the four inaugural winners of the Hugo Boss “Leave a Mark Award” celebrating “men of excellence” in Canada.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/jordan-banks/

Mike Silagadze is the founder of Top Hat Monocle, an education software company based in Toronto. Top Hat Monocle is changing the way classroom instruction is done on a mass scale. Prior to Top Hat Monocle Mike was employee #2 at Miovision Technologies in Waterloo, Ontario where he helped build the R&D team. Mike is a graduate of the University of Waterloo in electrical engineering and founder of the UW Robotics Team.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/michael-silagadze/

If there ever was a gap between science, art, business and technology, Ariel has closed it. Her work converts the workings of the mind into tangible solutions.

Ariel has researched at the Krembil Neuroscience Institute studying hippocampal neurogenesis, displayed work at the Art Gallery of Ontario, DeLeon White Gallery, and opened Toronto Fashion Week. The intersections of these diverse interests have culminated into various lectures with topics such as “The Neuroscience of Aesthetics” and “The Neuroscience of Conflict, featured on TVO’s Big Ideas.

Referred to as the “Brain Guru” by Now Magazine, CBC Radio and the Toronto Star, Ariel has also run a successful real estate business, spent time as the designer and owner of a Canadian fashion boutique, and is a practicing psychotherapist.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/ariel-garten/

Tony Savor is CTO at OANDA Corporation, an international leader in high-speed foreign exchange trading.  He is responsible for next generation systems and strategy.  Previously, he was VP of Systems Engineering at SOMA Networks, developing WiMAX wireless telecommunications systems.  Tony has a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/tony-savor/

Peter is Senior VP Engineering and Senior Fellow at General Assembly. He has presented at a range of conferences including DLD conference, ooPSLA, QCon, RubyNation, SpringOne2GX, Code Generation, Practical Product Lines, the British Computer Society Software Practices Advancement conference, DevNexus, cf.Objective(), CF United, Scotch on the Rocks, WebDU, WebManiacs, UberConf, the Rich Web Experience and the No Fluff Just Stuff Enterprise Java tour.  He has been published in IEEE Software, Dr. Dobbs, IBM developerWorks, Information Week, Methods & Tools, Mashed Code, NFJS the Magazine and GroovyMag. He’s currently writing a book on managing software development for Pearson. He is an organizer of the CTO School http://www.ctoschool.org – an organization in NYC devoted to creating the next generation of technical leaders. He also organizes the node.js meetup in New York and co-organizes the Domain Driven Design and Grails meetups. He is a regular instructor at General Assembly in New York. His presentations cover managing software development, NoSQL, mobile development, Javascript development, Twitter Bootstrap and Javascript frameworks.

http://www.extremestartups.com/mentors/peter-bell/