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Booted out of Bootup Labs

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Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#161

Post by cperciva »

fnid2 wrote: post #139
cperciva wrote: post #2

When I saw this title, my immediate thought was "hmm, I wonder if this is about Bootup Labs?" I've met the people behind Bootup Labs, and I like them. They're smart. They're enthusiastic about what they're doing. But I was never really convinced that they were able to make things work financially. I've seen enough startups that I can usually tell when a startup is running on fumes and spending all their energy on try…

I don't think it is your responsibility to apologize for bootup labs or on behalf of all vancouverites or canadians for that matter. I've interacted with the bootup labs team on more than one occasion and have never gotten a good impression from them. They are the kind of middle men who take too much from entrepreneurs and give too little. I feel bad for anyone who is convinced to enter into their system, both entrep…

I don't think it is your responsibility to apologize for bootup labs or on behalf of all vancouverites or canadians for that matter.

Most of us are really sorry about this. A few of us take ourselves far too seriously.

Any entrepreneur considering joining the bootup labs program is better served to keep their day jobs and bootstrap their company without bootup labs.

For what it's worth, I considered Bootup Labs and decided that I was better off continuing to bootstrap -- but I'm not sure that what was best for me is necessarily best for all startup founders.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#162

Post by [deleted] »

dannyrobinson wrote: post #24
cperciva wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of program offers $100k to that many groups and doesn't follow through? Not to be facetious, but: A program which doesn't have as much money as they're offering people. The founders of Bootup Labs put some of their own money in, but they're raising money (or trying, at least) from VCs for the rest. They're paying themselves [EDIT: or not -- see reply from dannyrobinson below] from the $50k/startup managemen…

As a manager of Bootup, I can assure you that we haven't been personally paid anything. The $50k is funnelled through the company to maximize canadian tax credits, which can amount to a meaningful amount of money. And it's used to pay for rent, legal, accounting, and other services that are for the benefit of the startup.

[deleted]

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#163

Post by rdl »

rdl wrote: post #112
9oliYQjP wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting a company in Canada among 2 or 3 people is easy. I should know because I did it when I was a teenager. It cost me $15 for some incorporation templates, $150 for a name search report showing potentially similar company names to the one I wanted to start, and $350 or so in government fees. This got me a company incorporated provincially. You can do it federally too but it's a bit more complex. If you have as m…

I like accelerators for two reasons: 1) Having a same-time-founded cohort of companies. Moral support, entertainment, and when ~80% of them fail, you can pick and choose assets (great developers) having great visibility into them. 2) I like the idea of accelerators for people with $0 and just out of college or high school, or who need structure. If I could give 5% of my company to give an accelerator a win (both in m…

(I saw I got voted down and should explain)

I think the odds of failure at 50-80%, including my own company, and having a bunch of ready ways to re-deploy those people into other projects is good for EVERYONE -- the engineers can move to the most successful projects. If I worked on something for a year or two and it flopped, I'd love to go work at a startup I'd been following the whole time, rather than trying to find a regular job.

I think SFBA in general is basically an incubator/accelerator, if you've been involved in one startup even as an engineer. Formal accelerators help a lot more in places where most of the people who want to do a startup have NOT yet worked for one. College would be the best example.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#164

Post by Mocker »

fnid2 wrote: post #139
cperciva wrote: post #2

When I saw this title, my immediate thought was "hmm, I wonder if this is about Bootup Labs?" I've met the people behind Bootup Labs, and I like them. They're smart. They're enthusiastic about what they're doing. But I was never really convinced that they were able to make things work financially. I've seen enough startups that I can usually tell when a startup is running on fumes and spending all their energy on try…

I don't think it is your responsibility to apologize for bootup labs or on behalf of all vancouverites or canadians for that matter. I've interacted with the bootup labs team on more than one occasion and have never gotten a good impression from them. They are the kind of middle men who take too much from entrepreneurs and give too little. I feel bad for anyone who is convinced to enter into their system, both entrep…

What are some of the better startup incubation programs?

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#165

Post by hello_moto »

henryprecheur wrote: post #145
hello_moto wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What constitutes R&D expenses if I may ask? I used to work at a startup that makes no money at all. They asked me to sign some sort of "fake" stock options as part of the SR&ED requirements. Of course the numbers were meaningless (pennies or whatnot). So I'm very interested on how this works.

I think this includes your salary/compensation. That's probably why they asked you to sign those stock options, so they could say "Hey look, we paid this guy $X for R&D. That's a tax credit of $Y."

I'm speechless, that's pretty darn good.

What if the startup is a one-man show, making money and start to pay himself? Sort of like owner-but-paid-annually? (Or maybe a one-man consultant).

So let me get this straight, let's say a startup has 4 employees and each employee got paid $50k annually. When the SR&ED is done correctly, the owner can get at least 50% back from the salary alone?

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#166

Post by hello_moto »

chollida1 wrote: post #159
hello_moto wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What constitutes R&D expenses if I may ask? I used to work at a startup that makes no money at all. They asked me to sign some sort of "fake" stock options as part of the SR&ED requirements. Of course the numbers were meaningless (pennies or whatnot). So I'm very interested on how this works.

For my company it's pretty much any expense related to an engineer. Salary, rent, power, computer, etc.

So to clarify: almost all expenses (hardware purchases included) will be reimbursed 50% by the BC?

Can rent be substituted as mortgage (say working on your own garage)?

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#167

Post by dustingetz »

gonepostal wrote: post #37
reitzensteinm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, they're really clutching at straws. The legal fees were presumably spent setting up a Canadian corporation. What use is that to the founders now? Similarly, the rent being paid - the cost of throwing all your stuff out (and presumably having to buy it again later) will be for most people way higher than a few months worth of rent. It's often too easy to jump to the wrong conclusion... but I'm struggling to see a…

Correct me if I am reading too much into their response. But it sounds like they were at the tail end of closing a round of financing. The investors didn't like some of the startups in the current cohort so they made it a requirement that Bootup cut them from the program before the new round closed. So instead of honoring their word they choose to take the money. Very poor business practice IMO.

seems if they didn't take the money, everyone loses

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#168

Post by jacquesm »

puredemo wrote: post #48
dedward wrote: post #41

Can I just say that the fact that either party here is duking this out in a public forum is just..... unprofessional? Especially from the VC firm itself? I suppose I'm a newcomer to this "VC/incubator/startup" community - but in any other life situation, when I decide to pack up and move somewhere far away, I make sure I have stuff in writing, and cash in the bank, and all my i's dotted and t's crossed before I quit…

Well, unfortunately I think Bootup Labs had to respond to the claim that they "had no money".

It seems that much was true though, at least it was at the time. When you commit to funding 7 start-ups you have to have the full amount for that sitting in the bank. If you have only enough to fund four then the correct claim would be 'not enough money to cover all investments', which is only a small step from 'no money' since it depends on which startup you're looking at whether or not they have money.

If there had been only three start ups and 0 money then the situation as far as those three startups is concerned would be exactly the same.

It's not for them to look in to the bank accounts of their investors, but if you're not getting what is promised then 'you have no money' turned out to be a pretty good guess at the state of affairs. "Not enough money" would have been more accurate though.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#169

Post by shawn13 »

hello_moto wrote: post #166
chollida1 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my company it's pretty much any expense related to an engineer. Salary, rent, power, computer, etc.

So to clarify: almost all expenses (hardware purchases included) will be reimbursed 50% by the BC? Can rent be substituted as mortgage (say working on your own garage)?

Basically, no. It is 50% of the loaded labor rate of all employees doing R&D activities on projects that your liaison agrees qualify as R&D. When you work out of your home, rent/mortgage on your home are specifically excluded as business expenses (by CRA), so they can't be included. Working out of an office, you get about 65% of salary back; out of a basement (my situation), it is basically 50% of salary.

Oh -- hardware purchases and the like don't count, and you have to be able to prove the salary was paid, so as far as I know there is no game to be played with stock options.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#170

Post by chollida1 »

shawn13 wrote: post #169
hello_moto wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to clarify: almost all expenses (hardware purchases included) will be reimbursed 50% by the BC? Can rent be substituted as mortgage (say working on your own garage)?

Basically, no. It is 50% of the loaded labor rate of all employees doing R&D activities on projects that your liaison agrees qualify as R&D. When you work out of your home, rent/mortgage on your home are specifically excluded as business expenses (by CRA), so they can't be included. Working out of an office, you get about 65% of salary back; out of a basement (my situation), it is basically 50% of salary. Oh -- hardw…

> hardware purchases and the like don't count

Odd, we got to put the entire amount of the Tesla grid that we put together towards the SRED credits. Having said that I just filled out the paper work and handed it to the lawyers and accountants, perhaps they took it off afterwords?

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