Montreal Tech Watch

Today was demo day for FounderFuel, a program managed by Real Ventures, which takes on the “accelerator” trend in startup circles all around the world. The idea is to invite and select teams from all over the world interested in focusing on their startup project for a period of x months, generally in exchange for funds enough to pay for basic costs, in this case $20k if you were a team of 2 co-founders.

12 weeks later, FounderFuel has invited the investor community & friends to check out the 9 businesses, and it’s undeniably a great success, in terms of quality of the startups, and maturity of the businesses. At the beginning of the event, John Stokes also reminded the audience of the FounderFuel program’s position in the local startup eco-system.

The 9 startups are ooh la la, blame stella, editola, playerize, player takes all, willett, SeeVibes, vuru and wavo.me. They operate in the social, mobile, and media space with each one of them having an advanced product and a pitch on how they’re going to be the next big thing. A few has already announced closed funding rounds, others have already paying customers, or have that hockey stick curve that most entrepreneurs fantasize about.

As for the event in itself, it was a great lesson on pitching. The CEOs presented big numbers, announced bold plans for the future, partnerships, never-ending distribution deals, as well as creative and smart monetization plans, highlighting new opportunities. I was expecting more demos, as the name of the event suggests, and a few presentations reminded me more of what smart MBA friends can do, but the presentations (and the program in itself) were targeted to investors, so that might reflect the current startup landscape. Less democamps and barcamps, and more investor-friendly presentations, where closed funding rounds means success.

In short, if you were thinking of doing a business school, apply instead for FounderFuel. If you’re a programmer who has a good product but has little idea on how to make money out of it, you’re also a good candidate for FounderFuel… Although if you’re still scrambling on how to build a product or if you’re interested on how to solve a hard technical challenge, it might not be the right fit.

Congrats to the Real Ventures team, and to Ian Jeffrey, who’s done a great job. It’s very impressive and just took the local startup process to a whole new level. With the program now a proven success, they’re now accepting new applications, up until end of Jan 2012. Check it out.