The Founders Alliance held a great “FREE LUNCH FOR FOUNDERS” event on November 13 at the Fatboys BBQ attended by 60 Founders. The event sponsored by Fatboys Restaurant, Secureship and Videotelephony featured a delicious lunch provided by Fatboys BBQ and allowed Founders to network. Following lunch the Founders assembled in small groups and exchanged ideas around what Founders need to grow their businesses.

Centered around the ABC Building Blocks of Advocacy, Benefits, and Community to help businesses cross the chasm from Start-up to Scale-up, the participating Founders engaged in lively discussions. They noted their ideas on paper covered tables, cue cards, and twitter feeds. All the ideas will be processed and the discussion will continue on the Founders Alliance website. The purpose of this exchange is to identify Advocacy, Benefits, and Community initiatives that Founders need the most and to help fill those gaps by making Founders aware of existing initiatives in the ecosystem and by developing new ones where none exist.

A – Advocacy – articulating and amplifying Founders’ needs… from CrowdFunding to Centres of Excellence: Tell us your advocacy priorities so we can be your voice.
B – Benefits – building and sustaining relationships that help Founders grow their businesses… from mentors to actual customers who are interested in your products, group buying and more.
C – Community – creating and contributing value to the entrepreneurial eco-system… from GEW to a Startup House.

This Alliance grew out of the Lead to Win program started at Carleton University and is now expanding with the goal of creating a framework for helping Founders grow from Start-up to Scale-up. If you are a founder of a company join the discussion.