Navigating Startup Acceleration Ft. 43 North

Colleen: 0:00

But at the end of the day, we're a nonprofit and we are here to do two things. One, create jobs. Secondly, and arguably just as important is to be an inspiration for this community, right? That you don't have to leave to be successful, that there's cool jobs here, that you can do anything here, that that night is a gift to the Buffalo community. Right? We're celebrating not only 43 north and our announcements, but how far we've come in this space. Right. And there's a lot of people doing it in addition to us. The thought is that as soon as they get here, then they can hit the ground running.

Emilia: 0:30

Calling all startups, accelerators and incubators. Small businesses choose Odoo. But what do startups choose when trying to accelerate growing their businesses? If I have an idea and need the funding, resources, guidance and expertise to make it happen, where do I go? Planet Odo is talking today with nonprofit venture capitalist accelerator program 43 North. They host one of the biggest startup competitions in the world, where they carefully select mentor and fund startups from all over the world. So let's break this down. I want to learn more about this industry from the business side to the event side of it all. You'll hear all the inner workings directly from 43 North President Colleen Heidinger. I'm Emilia. You're curious host and welcome back to Planet Odoo. Hi, Colleen, and thank you so much for joining me.

Colleen: 1:20

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Come up down two floors.

Emilia: 1:24

We surprisingly get a lot of people who are in the building and kind of make that trek for us. So I wanted to bring you in today to talk a little bit about 43 North and its scope nationwide and kind of deep dive into the industry of 43 North. So would you mind telling us what is 43 North?

Colleen: 1:40

Sure. So we are named after the latitude line of Buffalo, which a lot of people question. So we are. Um, coming from that 42 point, whatever it is. And so we're an accelerator program based here in Buffalo fueled by our $5 Million Startup Competition.

Emilia: 1:55

Oh, wow. Okay. And so what is your background and how did you come to be the president of 43 North?

Colleen: 2:00

Yeah, that could take the whole episode. So we were founded back in 2014 as a result of at the time, Governor Cuomo had hired McKinsey to come in and do a study. He had dedicated $1 billion to Buffalo to help it resurrect, resurrect itself. And McKinsey advised that they should do a business plan competition. And our local stakeholders at the time said, well, if we're going to do it, we're going to make it the world's largest. And that's where 43 came from with with a investment pool of $5 million. And that's been the case every year since year one. And so I moved home from Los Angeles in 2014 and had spent a lot of time in events as part of working in the business side of television and film for my whole career in New York and LA, and a high school mentor called and she said, I think I've got it because I moved home and I was very specific and not wanting to work in corporate buffalo. So you can imagine who I didn't desire to work for. I was highly considering starting my own business, but she called and said, You know, they have this huge event that he produced at Shea's. They, you know, are going to help develop Buffalo. This is not corporate buffalo, corporate America, you know, And I also have a degree in entrepreneurship from Babson. So she said, well, actually be able to put that degree to use specifically in this organization. So that was January of 2015 and I started in February.

Emilia: 3:30

Oh, wow. And you've been with the company ever since.

Colleen: 3:32

Yes. Yes. Not certainly wasn't the intent back then to be here this long, but it's it's been a gift. Every day is a gift, no matter how difficult it might be on some. And the impact that we're having on Buffalo just continues to exceed our expectations.

Emilia: 3:49

Wow, wow, wow, wow. So you mentioned this a little bit. The your background in events and kind of being brought into 43 north because of the major event that they host, which I'd really like to talk about. But would you mind speaking about this event's background?

Colleen: 4:04

Yeah, I've always. You know, when you general advice sometimes is like, what did you like to do growing up and I loved setting the table for Thanksgiving dinner and making the name cards and, you know, shining the silverware. As silly as that might sound like, I always look forward to that part of it. Never cooking, never wanted to be in the kitchen, but but did enjoy the organisation confirming with my family members who's coming, who's bringing what all that stuff. So I think it was from back then. And then, you know, in high school I planned the prom and I was on the yearbook committee. So a lot of organization, a lot of spreadsheets, a lot of checklists. And then at Babson, I planned our first fashion show in collaboration with the nonprofit. So it just kind of seemed to be what I was always doing in the background without knowing it. And I do. I love deadlines. I love bringing something to life. I love watching people experience something.

Emilia: 5:06

And find the right people for each part of it.

Colleen: 5:08

Yeah, yeah. And so I was doing it in my role in television and film on a global basis. So television and film premieres, wrap parties, premiere parties, um, you know, trade shows, film festivals, including Cannes Film Festival, um. Auditions. I worked on American Idol, so we would have obviously major auditions with a lot of corporate partners and things like that. So. The event planning is one of those things that I think a lot of people do when they don't even realize they do it. And I was blessed to have an opportunity to really do a day to day in the entertainment industry.

Emilia: 5:46

I'm curious, once you graduate from college, do you move to California immediately to do something like that? Or how do you kind of find an in in that space?

Colleen: 5:55

Yeah, I went to from Boston to New York.

Emilia: 5:59

Okay.

Colleen: 5:59

And I had a friend, a colleague, a girl I graduated from Babson with that was working for the parent company. And she had heard about this opening. It was very much like, you know, something that would happen in Buffalo. And the part of it that ties it all together is I don't watch television. I never have. And I fall asleep at the movies. And so that's why I came home because I'd spent, you know, a large part of my career doing good work, but for not for something I don't really care about.

Emilia: 6:24

Right.

Colleen: 6:24

And so I flipped that on its head and that's why I was so attracted to 43 North

Emilia: 6:29

And entrepreneurship. So, okay, so 43 North is an accelerator with a annual competition. Why Startups? Why choose to work with them? And how does that relationship kind of begin?

Colleen: 6:40

Because we want to, you know, work with the riskiest businesses now. Well, that was identified by McKinsey at the time, right? They thought attracting startups to the area would bring a new level of vibrancy, of hope, of new form of business, really right back in the early 2000, even late, like, you know. What was new and energetic and attracting people like ourselves back here. Really, and that's why we all laughed.

Emilia: 7:09

Right.

Colleen: 7:10

Nick and I did this. You know, if you stayed here, you were a failure.

Emilia: 7:13

Right.

Colleen: 7:14

And so I believe that they chose startups because they were starting to see it work other places in the nation. And so they thought, if we can insert a little bit of energy in a new way into Buffalo with with startups and venture capital, it could be what helps bring us back.

Emilia: 7:29

Yeah. Yeah. When we spoke with Sam Eder from Big Wheelbarrow on one of our last episodes, it was really cool of him to say that what he was seeing in Austin, Texas years ago with the startup scene is now what he's starting to see here in Buffalo. And there's still that sense of community where everyone kind of knows each other, which is how it used to be in Austin in the beginning. But that that transition to like now it's the place to be, which I know is a big part of your campaign. And I thought that was awesome to hear, you know what I mean? That he sees this now being another tech hub in that sense.

Colleen: 8:01

Yeah, it's a it is a compliment to not only 43 North, but there's a lot of us working on this, right. Day in and day out. And it is it's working. Yeah. And it's it's incredible to see it for Buffalo and hopefully for generations to come.

Emilia: 8:16

Yeah. So you said that the type of business that 43 North is, is a venture capitalist or am I incorrect in that statement?

Colleen: 8:23

Well, we are a nonprofit on paper. Okay. So we are a nonprofit. We do invest and take equity. So it's it's, you know, distribution of money via venture capital. But at the end of the day, we're a nonprofit and we are here to do two things. One, create jobs. At the end of the day, we're a state funded organization and that's what matters most. That's what success is measured on for the state, which is our largest funder. Secondly, and arguably just as important, is to be an inspiration for this community, right? That you don't have to leave to be successful, that there's cool jobs here, that you can do anything here.

Emilia: 8:55

Right.

Colleen: 8:56

Which was, you know, the story that is the ECB IPO. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. And it's something we strive for here at Odoo. You know, with the ecosystem of universities and colleges, there's so many in a 50 mile radius that if we can keep those students here, that's even better. Right, that's one of the major problems is that they are still leaving. Right. And so how do we let them know about places like Odoo and 43 North companies and M&T Tech and, you know, all these great opportunities that are good paying jobs right here in this city?

Emilia: 10:15

So a startup here is about 43 North. And what they're trying to do, how do you choose these startups? How does that process kind of begin?

Colleen: 10:15

It's three, four months of judging and diligence by our team and many other judges. We're actually going to iterate on this process more than ever this year with the goal of spending more time on the quality companies, those that are really, really strong fits for 43 North in Buffalo. So it's an enormous process.

Emilia: 10:15

I don't doubt that.

Colleen: 10:15

Yeah, as you can imagine, you know, there's written review, there's virtual pitches, there's a ton of diligence done on our side as a team by legal counsel, by the state. But at the end of the day, what we're looking for and probing on is why companies want to be here and with us right now. Right. Why are money? Why not someone else's? And why Buffalo? Right. Why we of course, you have to come here for a year, but we want you beyond that. We want you to build something like Nick did with Odoo.

Emilia: 10:25

Right.

Colleen: 10:25

And so why are you serious? Long term fit for 43 North in Buffalo.

Emilia: 10:32

Wow. And so then you're even looking past just, you know, high growth potential as long as it and asking them why here instead of Austin or why here instead of New York. Wow. Um, so 43 north. Kind of where it started and where it is today. So how did the business scale and kind of what departments have now become a part of 43 North to help it scale?

Colleen: 10:54

Yeah. So scale is an interesting word for us.

Emilia: 10:57

Okay.

Colleen: 10:58

I we've, we've certainly grown as an organization. Right. Our reputation, our reach, our respect has certainly increased year over year by venture capitalists in this nation, by founders, by other accelerator programs. Right. We're in the top tier of programs for founders, right? We're mentioned with the best of the best, which wasn't happening in the early years. But as a team, we've really spent a lot of time storytelling and both locally and nationally to help bring attention not only to 43 North but to Buffalo. So I think that um, is probably how we have scaled the most to create a strong brand. But we're not, we're not a startup in the sense that you would scale as a business, right? Um, because from a customer perspective, typically that's implying you've reached, you know, increased customers or attracted new. And we are about doing that, but we're about doing it with quality top of mind. So it's actually not about a number which typically was scaling. There are a lot of numbers associated with it. For us, it's a lot about the quality of the companies that we see come through our program, which has gotten better every year.

Emilia: 12:07

Right. And what departments would you say have kind of been a part of that or maybe you have added to over the years?

Colleen: 12:16

We've always had portfolio management. We've always had a leader, we've always had marketing, right? Because remember, we came from, you know, a barely a logo. You know, we created our own logo and website and everything. So but those team have those teams have expanded themselves, right? Because now we're we have 64 companies in the portfolio, right? So portfolio management looks a lot different now than it did back when we had 11.

Emilia: 12:39

Right.

Colleen: 12:40

Right. And the marketing team looks very different now with a social media manager, with a graphic designer, with a videographer. You know, we've brought a lot of skills in-house that we then share with our companies. And so we created this bench of skill sets in a lot of different facets, right? The recruitment team, that would be a team that we added on in kind of the later years here, right? If we're all about job creation, we should probably have recruiters on our team, just like we have the graphic designer and the videographer and the marketing experts and the investor relations team, right? We have finance, accounting. We have all the support that we can lend to our companies. So that is really probably how I would say that we've expanded. But it's been a lot of similar structure. At the end of the day, we're here to do the two things I mentioned.

Emilia: 13:23

Right. So now that a startup has kind of applied to work with for you guys, with you guys, excuse me and be part of the competition. For those who don't know how this process goes, what are the steps if they win the competition or the steps to kind of getting there and moving themselves to Buffalo?

Colleen: 13:43

Yeah. So this year our big event will be October 4th 12th, sorry, here in downtown Buffalo. We'll hopefully have 3000 people once again with us to as we announce the recipients live Shark Tank type event, very, very high quality production. That's also something that makes us different from other programs is it's not in a co-working space with beer. Right. It's a very polished event. And that that night is a gift to the Buffalo community. We're celebrating not only 43 North and our announcements, but how far we've come in this space.

Emilia: 14:15

Right.

Colleen: 14:15

And there's a lot of people doing it in addition to us. So we make it a fun night and, you know, a place where we want to see all generations, right. From my grandmother to my 18 year old cousin and everyone in between. And so, yeah, we get on if they if they are announced a recipient of our investment on October 12th between then and January 1st, we're on the phone with them every other week helping them get ready to move. So we're talking about kids were talking about schools. We're talking about car or not car. We're talking about apartments. We're going virtually and showing them apartments. We're talking about doctors, daycares. We're talking about jobs for spouses and significant others, right. So the thought is that as soon as they get here, then they can hit the ground running. They're not fooling around with apartments. All we help them sort it all out.

Emilia: 15:03

Is this different than what other companies like yourselves would do?

Colleen: 15:06

Yeah, that's very, very.

Emilia: 15:08

And you've been doing this since the beginning?

Colleen: 15:09

Yeah.

Emilia: 15:10

Wow.

Colleen: 15:10

Yeah. So we. We want them to come here and allow the move to be as easy as possible. And so we embrace them. And then also from the business perspective, right, we're already starting to think about who do we want to introduce them to based on who, what they're telling us, who should their mentors be, What programming do we need to have right when they get here to help the business and what it needs? So yeah, that stuff starts before they even get here in the kind of usually November, December time frame.

Emilia: 15:35

And then once they move here, do they automatically I know a lot of them work within your space.

Colleen: 15:41

Yeah. They get free, free space from us on the 24th floor here at Seneca one for the first year.

Emilia: 15:47

Okay. And then after that they can expand within the community.

Colleen: 15:50

Yeah, they can stay on our floor. It's just not free. But it's still, it's still not a ton.

Emilia: 15:55

Yeah.

Colleen: 15:56

So that and then obviously a lot of business mentorship wrapping the services that I talked about around the companies, helping them with anything they need in terms of introductions, mentors, customers. And then of course that that quality of life helping them with all things Buffalo continues on as well.

Emilia: 16:14

Right. So you know, you mentioned your marketing team and obviously you're bringing in companies from around the world. How do you manage that kind of outreach, that kind of like global outreach? And I know that's mostly your marketing team, obviously, but is there anything that you kind of put into place to handle such a large scale out?

Colleen: 16:33

A large of it is partnerships, right? And so we've we've found a lot of quality applicants come from partnerships. So those can be with other accelerator programs that are encouraging their alumni to apply. Those can be with venture capitalists, they can be with corporates, right? That have innovation or venture arms. And so, a lot of what we see comes as a result of that. There's also like a, you know, large marketing campaign with social and SEO and all that stuff, right? That's targeting different corners of the world. But a lot of it comes from personal recommendations and referrals that are provided by our investor and accelerator network.

Emilia: 17:10

Are there any non. The general question are there any non traditional business processes or workflows that you guys implement?

Colleen: 17:19

Probably the judging process. That's something that we we created the platform. We have our own the way in which we go about it, right as well as the application to that built on our own other other accelerators have there's templates that you can buy, but we have found over time it was worth the investment in creating our own. So then to from the judging platform side, we manage all of that as it's kind of custom built for us.

Emilia: 17:45

Wow. And who are these judges?

Colleen: 17:46

It depends on the round.

Emilia: 17:48

Okay.

Colleen: 17:48

Right. A lot of them are local Buffalonians in the early rounds doing electronic review. For us, The second round is sometimes the same people, sometimes more venture capitalists. And then we fly in 40 venture capitalists to help us with round one during finals. And then round two is a chase, you know, with the sharks and the final judges. So. It's a plethora of different people that are helping us determine.

Emilia: 18:15

Wow. Yeah. So then the big event, obviously you have an events background and we haven't really talked to anyone yet on this show about events besides our events team in Belgium that handles just like our annual conference for Odoo. So what goes into planning an event of that size?

Colleen: 18:31

Yeah, that one's pretty massive. Yeah. And there's a lot that goes on that, you know, no one will notice in a good, you know, in a bad way and that the team works. We're already working on it, right? We've had it booked now for a few months that date and but there's so many elements, right? The production itself, what you see on stage, the people, the actors, how do we fill shades, how do we communicate? There's a whole marketing plan behind that. The script itself, the slides you see behind us, the chairs we sit in, right? All of that are very purposeful decisions, what we wear. And so it's a lot. And I love it right? It was my baby. And so it was hard for me to let it go completely, which is why I'm still, you know, not micromanaging it, but certainly stay close to it.

Emilia: 19:20

Yeah.

Colleen: 19:21

But it's a it's fun, right, to see it on paper. To see it, you know, the videos in their many forms before you see them on this, you know, it's just it's a it's a incredible process to be a part of and to see a team like you can't do that with a broken team, right? You can't do that with a team that isn't collaborative. And I think it really allows our team to shine in terms of what they can do when when they put their heads together and, you know, have a love and a passion for that night.

Emilia: 19:47

Wow. Is there any technology or technology, is there any software that you guys use to kind of manage all of these processes?

Colleen: 19:54

Software, I mean, airtable we use, you know, to collect information from our companies, As I said, the judging platform and the application itself. We use Asana daily Tasks organization, all of our OKRs are in Asana slack, you know, nothing crazy.

Emilia: 20:11

Yeah. And I guess it's the people at this point, especially with events, it seems highly people focused.

Colleen: 20:16

Highly in office. You know, we're a work from office first, which is really important to me. And I think a lot of it's important to what we're building, right? It's about community. It's about being together. It's about helping our companies adjust, right. And celebrate the wins and be there for them on the tough days and all that stuff too. So yeah, I'm a I'm also also a I lead with people in mind, too. So for me, face to face time and to see people, see who's tired, see who needs a vacation, you know, that stuff is very important to me. And I'm not getting that as clearly as I can. Over over Zoom.

Emilia: 20:48

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Colleen: 20:49

Yeah.

Emilia: 20:50

So what kind of growth or impact do you want to see from 43 North in the next 5 or 10 years?

Colleen: 20:55

Yeah, I want to see us continue to create jobs, right. And do what we're here to do, which we have figured out how to do in terms of attracting and retaining companies, startup companies in Western New York, we've got it down. So I say this to team a lot. It's like, Well, what else do we want to layer on top? Right? We created a documentary a few years ago. What events do we want to go to? How do we want to continue to build our brand as we talked about? Right. All those things. I think the more we can help this next generation of school students understand what is now possible here, I think is very important to me because it was an awful feeling to know that you had to leave your home.

Emilia: 21:30

Yeah.

Colleen: 21:31

Growing up. Right. And so reversing that and allowing students the opportunity to understand what's here, right? So our team, as much as they can help to spread that message to schools and students and we host students and we go to schools and all the things.

Emilia: 21:48

No, I was the same. I mean, I graduated and left for college and then left again and then almost felt sad when I had to come back. And suddenly I was like, okay, this isn't so bad anymore. Or at least it's different being an adult here, even though you know where everything is, you know who everybody is, right? Like, Oh, right. Well, thank you so much for giving us this kind of I know it's an overview, but thank you for coming in and kind of doing this with us.

Colleen: 22:12

Absolutely.

Emilia: 22:12

It was interesting to hear about you guys and I will be posting about your event with this episode. So if anybody is in the area and is interested, I'll post all the information with this recording. Thank you.

Colleen: 22:23

Absolutely. Thank you.

Emilia: 22:24

Well, that's my cue. Thank you for joining us today. And if you liked it, take a look at some of the other episodes above. We have tons of other stuff. Talk to any expert from the Belgian team or join me and talk to more people from Northam. Go check out all of our episodes on your favorite streaming platform and come back. Bye, guys.