Coming Home: Eleven Years After Silicon Valley

11 years ago I returned to Canada from Silicon Valley after my first startup was acquired. After a 7 yr slog as a lonely entrepreneur, I realized there was a major gap in the ecosystem of access to high-quality network opportunities. The lack of a QUALITY network and access to people that could push me in my first startup set me back… years, yes YEARS!

Enter Metabridge ….

If you’ve never attended Metabridge it can be difficult to understand what it is (or what its NOT). So I hope to help clear some of that up.

Being a startup entrepreneur is difficult. Period. I’ve personally walked through that minefield a couple of times and wanted to find ways to continue to grow and to help others miss a few landmines that I, and many of my friends in Silicon Valley, have already stepped on along the way.

The vision was to create a highly curated community of mentors, venture capital and seasoned entrepreneurs who could give back and support Founders and CEOs along their entrepreneurial journey. What has always been important to me was keeping this the core value. What it was never intended to be was a “free for all” conference. I wanted to create something to help people network UP because that was something I was personally missing and a problem I wanted to solve for me and others.

Unfortunately, in doing so, we/I have taken a lot of criticism over the years outside of the Metabridge community for being “exclusive”. So to set thing straight…We’re NOT exclusive or at least never intended it to be. We are a highly curated and highly facilitated and there’s is a huge difference. I wanted to create something that anyone can come to… you just have to meet certain criteria to do so. Just as other events or programs have requirements and prerequisites, Metabridge is no different. This, inevitably and understandably, excludes some people.

There are plenty of events that are open to anyone and everyone. They serve a purpose, but in my opinion most of them make it difficult for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and partners to sift through the noise.

If you listen to, or read about, anyone successful, curated events are the ONLY events they attend, because of the massive noise the large events create. Our goal is to reduce the noise and create a unique and quality experience.

We also have received criticism for charging the amount that we do. The reality is, a program like Metabridge costs real money and for the value attendees receive and the experiences entrepreneurs leave with, it’s already highly subsidized. I challenge people often to find past Metabridge attendee that regrets spending money on their ticket (I’m sure if you hunt enough you’ll find couple over the 10 yrs). On a side note, many don’t realize that I also personally give to Metabridge with my personal funds and massive amounts of time volunteered into the program every year with no expectation of return or reimbursement.

Those that know me, know that I LOVE to have fun. So, the team spends a tremendous amount of time creating experiences for our attendees that allow them to hang out in unique settings and environments and not inside a stuffy conference room with thousands of other folks listening to boring keynotes while checking their phones, completely disengaged.

Small groups mean higher costs. Facilitating experiences like golf, wine, hockey with NHL’ers, wine, sailboats, wine, live music, wine, and digging big ass holes with excavators (which are all designed to break down barriers), are simply not free.

I’m proud of what we’ve built! Our team is always finding new ways to keep Metabridge fresh and relevant. There’s not many events that last a decade and sell out every year with a waiting list. Not to mention we’ve helped our top startups raise over $450M and have seen 22 acquisitions of our top startups since conception.

Metabridge was started, and continues, because there is a need for high-quality networking and I’m looking forward to another 10 years of building strong relationships!

So that’s the WHY and I hope that clears a few things up.

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One more thing!

To re-enforce this thinking I recently listened to a podcast by Dave Asprey (Founder, BulletProof) and Jordan Harbering (Founder, The Jordan Harbinger Podcast) that spoke of valuing your time and not attending just any event.

Take a listen - (https://blog.bulletproof.com/jordan-harbinger-548/)