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Little was planned. Much fun was had. Is there a better way to soft-launch the TNT happy hour in YYC?
On August 3rd, Tim and I drove down to Calgary in a Hondo Civic that had surprisingly little trouble fitting two road bicycles in the back seat. Two-time TNT investor and owner of M-Tech innovations. Idan Shoham greeted us in YYC, gave us a tour of his building, and found at least one other cycling buddy, Josh from Goodlawyer, to join us for an afternoon cycling tour of everything Calgary has to offer. After we visited the new Platform Innovation Center, enjoyed a rooftop lunch of pizza and beet salad overlooking the Bow, talked startup community activation strategy with the new Director of the CIC, we hooked up with Idan for a 42 km trek down the elbow river, around the Reservoir, and right back to the new home of the TNT YYC happy hour: Craft Beer market on 10th.
We showed up hot and sweaty at 5:30 pm, and our table was already full with 10 guests that didn’t register but just showed up to the soft launch party. We immediately felt at home. The waitress poured a cold Hazy IPA as the Executive Director of Innovate Calgary explained a brand new program they are launching to provide seed funding, mentorship, and advisory support to the University of Calgary's commercialization teams.
Richard brought his new team members from 10 Adventures and gave away hats (the guy knows how I love baseball caps). Josh invited us to the Goodlawyer Summit in November. Mike from Levelling up came by with his wife and the inspiration for his startup connecting seasoned artists with understudies. He also brought a founding member of Alberta IoT that would like to invest with us at the next summit!
YEG investor James Freeman just happened to be in the area. He dropped by briefly for a drink joined by fellow investors Jade Alberts and Trevor Dufresne – foreshadowing the day when we can all visit any city in the world on a Thursday and know there’s a great local watering hole for entrepreneurs, investors, and scientists to meet up for a welcoming drink. Carl from our first YYC summit joined us as well, as did a coterie of Cherry Health team members. Jon from Spot, winner of the Spring TNT Investment Summit in Calgary, told us about playing rooftop bocci with his office neighbours as he bounced between Guinness and the ‘Strongest IPA you can find.’ It turns out he used to go Elk-Hunting with Adam from YYZ startup Briefbid.
We left Calgary feeling positively uplifted by the can-do spirit Calgarians effuse every day.
Zack!
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