Howdy Founders,

📰 It's April: Skiing season’s over. 95% of you squinted at the eclipse yesterday and you forgot to RSVP to our event with Michele Romanow and Andrew Wilkinson April 24th. J-Trudeau and the gov invested $2.4B into AI. Serena Williams (who we still need to get in for an AMA) has invested in 14 unicorns. RBC bought HSBC for $13 billion. Andddd LOI Foudners are quitting their jobs left, right and centre to go ALL IN on their startups.

Special shoutout to the founders jumping ship from their main gig when the path to profitability looks harder to find than that tiny solar eclipse dot we were all searching for yesterday 🧐

All jokes aside, big ups goes to:

• Aidan + Finn for going all in on Reserv Labs

• Andy Ly for going all in on Chakra Nutrition

• And many more we’re likely missing

Fun fact: We’re popping bottles in your honour as you read this 🍾 

Quick pop quiz…

🗞 More Timely LOI News…

• 🥁 Ryan Holmes (Hootsuite), Michele Romanow (Dragon’s Den), Andrew Wilkinson (Tiny), and Peter Pham (Liquid Death) are allll speaking at a Battle Royale Pitch Event on April 24th. If you wanna be there, RSVP. If you want to try your hand at pitching them, be sure to apply here. We have room for 4 Founders.

• 💰 LOI was selected to receive a Catapult Canada grant from the Rideau Hall Foundation to grow our programming

• 📰 CTV News featured Jess & Bryn launching the first AI-fitted bra

• 🧠 Are there enough mental health resources available for young founders? What would you like to see more of? Let us know by emailing [email protected] 

• 🍿 LOI’s demo day for Labs 12 founders is happening May 15th 

• 🎙We’re recruiting speakers. Interested? Fill out your deets

• 🤩 A dozen LOI founders were named in The Peak’s 2024 Emerging Leaders List and BC Business’ 30 Under 30 List

• 💸 LOI Venture dropped $100K into Reusables and $300K into Blossom Social

• LOI alumni Retina Logik raised ~$800K to fight vision loss

Now crank up the Jay-Z tunes, open the curtains & let’s get to our main show

🎬 How to Succeed in Your 20s

A couple weeks ago at an LOI event, we asked Wes Kao (Cofounder of Maven and bestie boos with the Marketing God Seth Godin) what was the highest value decision she made in her 20s.

Her answer?

“writing and building an audience online”

It’s now a question we can’t stop thinking about.

And it seems like Andrew Yeung is someone who also thinks a ton about it. So much so, that he spun up a blog about how to win in your 20s.

If you haven’t had a cortado with Andrew yet, here’s a bit about his background. He’s:

• help product roles at Google and Meta,

• advised and invested in early-stage startups,

• worked as an investment partner at a $1B venture fund,

• and built his own startup which allowed him to quit his job

In his newsletter, he wrote about frameworks to win in your 20s. We loved it. So we wanted to re-share it with you. His big 7 were:

1. Climb more hills

2. Create proof that you can do hard things.

3. Strive to give first (and don’t keep score.)

4. Learn to communicate clearly.

5. Meet 1 new person every week.

6. Occasionally, break free from the herd.

7. Understand that compensation growth is non-linear.

Click below to read Andrew’s full deep dive on his rationale behind each point

🏆 Founder Wins of the Month

Get the tissues ready, cuz these wins may get you a little glassy-eyed 🥲

• 🍾 Saucy Bean is fresh off their FIRST ever trade show 

• 🥳 400 folks used engyne.ai’s Canva integration in the last 7 days

• 🙌 Julie Wang got named in BC Business’ top 30 Under 30 list

• 🎬 CouchHaus pitched Sam Parr from My First Million

• 💸 Xatoms won $15,000 at a pitch-off

• 📈 Addy from Suno Chat increased 500 users with 4000 sessions

• 🔑 Cios launched 187+ rentals in Seattle (Go Terry!)

• 🎙Apricotton won the Forum Pitch Competition!

• 🛒 Neeva just launched as a Saskatchewan product in Sobeys, Coop and Save On Foods, Sandrew’s dropping orders off this week

• 🍔 CaterDash delivered 45,000+ meals for Microsoft, EY, and SAP saving them $600,000+ on food for their events (Go Shreyansh!)

• 😲 Noo Speak has hit 700 users and is releasing a mobile version soon

• 🥃 Some LOI fam hosted a classy Calgary dinner was classy

• 🆓 The founder of STIL Classics gave everyone free journals 

• 🤯 Paige and Harrison from CouchHaus opened a Vancouver store

• 🎉 Shari’s Event w/ Kiran & Arnav at NorthEastern was a huge hit

• 🎤 Jennica Palecek hosted a fireside chat with Sue Paish

• 🥁 Talent Effect’s building a waitlist of B2C brands & creators to test their beta product. Join their waitlist while you can

• 🍷 That Women’s Day Event with Azia, Melissa, Nadia and Liv

• ✈️ The Flight Fud product is taking off if you haven’t heard

• 🏋️‍♀️ The Founder of Trainerize, Sharad, gave a 11/10 AMA

• 🎧 John Sparrow was on a podcast if you wanna listen in🤩

• ⭐️ Zev Sigel (Founder of Starbucks) spoke to our founders

• 🎊 Taza Snacks justtttt launched this past week. Go check it out.

📣 Community Offers

• 💸 LEADS LEADS LEADS! Rocketbrew (founded by LOI Alumni Heidi Ye) automates hyper-personalized LinkedIn and email outreach. Instead of sending a templated message, their AI generates a unique and relevant outreach message (including follow-ups!) for every single lead. The AI gathers scattered data from your lead's online activity and brings it together with your product use cases to form high-converting messages. Rocketbrew is one platform to find leads, generate messages and automate sequences. Curiuos? Start a 100-sequence free trial here and use LEAGUE100 for an extra 100 free sequences

• 🎟 Want free tickets to Startup Canada’s event in Langley on May 15th? Email us and we’ll get you the goods

• 🎤 Abram’s hosting a Toronto business event on April 23 @ 6pm. Learn more by checking it out here

• ☕️ Wanna hire international students to help them gain experience in the startup world? Email our friends at Wayble or fill out this form

• 🎯 IGP is recruiting folks for free board member training. Reply to this email if you want an intro

• 🏠 LOI Alumni Madison Guy from GrantMe is leasing office space in downtown Vancouver. Email us if you want an intro.

• 🛒 Vendor Applications are now open for Alykhan’s upcoming summer market, which will be held at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto over three weekends in July!

🤌 Founder Find of the Week

Your startup bestie-boos,

💙 The LOI Fam

P.S. drop us a follow on IG. You bet your bottom dollar we follow back.