Paul's Offers
Coffee & Convo
Free
- In person
- The Nosherie - 575 West Georgia Street, Vancouver
- 30 minutes
- Currently available
Mini Advising Session
$50 (CAD)
- Over the phone
- 30 booking(s) remaining this month
**NEW YEAR SPECIAL** Pitch Coaching Session
$150 (CAD)
- Online
- 1 hour
- 5 booking(s) remaining this month
Introduction
I am a(n):
Volition Advisor + Pitch & Presentation Coach Specializing in Investor Prep
I am also a(n):
Managing Partner at Volition | Serial Entrepreneur | Board Member | Fundraiser | MC and Public Speaker | Father of 3 | Business Instructor at Langara College | Business Instructor at Tamwood College and Global Startup School
What I do:
Building a company is hard, and fundraising can consume a lot of time, energy and bandwidth. I’ll help you keep focus and build a pitch, presentation and/or strategy to guide you on your journey toward success.
I also help manage and host monthly pitch nights in multiple locations across North America. Our events consistently attract between 60-100 audience members and 8-12 startup companies. To date, we have hosted 500+ pitches with 3000+ attendees.
Offer
My Offer:
To help entrepreneurs and startup founders build investor-ready businesses through Pick My Brain calls, Pitch and Presentation coaching, and follow-on advisory sessions. You never know what can come from a conversation.
My ideal target audience:
Entrepreneurs and startup founders who are:
> preparing to fundraise or have never fundraised before
> having challenges fundraising or growing their company, or;
> need help with overall business strategy.
I want to help you:
- Building an investment-ready company.
- Understanding the investment landscape and investors perspective.
- Strategically assessing your capital and financing needs.
- Finding strategic investors.
- The Vancouver startup landscape and community.
- How to reduce the amount of time and energy you are spending on building and/or fundraising.
- How I can connect you to other experienced advisors who will help you build various aspects of your business.
Feel free to also ask me about:
What I am currently working on
Industry trends, insights, observations & opinions
My day-to-day
My education, training & qualifications
My biggest challenges, successes, failures & lessons learned
What success means to me
How I got to where I am today
Recommendations for anyone entering my career or industry
About
Why you might want to connect with me:
I have been an advisor, entrepreneur, and investor in the Vancouver startup scene for the past 15 years. As a result, I have a strong network in the community and have gained extensive experience in capital raising, translating ‘investor-speak’, and understanding first-hand what can make or break a company.
I have a successful track record in scaling companies, building strong teams, negotiating deals and putting investors' money to work, and love leveraging my experience to help other startup founders achieve success in their business and fundraising goals.
A little bit about myself:
I’m a serial entrepreneur with almost 20 years experience launching, managing, raising, exiting and acquiring companies in Vancouver. I love to teach and am truly passionate about passing on knowledge and helping fellow entrepreneurs of all ages and stages of growth.
I have a knack for breaking things down and looking at them objectively. This allows me to give a valuable perspective, critical feedback, and executable advice. My knowledge of how investors think, and what they’re looking for in great companies, pitches, and presentations helps me to provide actionable insights while optimizing time, energy and bandwidth for the entrepreneurs I have the honour of working with.
I’ve recently become an Instructor at Langara College, Tamwood College, and Global Startup School, working with the next generation of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs on developing their business skills.
Professional work experiences:
- Managing Partner, Business Development at Volition Advisors
- CEO at BrickClick Technology Solutions
- Instructor at Global Startup School and Tamwood College
- Instructor at Langara College
Portfolio
My Pick My Brain portfolio:
Startup Client:
This is Artem Buzulan. His volition is building a retail tech company called Instorize that lets you shop from your favourite local retail stores on an Amazon-like marketplace, with real-time price comparisons and inventory, and next day fulfillment.
Excited to have done nine sessions so far, reviewing investor, launch and growth strategy, and practicing his 90 second pitch and presentation, that we created together.
#entrepreneurship #startuplife #startups #businessstrategy
Startup Client:
This is Marshal Finch. His volition is to 100x his startup's growth. Marshal runs a digital advertising firm called SMedia that uses data and AI to help drive quality leads for the retail automotive industry.
Marshal booked me for 10 sessions so that I could help him raise money and scale quickly. We've done 5 of 10 sessions and I have already managed to connect him to multiple potential investors and we've started to put plans into place as to how we are going to reach 100x growth.
#entrepreneurship #startuplife #startups #businessstrategy
Startup Client:
This is Maxine Cunningham. Her volition is thinking about how to best scale her company Pick My Brain. Pick My Brain is an online tool that helps people package and sell their time, knowledge and experience in new, creative and independent ways.
Not only did I partner with Maxine, but I am also helping her refine her pitch, optimize her business model and coach her on scaling strategy.
#entrepreneurship #startuplife #startups #businessstrategy
Awards: StartupCanada Entrepreneur Support Organization of the Year (2018)
Volition is a startup advisory firm.
Volition's mission is to help startups to polish their ideas, connect them to community, and coach them through the startup journey.
Additionally, our Volition Events division organizes and manages quality events for the startup community, provide a safe and comfortable environment for everyone to enjoy, learn, network and connect.
BrickClick is a retail tech startup that I am the CEO of.
It is a retail management platform for medium to large retailers that unifies and centralizes their POS, inventory, products, customers, promos, staff and locations, and allows them to visualize the data that is created as a result.
Brick Click has raised just over $600K to date, and is currently onboarding customers and achieving its first month over month revenue growth.
Fundica Roadshow is an annual cross-Canada pitch competition, hosting some of Canada's best and brightest high-growth companies to compete for incredible exposure and prizes.
Volition has managed the event in Vancouver for the last two years (2017 and 2018), and I MC'd the event each year.
Reviews
My Overall Rating:
(6 Reviews)
Written Reviews I've received:
Ingrid BROUSSILLON
February 10, 2020 | 1-on-1 Advising Session
Review:
Paul was a good listener, started to ask what was my expectation from the meeting and succeeded to make me see on what I should focus on. His explanations were very clear. He gave me a lot of great tips which are very easy and I can apply right away.
As an entrepreneur starting her business alone it's really good to have someone who can understand you and feel what you are experienced.
His advice boost me again to do more!
Thanks a lot Paul, and for sure we will see again!
Ingrid, Founder of Griottes Polyglottes
Antonia McGrath
December 4, 2019 | 1-on-1 Advising Session
Review:
I got a free advisory session after a Volition pitch event, and selected to meet with Paul because of his experience in fundraising and attracting investors. I found Paul's advice and insights to be incredibly helpful, and clearly coming from a wealth of experience and knowledge. He had a genuine interest in learning about my organisation and providing advice specific to my situation and the problems I am currently facing. This session definitely helped me to focus on what I need to do to get my non-profit to the next level. Thank you Paul!
Mahyad Aghigh
November 1, 2019 | Pick My Brain Call
Review:
This was our first conversation ever. I got what I expected (an introduction with Paul and understanding his activities with startups). The value was good considering that Paul does not charge for the first phone chat.
David Luca
May 8, 2019 | Coffee & Convo
Review:
Paul was very knowledgeable and seems to genuinely care about his clients and their success.
Maxine Cunningham, CEO of Pick My Brain
November 8, 2018 | Startup Consulting Session
Review:
6th session with Paul. Continuing to advance the positioning of my startup and in the process of taking bigger strides towards the scalability piece.
Okay we have a functioning product, people are using it, we are making money... now it is time to start thinking about the best and most strategic way to scale.
Paul's is helping me think through that exact problem and his experiences are helping inform my route forward. Already looking forward to the next one.
Maxine Cunningham, CEO of Pick My Brain
August 24, 2018 | Startup Consulting Session
Review:
I booked Paul because I needed to step outside the day-to-day shenanigans of running and launching a start-up and sit down with someone who could help me assess where our company was, where it needed to go and how we were going to get there.
I wanted someone I could talk business, growth strategy, investor strategy and next steps with. Comfortably and seriously.
Paul was it... and then some.
Highly recommended for any serious startup founder who wants to gain a leg up in what they are trying to accomplish. And have fun while doing it.
(Warning: Paul comes with Dad jokes... but his deep and impressive startup network makes up for most of them :p)