This is the presentation I gave at Algonquin College to graduating students at Incubator Fest. What if Neo had a third option ... "The Yellow Pill"

1. Ian Graham,
Founder and President, TheCodeFactory
ian@thecodefactory.ca
Early Employee or Intrapreneurship
as a LIFESTYLE Choice
Making Startups Happen!

2. About Us
The Team TheCodeFactory
 Startup of Startups
 Bootstrapped Business
 Entrepreneurial
Organization
 Eat our own cooking
 Mmm, mmm good!
Making Startups Happen!
Algonquin Grads

3. It is about you …
Finding Neo
“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
MORPHEUS: – The Matrix

4. Risk
Banker / Founder

5. Lifestyle
Employee / Entrepreneur
 TEST FOR DHARMA
 “If you had all the time and money in the world … what
would you be doing?”
 Do you know?

6. More than a career
Choosing a LIFESTYLE Option
Crazy Ones
Entrepreneurs
The 90%
Employees
Employee Entrepreneur
Banker
Founder
ALL IN
Play it Safe
RISK
Lifestyle
Making Startups Happen!
“Good entrepreneurs learn from their mistakes.
GREAT entrepreneurs learn from OTHER PEOPLE’S mistakes.”

7. Your third choice … the yellow pill
Students and Startups
 SNS-1 was in 2009
 SNS-16 was at Algonquin in 2014
 Our metrics of success are hires and smiles:
 405 Smiles, 32 Hires
 Connecting students to small teams
 Early Employees and Intrapreneurs

8. Early Employee
Student Success Stories …
Abhinav Shukla
Tri Ho
SNS-10 Norada
SNS-12 - Koneka
2 of 32 Success Stories

9. Your third choice … the yellow pill
Intrapreneurship or Early Employee
 Less risk than doing your own thing
 Great way to transition to being an entrepreneur
 Lots of variety of tasks
 You wear many hats
 Keeping career options open
 You’ll learn a lot and develop new skills
www.studentsandstartups.com

10. Parting thought …
Thank you …

11. Please feel free to contact me anytime
Ian Graham
ian@thecodefactory.ca
www.studentsandstartups.com
Making Startups Happen!