David Cunningham

Such a great blog post which I suggest every founder read. So many golden nuggets in here. But one that stands out: What are some qualities that you see in the most successful founders? Well, I love smart people, with high IQs, and high EQs, that’s great. But, of the founders that I see, the highest correlation with success is with their grit quotient. They’re not necessarily the smartest people in the world, but their grit and determination are unbelievable. They never give up and always find a way to blast through any obstacle they face. It’s the mentality of “succeed or die” – it’s that kind of determination that wins. #gritcotient #grit #founder #highperformancemindset

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🎉 Something Big is Coming This Black Friday! Mark your calendars and get ready for an exclusive surprise from YYC DataCon 2025. This isn’t your typical Black Friday deal—it’s bigger, bolder, and tailored just for our incredible community of data enthusiasts. We’re cooking up something truly special. We can’t reveal too much yet, but it’s worth the wait. Trust us, you won’t want to miss it. Keep your eyes on this space; we can’t wait to share all the details with you soon! 💥 Details dropping soon! 💥 #YYCDataCon2025 #BlackFriday #BigReveal #DataInnovation #BigDeals

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🎉 Something Big is Coming This Black Friday! Mark your calendars and get ready for an exclusive surprise from YYC DataCon 2025. This isn’t your typical Black Friday deal—it’s bigger, bolder, and tailored just for our incredible community of data enthusiasts. We’re cooking up something truly special. We can’t reveal too much yet, but it’s worth the wait. Trust us, you won’t want to miss it. Keep your eyes on this space; we can’t wait to share all the details with you soon! 💥 Details dropping soon! 💥 #YYCDataCon2025 #BlackFriday #BigReveal #DataInnovation #BigDeals

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How does Big Oh Tech reduce the daily escalations for a Canadian healthcare provider? By conducting a 10-day code review sprint, our developers identified major pitfalls- ✔ Missing data caching ✔ Unoptimized and undocumented code ✔ Absence of code quality checks ✔ Poor code reusability ✔ Inadequate infrastructure P.S - Need help in creating 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 for your business❓ Reach out to us at 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬@𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐨𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡.𝐜𝐨𝐦. #codereview #performacneoptimization #softwaredevelopment #mobileapps #codequality #devOps

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In the current tech landscape, the value of a name can change dramatically, overnight. Protecting your name and your brand has never been more important, something BetaKit learned first hand. Take this from someone who saw her own name take on a life of it's own more than 13 years ago. Important reminder for Canadian companies to consider locking down their .CA top-level domain, even as a hedge against future brand co-opting. Not sure if you should? Search the .CA of your company name and see what happens. I'm talking to you Cohere.

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📢 $15,000 Business Grant for Ontario Business Owners Are you looking to build custom AI solutions that make your life easier, and make you more money? 🎯 Through the Digital Modernization Assessment Program (DMAP), you could qualify for a $15,000 grant to kickstart your project. To qualify for the DMAP grant, eligible businesses must: ☑️ Be incorporated ☑️ Privately-owned ☑️ Generate over $1M in annual revenue ☑️ Have a permanent establishment in Ontario ✨ We’ve worked with companies like Foster Interactive, the Dairy Fountain and Entuitive Workforce to Integrate AI into their operations and boost efficiency by up to 40% within 12 months! Want to see if you qualify? Fill out a few questions and book in a free consultation. -> https://lnkd.in/dg-xypqB #OntarioBusiness #Ontario #DMAP

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In a world of rapid change and complexity, founders are facing increasingly daunting challenges on their entrepreneurial journey. Recognizing the need for a fresh approach, we’re thrilled to announce the launch of the #RealFellowship, a novel program designed to connect our portfolio founders with experienced entrepreneurs - whom we call Fellows - that intimately understand the operational, mental, and emotional challenges inherent in the founder journey. The program aims: 🌟 To provide our portfolio founders with monthly support from human-focused entrepreneurial leaders (fellows); 💫 To nurture a community of leaders dedicated to personal growth by hosting a series of annual leadership development retreats lead by world-class facilitators. The Real Fellowship is part of an increasingly expanding founder education and development approach built around the twin pillars of #SelfAwareness and #SystemAwareness. A term we appreciate to describe this type of development is “#RegenerativeEntrepreneurship”. 👇👇👇 Dive into our newest article covering the Real Fellowship program, our inaugural Fellows retreat held in February, the event's discussions, and our reflections on regenerative entrepreneurship. https://lnkd.in/gdfm82Vq

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🔜 Next week, join our investor Manpreet Deol for an insightful Venture Capital Association of Alberta (VCAA) webinar on B2B SaaS Metrics for Private Companies! Explore essential benchmarks and performance indicators crucial for startup success. 👉 Don't miss this opportunity to gain practical insights into measuring and optimizing performance. Register now to secure your spot: https://lnkd.in/e3JiSGbm #B2B #SaaS #Metrics #CompanyBuilders

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Great discussion. I’ve been blessed to live a couple transformative movements as well. At Acorn we’re focusing on how can we apply AI to specific use cases. Not marketing slogans and lingo. So no, we won’t change our URL to .ai and we won’t confuse our customers. AI is a tool that will solve problems for our users and when they ask how we’ll share the tools we use to build the solutions they like. Our view is that if we do this the trends won’t matter.

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My friends over at Rain Technologies Inc. recently asked me how I go about growing my audience online. This has been a slow process for me and one that I want to do authentically. Buying followers is not a real strategy so I've been focusing on setting monthly goals and this is what I found works for me: 1. Engage with your audience genuinely. Respond to comments, join conversations, and connect with the people in your niche. Find the heavy hitters with a big following and engage with their posts. This can put you in front of new people and gives you an opportunity to showcase your value. 2. Consistency really is key. Regularly sharing content helps you stay on people's radar. I use Hootesuite to see what time is best to post and try and schedule something every day in that window. 3. Find out what content resonates with your audience and create more of it. I try and aim to provide value in my posts - whether that's insights, tips, inspiration, or sharing my story, my hope is that someone will feel inspired by my story and want to connect. 4. Test out different content pieces. You'll be surprised what resonates and what doesn't. The more content you put out there, the quicker you will figure out what people want to learn from you and what they definitely don't. 5. Just start doing it. Stop worrying about what others think. You'll be surprised at how supportive people are and the ones who aren't? Who cares. They're not actually your target audience.

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Regardless which way we lean... Canada's politics is generally boring, but always smart and well balance toward long term prosperity. Until this week! Dear Liberal Party of Canada • Parti Libéral du Canada your new capital gains tax is not just taxing the rich! You are taxing all entrepreneurs, doctors, mechanic shop owners and their future dreams... who use their businesses to save for future retirement. We don't have pensions, EI, we invest everything in our business. We work overtime, underpay ourselves, reinvest the profit back into hiring more employees with an eye on growth and hopefully one day using our businesses to fund our retirement! Your tax policy is retroactive and unfair, you claim it is the super rich, but it will impact any business owner who has been working hard for years to grow their business. And it will set Canada back years. In a world where work is done remotely, specially for tech companies, you are discouraging future entrepreneurs to start businesses in Canada and hire Canadian talent. Please reconsider how you tax entrepreneurship and innovation in Canada! Naheed Nenshi tell me the Alberta NDP is not endorsing a tax policy to punish entrepreneurship and investment in innovation, and it will be the first time I vote NDP in my life! There are smarter ways to raises taxes than this... #linkedin #entrepreneurship #tax #canada

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“The economic headwinds have also created a tough environment for attracting capital to this risky asset class. Simply put, now is the worst possible time to signal a lack of ambition in rewarding risk-taking.” This isn’t just about punishing entrepreneurs. It’s about driving innovation and capital south of the border (and elsewhere). This will affect all Canadians for generations to come. You don’t need to be a tech founder or an investor to care about this.

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Pumped to be in Toronto today for Shopify editions.dev with Barrel CTO Wes. If you're here - come say hi 👋🏼 If you haven’t had a chance to check out the 150+ product updates in Shopify’s bi-annual release, Summer Edition '24, check it out here: https://lnkd.in/gETbX_2P It’s hard to believe we’ve been helping brands launch on Shopify since 2009. A lot has changed in the last 15 years. It's no longer enough for brands to invest in their website alone—they need to meet their customers where they are to succeed. As an agency, Barrel has evolved from focusing solely on a client’s website to examining the entire customer journey, seeking opportunities to enhance how customers shop and experience the brand across touchpoints. Many of our clients are CPG brands, making this approach even more relevant. These days we're working on building Shopify B2B E-Commerce storefronts, designing Amazon content, creating personalized email/SMS flows, and implementing Shopify POS. Shopify has continually evolved with merchants' changing needs and customers' buying patterns. They’re not afraid to embrace partnerships like Amazon Buy with Prime while investing the same energy in POS and B2B that got their core e-commerce offering to where it is today. The Summer ’24 Edition is aptly titled ‘Unified’ and, as usual, it’s a lot to digest. The addition of a “Top 10” summary this year is a great starting point. Among my favorite updates are unified & tailored Markets experiences across B2B and retail, store credit availability, split shipping in checkout, and seamless store pickup between POS and DTC. I'm eager to dive into the Summer Edition '24 with our team over the next few days and uncover new opportunities to enhance our clients' commerce experiences. + Subscribe to my newsletter for a weekly look at what I'm building and learning in agency leadership, life, and e-commerce: https://lnkd.in/eJU8Zpt

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Anyone seeking insights into the tech industry, particularly in Canada, should tune in to my friend Evan M.'s podcast, The Hard Part! Stay informed and stay ahead of the curve. Check out the latest newsletter and podcast - link in the comments 👇 #TechIndustry #Podcast #TheHardPart

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Like in a VC round, finding a lead investor in an Angel round is crucial. The lead does not necessarily need to invest the most. What matters is that they endorse you to other investors. A lead can be a subject matter expert, a well-known Super Angel with a track record, or just someone who believes in you. They will write the first check, did their diligence on your company, and are willing to share their findings with others. Most importantly, a lead believes in the potential of the company and will be more keen to take risks and grow faster. Read a great story about the lead Angel in Shopify, John Phillips: https://lnkd.in/gkCshb9F #angels #leads #funding

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🚀 Always nice - on Monday, May 13, I’m joining the Devtech online panel with tech legends 🌟 Renee Bergeron of AppDirect and Brandon Knight of Zoom, moderated by my good friend Milovan Milic. 📅 We’ll discuss go-to-market strategies, platform and ecosystem developments, and business acceleration insights. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from the best in the business. 🔗 Tune in and be part of the conversation. This is going to be exciting! Link in the comments below! #TechTalk #Innovation #BusinessGrowth #Platforms #Ecosystems #Partnerships

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How an AI-Powered Solution is Transforming Chaos into Clarity in Healthcare Operations Migranium platform is a game-changer for North Western Toronto Ontario Health Team In today’s fast-paced healthcare environment, many health centers are overwhelmed with legacy systems, often relying on as many as 15 to 20 different software platforms to keep operations running smoothly. This level of complexity not only frustrates staff but also creates anxiety for patients, highlighting an urgent need for a more integrated, streamlined approach. Migranium is addressing these challenges by simplifying processes, automating workflows, and reducing manual tasks—all to enhance the experience for frontline healthcare workers and patients alike. Migranium’s journey began in a clinic’s waiting room, where its founder, Tope Ukaegbu, encountered firsthand the inefficiencies of fragmented systems. This moment of frustration sparked a vision for a solution that would redefine operational efficiency, harnessing AI to connect and enhance these disparate systems seamlessly. Think of Migranium as the Zapier or ClickUp for healthcare operations—an all-in-one solution that integrates seamlessly with existing platforms and uses artificial intelligence to optimize workflows. Today, Migranium is already making an impact, having streamlined processes for clients like the North Western Toronto Ontario Health Team, saving users over 30,000 hours for users to date. By automating repetitive workflows, streamlining operations, and offering unmatched configurability, Migranium empowers healthcare professionals to focus on their core mission: delivering exceptional patient care. “We are thrilled with the positive experience we’ve had with Migranium,” says Tiffany Budhoo, System Planner at the North Western Toronto Ontario Health Team. “The online booking platform has been a game-changer for North Western’s operations at the community hub and it has exceeded the organization’s expectations. After evaluating several solutions, Migranium stood out for its robustness, flexibility, and ease of use. The platform is highly customizable, allowing us to tailor it to our specific needs. It’s user-friendly for both our team and community partners, seamlessly adapting to our evolving requirements from day one.What truly sets Migranium apart is the exceptional support provided by their team. We highly recommend Migranium to any organization in need of a reliable, scalable, and adaptable booking solution.” Learn how you can optimize your healthcare operations: https://migranium.com/

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So the Claude AI chatbot is now available in Canada. For non-Canadians that have used it: How does it compare to ChatGPT? Is it worth switching? https://lnkd.in/gZgKE6fR #ai #chatbot #aichatbot #canada #llm #largelanguagemodel

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Are you a Canadian Business Owner? We want to buy software businesses with $1 million or more in revenues before June 25, 2024. If you own a Canadian business, there’s a BIG reason why you should consider selling. By June 25, the capital gains tax on the sale of your business will increase!! Canadian Federal government is increasing the capital gains inclusion rate from 50% to 66.67% on June 25, 2024. At Awesome Motive, Inc. we have no problem finalizing a transaction before the June 25 deadline. We move FAST and can often close deals within 30 days. I have a portfolio of over 40+ software companies that are trusted by over 25 million websites. My focus is acquiring software businesses and holding them for long-term while ensuring that all teams and customers are well taken care of (unlike private equity who's mostly looking to flip your business). If you're interested fill out the form here: https://lnkd.in/esxjuB7p All details you share will be completely confidential. We don't discuss any deals with consultants, bankers, etc. Awesome Motive is fully bootstrapped :)

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