My Facebook account settings are configured to notify me by email when my friends update their walls. At 7:03 AM Calgary time yesterday I received the Notice of Status Update I had been praying for – an update from our son Robin who is in Japan teaching English for a year. “I’m safe” was all I needed to see. The posts on Robin’s wall from family members and friends sending him love was very touching. It reminded me that we belong to a global family. My life as an entrepreneur took a day off yesterday and I focused instead on how I could help our brothers and sisters in Japan.

Robin is teaching on the island of Goto in southern Japan but we knew he was taking a week off to tour a Canadian friend around parts of Japan including Tokyo and Kyoto. When our sons were in junior high, we traveled to Japan to show them the culture they had been studying in social studies – nothing like being on the ground face-to-face with the culture to make course material come alive.

Robin was captured by the beautiful people, scenery, temples and history of this region of the world. I wasn’t surprised when he told us he had applied to the JET (Japan English Teaching) program when he was completing his Global Development degree at Queens University last year.

We are waiting on word of the fate of the over 1,600 post-university students from around the world who are teaching and traveling in the region. We join the rest of the world and offer our thoughts and condolences to the people of Japan. If you want to be part of the relief effort please contact the following agencies in Canada:

Canadian Red Cross
Save the Children Fund
World Vision

The Humanitarian Coalition

If you are looking for a loved one, please visit Google’s new tool, Person Finder.

What’s all the fuss about? I said yes, I’d invest. Okay, it’s the first time since I started hearing pitches on BNN’s The Pitch. “What’s so special about Neil Raj’s pitch for AdCommunal?” over 10 of you asked me by email. Let’s work through it.

The business owner perspective

When I appear on the show, I’m wearing two hats – one as a business owner and one as a venture capitalist. From a business owner perspective, I was not sold on AdCommunal’s value proposition for delivering leads. As a business owner, I want sales, not leads. John Varghese (VentureLink Funds) and I sparred in a friendly way over this perspective. Sales contribute to “top line” revenue. Leads might, but there’s no guarantee a lead will become a customer. Want cash flow? Focus on sales, or conversions, as we say in the online business world.

The venture capitalist perspective

From a venture capitalist perspective, I loved AdCommunal’s business model. Here’s what stood out for me:

1.       Neil Raj has credibility – he’s worked in the online adverting world and some of his previous employer companies were sold for multi-millions.

2.       Neil Raj is smart and articulate – he nailed his answers on the show (okay, his answers cut into my airtime, but I’ll forgive him).

3.       Pay-for-performance models of online advertising are taking over traditional “you pay us a fortune, and we may deliver conversions for you” models – so AdCommunal is early stage in the life cycle.

4.       Huge growth potential.

5.       Exit opportunity – AdCommunal could be built for an early and lucrative exit – for Neil and his investors.

6.       AdCommunal is cash flow positive – and has been since day one posting $2.5 million in revenue for 2010.

So I said yes. Easy – subject to due diligence. I did raise a concern over Neil’s team. I want him to build a stronger, better known team with a track record.

Want to attract VC money? Build a business model that speaks to credibility, team, concept, growth and traction. I like saying yes.

Have no idea what I’m talking about? Watch the February 2 episode of The Pitch online for free on BNN’s website. Let me know what you think!

Today, GoForth Institute’s founder and president, Dr. Leslie Roberts, completed her second stint as panelist on BNN’s new show The Pitch. On today’s episode, we saw Scott Riesebosch, owner of an LED lighting company who aims to save consumers money, and Rachna Prasad, co-founder of a business offering pre-packaged, authentic Indian meal kits.

If you missed today’s episode, you can watch for free online! Visit The Pitch’s website and look for the videos dated December 8. See which entrepreneur’s 90-second pitch got the green light from Dr. Roberts and the other panelists! What did you think of today’s pitches? Did the panelists make the right decision?

Want to pitch your business’ next great moneymaking idea on the show? Email us!

I have been participating in USAID’s Global Pulse 2010 online worldwide collaboration of minds for the next 24 hours (the event has been going for two days now) with individuals who have been invited to share their perspectives on global social issues, entrepreneurship and development.  The thread I’m keen on is Pursuing Grand Challenges defined as:

The current relationship between economically have countries (Canada, USA, western Europe) and poor countries is not great. We would expect that in the current Global Era, with better and cheaper ways of communications, these relationships would improve – but in reality it is deteriorating. I do not think the problem is failure of foreign policy. The real problem is Expectation Gap – what is each partner expecting from the other? Are these expectations based on reality? How can we abolish this gap?

Pot-stirrer that I am, I posted this to the community:

Perhaps the real question is: what should be the engagement between rich and poor countries? Should economically rich countries even be active in development – and in what ways? There are many options for engagement – foreign policy, micro-finance, technology sharing and so on, but to me the question becomes one of philosophy rather than pragmatism. Should we be there? Why? Should we not take care of social problems in our own country first before we head off to save the world? And, point of clarification, we are all “developing” countries to some extent, are we not?

Should we ”developed countries” assist “developing coutries” and if so, how?  Do we have the right?  Morally or ethically? What do you think?

Do you want to know how to start a small business? Are you looking for for advice and training to grow a business you already have? If so, welcome to the GoForth Institute entrepreneurship blog! GoForth Institute offers Canada’s first and only national entrepreneurship education, delivering training for small business owners at all levels.

If you’re thinking about starting a small business, ready to start your business, in the early stage of entrepreneurship or wanting to grow an existing business – watch this space. We’ll cover all kinds of topics related to entrepreneurship: small business tips, news, advice and updates on GoForth Institute’s small business training and events. It’s your source for unique entrepreneurship discussion and insight!