When Sue Speaks, Everyone Listens! (Lessons from a Very Successful Serial Start-Up SHE-E-O)

 Listening to Sue’s wisdom and advice is like attending your favorite concert…you soak up the experience and jump to your feet asking for an encore performance so you can treat yourself to more!

Welcome to Part 2 of our 3 part video cast series of the April 2008  Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance’s Women in Technology’s (CATA WIT) Symposium on Technology Entrepreneurship. The event featured some very impressive panel discussion members and keynote speakers, including a highly successful serial entrepreneur, Dr. Suhayya (Sue) Abu-Hakima. People nation-wide and beyond line up to hear her speak and we were privileged to chat with her first hand.

Sue is the President and CEO of Amika Mobile, a pioneer in automatic content analysis for mobile phones offering a variety of valuable features including sending SMS/ email alerts by phone (better yet, check out their website for an interesting demo at www.amikamobile.com). This is Sue’s second start-up…and I have a feeling that it won’t be her last!

Sue is also an award winning entrepreneur in high technology, a great inspiration to many (women and men entrepreneurs alike!) and as mentioned earlier, in high demand to speak to future great entrepreneurs. We were very privileged and grateful (thank you again, Sue!) to sit down with her for a solid one-on-one session so that we could share her rich wisdom with you, including:

• her best advice for start-ups on the rise
• how women should try raising capital and deal with VCs who think women are risky (!)
• how to encourage more women to join the hi-tech start-up league
• her thoughts on the global venture cap/start-up community
• accessing valuable resources, VCs and connections for women entrepreneurs via initiatives like CATA WIT and Springboard Enterprises

Amongst other interesting facts, Sue shared that less than 4% of start-ups in North America are VC backed…and that only 0.1% of all venture backed companies in N.A are female-led. But, I think with incredible leaders like Sue and organizations like CATA WIT and Springboard, we are better armed to really start turning the tides!

If you’re ready to be mesmerized by Sue, do go ahead and click on the PLAY button of our video-cast.
 

But, if you missed Part 1 featuring John Reid (President of the CATA Alliance) and Susan Read (President of Susan Read Talent and a co-organizer of this impressive event), please click here and you’ll learn how WIT was born and hear some practical advice that you can put in place right away.

Come back again soon for Part 3 when we will introduce you to a fine sample of a few of the participants with whom we had an opportunity to chat for a few moments including Louise Thiboutot (Business Development Director at Montreal International), Monique Letourneau (EVP Finance and CFO of Ambrilia Biopharma - a company that rose from start-up to public listed successfully surviving all the financing experiences one can imagine!) and Anastasia Serebrianaia (a young, dynamic entrepreneur from Russia who is now on to explore similar ventures here in North America as a start up student on the rise!)

Thank you for visiting VC-TV and see you again real soon!