Sydney Wong
Entrepreneur | Angel Investor | Speaker
Sydney Wong – How happy is your customer?
“Your attention in marketing is the most expensive thing that you can ask for from your audience.”
ABOUT
I grew up in Victoria BC. I’m the first generation of my entire family born in Canada, or any first-world country for that matter. Growing up, I sold a lot of chocolates and cookies to raise funds for UNICEF and things like that at school. Fun fact: After my first year in University, I was qualified for zero jobs so I ended up selling knives. I once cut myself during a demonstration, which did not work out well.
After graduating from McGill, I did a Master’s in Paris at a school called ESEC in International Marketing. I came back to Montreal, worked in online marketing and web marketing since then. Those were booming industries back in 2009 when I started. I actually did my internship at Ogilvy and Mathers, which is one of the biggest advertising firms in the world. Technology was moving fast at the time and it was the only place where innovation was taking off like crazy.
That’s where my career started in fields like marketing automation and CRM. I began managing websites for Procter & Gamble in Montreal. I also worked at WebMD, where I did online marketing for 112 pharmaceutical clients – mainly newsletter and email marketing. After that, I worked as a consultant for marketing automation. That allowed me to travel a lot, and I even lived in Silicon Valley for a while. I met with friends there, and went to tech conferences. I was told that if I wanted to learn more about tech, this was the place to be. Luckily I was offered an opportunity from my friend and just hopped on a plane to move there with a one way ticket. I moved back to Montreal to start my company.
I started this when I knew who I wanted to help after my life in technology. I wanted to help startups who were going to change the world one day. A friend of mine then said that if I was serious about tech and startup, I should move to Silicon Valley so I did. I moved in with him. When I returned to Canada, I wanted to bring that kind of startup structure and energy. So I traveled across Canada on a shoestring budget to research the biggest pain points from startups and investors and how to help.
The biggest pains for startups are that they do not know how to get to that next step in their business and have trouble with funding. Currently, VenturX has both cross-industry startups from across the country and investors on our platform. We provide a dashboard to measure product market fit, runway, conversion and engagement. The startups can compare their business metrics to other companies in that similar industry; when they feel ready, they can submit it for funding to our investors. The metrics help startups know where they stand and help investors cut their due diligence time. These metrics were constructed from our Board of Advisors which includes investors, grantors and bank partners who fund startups.
Since starting VenturX, we have won Startup Canada’s Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, won top 6 startups in Montreal by Startup Canada, featured in Innovate Montreal Book in 2019, nominated for RBC’s Woman of Influence and, nominated for 3 Small Business BC Awards.
THE FULL INTERVIEW
Sydney Wong
The full #OPNAskAnAngel talk