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James Rife of Canalyst presents What Went Right
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James Rife of Canalyst presents: What Went Right
Watch on YouTube ↗
Founder Fridays: Newsmaker Insights
Listen to the episode ↗First seen on the TechTO & TechVancouver stages in 2017. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about James ↗
In their words
We don't like to measure progress by headcount, because that just means you have to write a lot of checks at the end of every month.
That's actually probably the biggest lesson that we have is getting in people's hands and then build something where your clients will do the convincing for you.
not to mistake feedback for validation a lot of people you'll talk to in the very early days of a startup will they might know you from other Industries they'll try to be nice to you
not to mistake feedback for validation
get it in people's hands and then build something where your clients will do the convincing for you
get them to kind of put their money where their mouth is, write you a check, prove that it's useful, prove that it's something that you're building will solve a problem
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Quick answers
Who is James Rife?
Co-founder of Canalyst, a Vancouver financial-data and equity-research platform he started in 2015 with Damir Hot. He led research there until Tegus acquired the company in 2022. He is now a managing partner at Alphaninja Partners.
What happened to Canalyst?
Chicago-based Tegus acquired Canalyst in August 2022 in a deal reported above $400 million. The team and product became part of Tegus.
What did James Rife speak about at TechTO?
At TechVancouver in 2017 he gave a 'What Went Right' talk on the first two years of building Canalyst — building a product useful on day one, not mistaking feedback for validation, and letting early customers do the selling.