Building a real-world product can be an excellent way to apply your technical skills and learn about business. Especially at the University of Toronto, as University of Toronto is a leader in Canada and among the top five institutions in North America for creating research-based startups. The University of Toronto entrepreneurship community has created over 500 companies in the last 10 years and secured over $1.5 billion in investment. (U of T Entrepreneurship) With the many resources, benefits and programs that the university offers for students to create a venture, this post serves to give an overview of the opportunities and resources for building a company.

The post is organized into the following steps of creating a business

  1. How do you know the startup route is right for you and preparation
  2. Ideation and creating a company, as well as incubators and accelerators
  3. Competitions and pitching
  4. Technical and business-related resources
  5. Funding and venture capital

1. How do you know the startup route is right for you and preparation

One of the best ways to try out applying your technical skills and building real-world products under time pressure can be through participating in hackathons. Here is a list of some hackathons usually taking place in Ontario with approximate dates

  • Hack the North (September)
  • DeltaHacks (January)
  • UofTHacks (January)
  • QHacks (February)
  • ElleHacks (February)
  • UOttaHacks (March)

In addition, you can consider hackathons in the United States at universities like MIT (HackMIT), Stanford (TreeHacks), Yale (YHacks) and many more, with some of them reimbursing the travel upon acceptance.

For more information consider joining the Ontario Hackers discord community where you can find a spreadsheet of the hackathons happening with application deadlines, as well as other resources.

Here is a guide for your first hackathon created by a member of the Ontario Hackers discord community Ryan Mark: Link to guide for hackathons

2. Ideation and creating a company, as well as accelerators and incubators

The main difference between accelerators and incubators is that incubators provide support for companies in the early stage of ideation, help with business plans and deciding the next steps. Accelerators aim to support companies with already an MVP (minimum viable product) and market potential, getting them ready for investment in a short time.

Some of the U of T affiliated incubators

Hatchery Hatchery is one of the most well-known incubators, focusing on hardware, software and technical startups.

InnovED InnovED is the education incubator and home of entrepreneurship education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), UofT.

The Hub at UTSC The Hub at UTSC is an early-stage innovation and entrepreneurship incubator that assists U of T students, recent alumni, and the community in addressing global challenges.

Some of the U of T affiliated accelerators

Health Innovation Hub (H2i) Health Innovation Hub (H2i) is a campus-linked accelerator housed at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. H2i supports early-stage entrepreneurs with the translation and commercialization of ideas into problem-solving designs on health matters.

Creative Destruction Lab Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is a nonprofit organization that sets early-stage, science- and technology-based companies on the trajectory to become massively scalable.

For more information on incubators and accelerators at the University of Toronto see the U of T Entrepreneurship page

The accelerators in Ontario also include NEXT Canada, Velocity, DMZ and others which you can find in the Techpreneurs article

In addition, there are options to join accelerators in North America which include the very well-known YCombinator, Techstars and the newly formed Neo Accelerator. Have a further look at the Forbes article listing the most successful startup accelerators.

3. Competitions and Pitching

Competitions can be an excellent way to get feedback on the business plan and technology, reach mentors or advisors and secure funding. There are many competitions to attend at the University of Toronto, as well as in Canada and internationally.

Some of the U of T related competitions

  • Desjardins Startup Prize for $100k prizes, usually taking place during U of T Entrepreneurship Week (March)
  • Adams Sustainability Innovation Prize for up to $25.5k prizes for ideas related to sustainability (March)

Some of the external competitions

  • Annual Hult Prize for 1M prize for startups focused on social entrepreneurship
  • Rice Business Plan Competition - one of the largest student startup competitions in the world with over 1M in cash and prizes

For more competitions see the list here

Programs by cloud providers:

  • Google Platform for Startups which provides up to $100 000 in credit and 24/7 support
  • Microsoft for Startups which provides up to $150 000 in Azure credits, guidance from Microsoft experts and access to leading AI models through Azure
  • Amazon for Startups which allows to get up to $100 000 in cloud credits and up to $800 000 worth of offers from AWS partners and vendors like MongoDB, Datadog, Hubspot and others

Additional links for resources:

5. Funding and venture capital

For funding your project you can consider a combination of grants, prizes from competition and venture funding.

Some of the student-focused venture funds in Canada and the US:

  • Ripple Ventures focuses on enterprise-focused businesses and backing underserved student founders. They also have a founder fellowship which prepares students for fundraising
  • Front Row Ventures is investing in students actively in 20+ campuses
  • Dorm Room Fund is one of the earliest student-focused venture funds in the United States

Before contacting investors and pitching there are numerous resources available:

In conclusion, the resources available for student founders are numerous with the information often changing. Be sure to engage with the entrepreneurship-focused community, learn about opportunities around you and don’t be afraid to ask for help.