eQuo: a voice for entrepreneurs and talent in the GTA

Networking and social media are at a crossroads today as people question the time they spend in various platforms and the value they're getting back from them.

In fact, people are re-evaluating how to better connect, converse and collaborate together. They want to use their time more productively to create a happier life where their personal and professional ambitions can be fulfilled. In the past year, I was certainly one of these people who was soul and social searching for change.

When I began my career, a manager asked me to imagine success in both my life and my career. To get there, he told me to find people who were already where I wanted to be and to connect with them, learn from them and emulate them. The only problem with his advice is that the higher you aim, the harder it is to find those people and connect with them.

Flash forward to the past year and how we connect and network with one another. Yes, there are multiple platforms, but almost all are based on connecting you with those you already know. Anyone outside of your natural orbit is hard to find and even less likely to connect with you, let alone meet with you and work with you to accelerate your personal and professional goals. And that's too bad, because a large group of people in our community exist who want to find one another and who could be of benefit to one another, if they could only connect with one another.

It's simple, we can't be successful in isolation. We need to find people who can help us create, grow, evolve and make our dreams and ideas become real. We also need to aim high and reach for the stars, unafraid and with the support of those around us. For this to happen, we need to connect many people, especially those who don’t naturally revolve in the same social, educational or work orbits. The engineer who needs to find a great marketing expert to take their product to the next level. The Vice-President of a consumer packaged goods company who has a great idea, but doesn’t know anyone in technology to help her work out her prototype. The 28-year-old who can't find a seasoned mentor to take their SaaS product to market.

After looking at the current networking platforms and reflecting on my own entrepreneurial experiences over the past 17 years, I began to imagine a new platform to connect people. I believed that there was a better way to network, create, grow and learn.

Welcome to eQuo.

If you’re an entrepreneur, or if you’re one of the thousands of people who both support and believe in them, you should be part of our community.

eQuo connects people involved in the innovation eco-system with the tools they need to successfully move from start-up to scale-up.

When you create your profile with us, we’ll ask you to tell us what you’re great at doing and where you need the most help. Who do you want to connect with, what content and events do you want to learn about, what vendors do you need to help you and what financing needs do you have.

We then create a personalized dashboard that is customized to what you told us. We remove everything else from your eQuo experience, and match you to the people, capital, vendors and customers you indicated you wanted to meet from our community of members. And we match you to the people who are looking to find what you are great at doing, because they are looking for your help with what they need.

You get connections, customers, access to capital and can find the people and companies that you need to grow.

We also provide alternatives than you can find in the existing eco-system. New capital sources like crowd funding and corporate sponsored accelerator or funding programs that are usually unknown to the public are available in our community.

We even give you the ability to connect to part-time talent when you simply don’t need full time resources. And when your programmer tells you she is taking her three weeks’ vacation in six months, you have the ability to source and book freelancers or contract workers that match your needs, any time of the year. No last-minute searching for replacements.

eQuo even matches you to the advisors or mentors that best match your needs to help you through the next pivotal milestone.

It will take a community of believers to change the status quo, but together, we’re going to past the naysayers and build a Thousand, Ten Million Dollar companies.

eQuo is led by Peter Aceto, former CEO and President of ING Direct and Tangerine and Barry Hillier, a serial entrepreneur and Chris Carder, serial entrepreneur and start-up advisor and Entrepreneur in Residence for the Schulich School of Business. Together, they believe that eQuo will make it easier for entrepreneurs and the people who love them to connect with each other, startups can move faster, waste less time and increase their chances of success.