lion's lair

Lion’s Lair 2016 Recap

On September 29th we attended the Lion’s Lair gala and award ceremony and once again it was a ton of fun and the finalists and winners were more than impressive. We brought out a number of our clients and partners including, Umer Farooq and Victor Vukosavljevic from Radical VR, Pam Banks and Amarpreet Kaur from the RIC Centre, Mark Hirte from AOS and Fraser Kelton.

Every year I am impressed with the finalists and every year I am inspired that such great products and solutions are being developed and commercialized out of Hamilton. Our experience with the Lion’s Lair and the Innovation Factory has developed over the years. Originally we were attendees then, my business partner, Mark Elliott started to manage the Sales Peer to Peer group. Today, we are one of the event sponsors and provide a prize to one of the top 3 winners of $10,000 worth of sales and lead generations support.

We are looking forward to working with this year’s winner, Matthew Sheridan and his team at Nix Sensor Ltd..

Here is a recap of Lion’s Lair 2016!

Nix Sensor Ltd.

Nix Sensor Ltd., the maker of a nectarine-sized colour measurement tool, took home first place and received cash and in-kind resources totaling $65,000. Matthew Sheridan, the founder of Nix, developed the tool initially to replace traditional, heavy and expensive fan decks from paint manufacturers. His mother was his inspiration. She is a designer and he had seen her struggle for years carry the fan decks around. I have spent some time in the residential painting and commercial coatings industries and this tool is a tremendous benefit and time saver. I can remember years ago bringing a variety of fan decks to a customer’s house to try to match colours and when that failed would grab a paint chip and bring it to the paint store to see if they could match it. This was a time-consuming process, something Nix hopes to improve.

Prizes for Nix included:

  • $15,000 in Cash from Mohawk College, McMaster University, Cogeco, McMaster Innovation Park, Meridian Financial and RBC
  • $10,000 for Sales and Lead Generation Consulting from us, VA Partners
  • $10,000 from Marketing CoPilot for SEO/Content Marketing assistance
  • $10,000 from Fresh Insights for Market Research
  • $10,000 from BizClip for Photography and Video Development
  • $10,000from Communica for Business Coaching

Nuts for Cheese

Nuts for Cheese, a dairy-free cheese manufacturer won second place with prizes totalling $50,750. The cheese, created by Margaret Coons, is made from cashews and is ideally targeted at vegans and those with a dairy intolerance. In my household, my oldest son and my wife both suffer from a dairy intolerance. When my son was a baby he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and we found that it was closely linked to his consumption of dairy products. Once we eliminated dairy from his diet, the sleep apnea went away. Since then, we have added non-dairy alternatives to our diet such as cashew-based cheese. Now I just need to source my cashew-based cheese from Nuts for Cheese.

Prizes for Nuts for Cheese included:

  • $10,000 in cash from Mohawk College, McMaster University, Cogeco, McMaster Innovation Park, Meridian Financial and RBC
  • $12,500 KPMG Accounting, Tax and Consulting Package
  • $12,500 Gowling WLG Legal Package
  • $10,000 in Marketing Strategy, Design and Planning from Albanese Branding
  • Two All Action Passes for CoMotion Working Space valued at $5,750

Laifa Baby

Third place went to Zippy Jamz by Laifa Baby with prizes totalling $45,750. The founder, Nicole Mortimer, designed and developed a new, innovative sleeper that has a second zipper along the inseam making night-time diaper changes much simpler. Seriously, I have three kids and have wiped a lot of bums over the last 10 years, this is one of the neatest products I have seen and its concept is so simple. With Zippy Jamz you no longer have to take your baby right of the sleeper. Nicole’s design allows you to only open the inseam, get easy access to the diaper, clean, then replace with a new diaper and then zip back up. No more struggling to get your child back in the sleeper and even more importantly, way less chance of them waking up during the process.

Prizes for Laifa Baby included:

  • $5,000 in cash from Mohawk College, McMaster University, Cogeco, McMaster Innovation Park, Meridian Financial and RBC
  • $12,500 KPMG Accounting, Tax and Consulting Package
  • $12,500 Gowling WLG Legal Package
  • $10,000 Fluid Media Web Design Package
  • Two All Action Passes for CoMotion Working Space valued at $5,750

There were two additional prize winners including:

  • 180 Drums won The Hamilton Award – a $2,000 cash prize supplied by Meridian Financial Credit Union.
  • Nix Sensor Ltd. won the People’s Choice Award – a $1,500 cash prize supplied by Meridian Financial Credit Union.

There were some amazing companies and I am glad I was not one of the judges, it would have been hard to pick. You can view the remaining finalists on the Lion’s Lair website.

Three of my favourites that did not place included:

  • GoWrench Auto, a mobile vehicle repair business. Imagine having your vehicle repaired from the comfort of your home.
  • Suncayr, a developer of a spot UV test for sun exposure, letting you know when your sunscreen has lost its effectiveness.
  • Tron-Club, has created a subscription-based circuit-building kit service. Every month you get a new circuit building kit to try. This is perfect for those of us who are closet electrical engineers.

This year’s judges (Lions) had a difficult job and hats off to them for their investment and support of this initiative. The Lions included: Julie Ellis (Mabel’s Labels Co-Founder), Mario Paron (KPMG), Cheri Chevalier (Microsoft Canada), Tonia Jahshan (Steeped Tea), and Michael Macaluso (CARSTAR Canada).

Nick Bontis (Master of Ceremonies), Keanin Loomis (President of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce) and Dave Carter (Executive Director of the Innovation Factory) all did a great job of delivering a very entertaining event.

If you were unable to attend the Lion’s Lair Gala you can find the recorded version online until October 29, 2016.

If you are in need of assistance from a sales and marketing perspective feel free to contact me. I would be happy to see if we can help. Alternatively, if you are simply looking for a source of excellent sales and marketing information, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Twitter
 

Lion’s Lair 2016 Recap