Posted by Doug Lacombe

This morning I had the great pleasure of hearing three excellent speakers present at a breakfast session put on by WiTec Alberta, the provincial association focused on supporting the Wireless & Telecom industry.

Stephen King, CEO of mob4hire.com; Roger Morrison, President of dTechs Electrical Profile Management; and Henry Kutarna, Southern AB Manager at Alberta Deal Generator all offered their perspectives on how tech companies can survive, even thrive, in this down economy.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with “Social media for the VCR generation”? Truthfully not a lot, except mob4hire.com is a crowd-sourced mobile application testing service, which is pretty hip social media stuff.

But really I went because I’m an ex-wireless geek, having worked three years at TELUS Mobility where I did product marketing on the launches of the BlackBerry, the 1X network, wifi HOTspots, and various industrial solutions such as AVL (vehicle location) and SCADA (machine monitoring).

Mr. King’s presentation basically offered sound business fundamentals from a serial entrepreneur who, among his many achievements, launched Cantax and Greenpoint Tax Services several years ago.

Stephen King, CEO Mob4Hire.com at World Mobile Congress

Mr. Morrison, an ex-cop and serial tackler of bad guys, has engineered a solution to find grow-ops and other power anomalies. His advice focused on the pitch to investors, keeping it clean and simple, and contracting great advisors such as Uncommon Innovation to get your product to market.

Mr. Kutarna focused on the process of raising capital in tough times via angel investors using the successful methods and contacts of the Alberta Deal Generator. Of particular note was his comment that “private capital is ready to move”.

I think the advice given by the speakers represented good business fundamentals for every sector, not just wireless or even tech.