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PEOPLEStory Byscott messengerPhotography ByBrandon Bouchercalifornia
Jim Barr earned the chanceto pitch his online company toinvestors in the high-tech meccaof San Francisco. He’d have likedto come back with a cheque.What he got instead alteredthe course of his business.This june, jim barr left his office at novaNAIT, the institute’scentre for applied research and technology transfer, for awhirlwind trip to foggy San Francisco, California. For theweb-based media entrepreneur, it had the potential to seriouslyramp up operations. The Bay Area and Silicon Valley remain themecca of high-tech, populated by giants like Apple, Google, HP andmore. But, most importantly to Barr, the region is home to a groupof Canadian entrepreneurs and investors called the C100, hostof 48hrs in the Valley, a boot camp with the power to transforma startup into a multimillion-dollar concern. As head of one of 20Canadian companies (and the only one from Alberta) acceptedto that event, Barr’s dreams suddenly seemed within reach.The president of Seekers Media Inc. is, in almost all ways, atypical entrepreneur. Barr is outgoing and optimistic to a pointnearing mania. He’s driven as much by risk as ambition. He’s usedto relentless uncertainty and stress, and he’s comfortable with being,at 38, greyer than most people his age. For novaNAIT’s entrepreneurin residence and Seekers Media adviser Randy Thompson, it wasBarr’s tirelessness and knack for multitasking that earned him aspot in 48hrs: “Those things are essential if you’re going to take acompany to market quickly.” On top of all this is the fact that Barr, atenant of novaNAIT’s business incubator (the Duncan McNeill Centrefor Innovation) always has a next step in mind. Having establishedtwo brands – SnowSeekers, the online and mobile guides to winteractivities (including his beloved snowboarding), and, followinga similar vein, the recently launched FestivalSeekers – Barr waseager for a foothold in California, its population of more than 37million enough to convince most entrepreneurs of a rich return.Pitching to the C100, and the possibility of impressing potentialinvestors, was a means to that end. Growth for Seekers Media hadbeen steady but “bootstrapped”: slow, hard-won and mostly selffinanced.Things were about to change. And they did – just not exactlyhow he expected. This is how Barr’s trip to one of the world’s hottestspots for business unfolded.v5.1 2011 41
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