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- ToIRL April 2025
Welcome to the 30th edition of Toronto IRL - where we find the best IRL business + tech events in Toronto, and curate them, so you don’t have to go searching.
10 Events (Sorted by Date)
🙌 = I’m attending. 🙌🙌 = I’m the host 🎤 = I’m speaking!
(Focusing on the events I’m personally attending this month)
April 1 - Hosted by Aman Desai
April 9 - Hosted by GenAI Collective | Karan Deep
April 15 - Hosted by Derek Jouppi
🎤🎤 April 17 - Hosted by Marsha Drucker - ToIRL subscribers get a special 15% OFF
I’ll be speaking at this event! Come he Along with two other amazing speakers. Each presentation is 15mins, so lots of time to chat and network.ar my story of leaving corporate to start my own business. If you are ever considering leaving your tech 9-5, this will be packed with lessons and mistakes on making the jump!
April 17 - Hosted by Lorenze Dsouza
🎤🎤 May 20 - TechTO: Sales - Hosted by TechTO & Ryan Ing
Bringing this event back! and I’ll be emceeing it! Early bird tickets live for $20!
🎪🎟️ Live Entertainment Events
🙌 May 8 Trevor Wallace Standup $40 - DM me if you are going!
Ryan’s Corner - What Is He Up To?
I’ve basically serviced 9 clients over the last 9 months or so. I’ve figured out a business model but still thinking of the most sustainable model. Here is a shortcut to figuring out what service based business model fits you.
Agencies Either Go Wide or Go Deep
Going Wide
Most agencies are built by going wide e.g. $2500-$4000/month retainers, for 2-10 people.
The value prop is that <$4000 is always cheaper than a full-time employee, so retention rates tend to be very high. The agency owner hires offshore employees to manage certain pieces and then is able to go hands off.
E.g. imagine $30K/month, 10 clients at $3K, you hire two offshore staff for $6k/month, and create a management system so they can manage and deliver on the 10 clients. There you have an agency in a box bringing you in $24K/month. For every 10 clients, you have a pod of two employees.
Going Deep
Fractional Employees tend to go deep - they charge more e.g. $6000-$8000/month retainer, but cannot outsource the work because its based on their expertise.
The value prop is that they are getting a very senior employee that would normally cost them 6 figures, for a fraction of the time and cost. I know 3-4 guys doing this, and again they end up with the same $24K/month profit type of outcome.
The core difference is that this type of business scales by price, instead of # of clients.
The Problem With Going Deep As A Fractional Sales Employee
The problem is that sales is the one specific profession in which the deeper you go - the more money you make. For example, if I’m driving 10 demos/month for a client and $100K in sales pipeline, I might as well go close those deals as well and earn a 20% commission. Why would I stop at the lead gen piece? Sales is an area you can go infinitely deep. It doesn’t really make sense to go wide. Why service 5 clients when you can just service 1 and a make ton of commissions?
Compare this to an accounting practice. Once the accounting work is done, you can’t really go “deeper” - and no way the client will ever pay you commissions. They are forced to go wide. In my opinion, this is why most agencies are marketing, or other back office functions like accounting or recruitment.
A Better Aligned Model
My model going forward is likely going to be focused on revenue share - because that aligns the incentives extremely closely and also makes long term engagements make more sense. Like 6 month minimum.
Something like “I will help your business double in revenue in 6 months by coming on an interim Head of Sales - I will take care of everything sales related from the lead gen system, to closing - you just take care of the product. One time setup fee and then assuming you have strong margins, I just ask for half of it, etc.”.
It most often requires a product-led CEO who loves their craft, has a differentiated offer, but hates sales, and in that way we have a perfect partnership.
Toronto Event Organizers I Track For This Newsletter
RI.Events, TechTO, FuckupNights Toronto, Aceocial, Founders Poker, TodoToronto, TorontoEventHub, Startup Ecosystem Canada, Ryan Wong, Daivik Goel, Godwin Chan, Bitcoin Bay, Solana Toronto, Aniket Patel (EVP.VC), Clay.com
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