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Eva and Allen Lau, business leaders and co-founders of Two Small Fish Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, have some advice for entrepreneurs at the 91�Թ�: leverage the 91�Թ� community.

“Notice your classmates, your professors,” Eva says . “One day they could be your customers, your co-founders, your business partners.”

“It’s up to you to leverage all the resources within the 91�Թ� ecosystem so that it can drastically improve the success rate of your startup,” Allen adds.

The 91�Թ� alumni and spouses are widely known for their roles in launching Wattpad, a digital storytelling platform co-founded by Allen in 2006, with Eva as one of its founding members, and sold in 2021 in a US$600-million deal.  

Last week, the venture capitalists announced Two Small Fish Ventures had secured the , meeting its $40-million target.

Earlier this year, the pair delivered a keynote titled “School of Fish: Lessons from Swimming Upstream” at the Desjardins Speaker Series during 91�Թ�’s Entrepreneurship Week.

In the video, the Laus share their top tips for entrepreneurs and startup founders, including the importance of picking the right key performance indicator (KPI), taking investors through your story and thinking big.

“In the pitch, what I’m looking for is, will the startup be the category winner or – even better – the category creator?” Allen says.

“What I’m looking for are people who are ambitious, who want to be the game changer,” Eva adds. “To me, that’s what innovation looks like.”