Help A Startup Out (HASO) is designed to build successful and resilient first-time entrepreneurs by providing access to tools and resources that help them de-risk their ventures and validate (or invalidate) the most important assumptions they have about their business so they can confidently invest their time, money, effort, and energy into an idea that is desirable, viable and feasible.
The Team
We are a team of three passionate ecosystem builders who have been working together since 2017 to help first-time entrepreneurs validate problems, conduct highly effective customers discovery and win hundreds of thousands of dollars in pitch competitions.
Some of our initiatives include MVP Mondays, Tech Sales Tuesdays, Founder Fridays, Startup Saturdays, and a specialized weekend boot camp that prepares first-time entrepreneurs take on entrepreneurs from around the world at a five week boot camp in Silicon Valley called Hero Training by Draper University.
In the last six years entrepreneurs we work with have been picked as the most investable out of 100+ from 20+ countries as the most investable and/or be offered their first six figure investment.
Craig Elias
Craig is a LinkedIn pioneer (user 3,956 of over a Billion users) and a globally recognized sales expert with over 10,000 unsolicited endorsements for entrepreneurship, innovation, and lead generation. An award-winning entrepreneur and ‘gifted‘ pitch coach, he helps early-stage founders generate revenue, win pitch competitions, and attract investors.
After completing an Executive MBA specializing in technology commercialization and new venture creation from the University of Calgary, Craig built a startup that won a $1 million prize in a global billion-dollar idea pitch competition and secured Tier 1 venture funding and national recognition within two years of launching.
He is the creator of “Trigger Event Selling™” and was twice chosen as LinkedIn’s #1 B2B Sales Expert in Canada (#15 globally). Craig mentors startups through programs like Alchemist Accelerator and SXSW. He also champions accessible entrepreneurship through innovative tools like Playing Lean, a board game for aspiring founders.
Brandy Old
Brandy is a dedicated community-builder and certified IDEO Design Thinker, empowering entrepreneurs to solve complex challenges with innovative, human-centered solutions.
With over 8 years of business coaching experience, she helps founders gain traction by refining their client targeting, value proposition, and growth strategies.
Holding a Master’s in Social Impact, Brandy expertly guides entrepreneurs across for-profit, non-profit, and social enterprise models and has a unique knack for preparing her mentees to succeed in pitch competitions.
Passionate about hands-on learning, Brandy encourages resilience and celebrates growth through failure, as shared in her TEDx Talk on redefining success.
She and Craig Elias also engage early-stage founders through the board game Playing Lean, teaching entrepreneurship fundamentals across Canada.
Adam Berk
Adam Berk is a Lean Startup expert focused on equity and ecosystem design, helping large organizations engage effectively with startups for mutually beneficial outcomes.
He co-authored a book on fostering successful collaborations between enterprises and startups and offers guidance for building impactful accelerator programs.
Adam supports founders with hands-on mentoring, often incentivizing them to conduct customer interviews to validate their ideas.
He has collaborated with notable organizations like Google, the Department of Health and Human Services, and Startup Chile to drive innovation and minimize risk through hypothesis-driven development.