The entrepreneurs behind Radian6, one of the startups that helped put Atlantic Canada on the innovation map, have a message for founders: think bigger.

Marcel LeBrun was Radian6’s CEO, and David Alston was its chief marketing officer. When their company was bought by Salesforce for US$276 million in cash and US$50 million in stock in 2011, the deal was a formative one for the Atlantic Canadian startup ecosystem, drawing previously unseen levels of investment and attention to the region’s young companies.

Speaking at Entrevestor Live Tuesday, LeBrun and Alston said founders of East Coast startups too often try to “start small,” focusing their business development efforts on local markets in hopes of dialling in their product offerings before targeting more profitable sales opportunities.

“Go after the most lucrative, most important market, wherever that is,” LeBrun advised founders. “It’s not about having an operation in every country, it’s about being in the places where the market leadership will be declared.

“What we see a lot of times is people go (to market), and their first few customers are the friendly customers. They had a connection here or a connection there. They have this kind of fear, saying, ‘I’m not sure I want to go there yet because I’m not ready.’ But if you can go there early, just go there honestly, and not pretentiously.”

LeBrun and Alston said the philosophy common among East Coast companies of proving out new technologies via smaller-scale, local sales relationships before chasing blue chip clients needlessly slows a business’s growth and risks handicapping it compared to more aggressive competitors.

“You’re going to pick up Canadian customers on your way through the Toronto airport,” said Alston. “If you do amazing in the U.S. and you are the world leader, you’re going to pick up Canadian customers. But if you’re the Canadian leader, it does not mean you’re going to pick up U.S. customers.”

Alston and LeBrun's advice reflected the theme of this year's Entrevestor Live conference, Going Global, which aimed to spotlight East Coast founders who have built significant, international businesses.

Radian6’s exit more than a decade ago transformed the East Coast innovation economy. Other companies posted larger exits during the same period — only seven months later, fellow Fredericton company Q1 Labs was sold to IBM for an estimated US$500 million, and Ocean Nutrition Canada of Dartmouth was bought by Royal DSM for $540 million in 2012 — but Radian6 came first, amplifying its impact.

Founded by LeBrun, Chris Newton and Chris Ramsey in 2006, Radian6 was at one time the preeminent social media monitoring company in the world. Its technology tracked hundreds of millions of conversations every day across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and online communities, and it was used by half of the Fortune 500, including Dell, GE, Kodak, Molson Coors, Pepsico, and UPS. The company was profitable by 2009 and employed about 350 people at the time of the Salesforce buyout.

The exit became a windfall for many Atlantic Canadian investors. Crucially for the ecosystem, the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation turned two separate investments totalling $326,973 into a return of $9.25 million, which it subsequently used to back other startups.

Asked by moderator Heather Libbey, who is herself vice-president of strategy and operations at NBIF, to what they attributed the rapid growth of Radian6, LuBrun and Alston cited the quality of their staff.

“A number of us had worked together on a previous startup and known each other,” said Alston. “One of the things that I noticed was there was a lot of trust right from the start, and so when you brought people in, I think they sensed that. We were very much an empowering kind of culture.”

As with sales, LeBrun and Alston advised founders to pursue the best possible staff, advisors and mentors from day one, rather than starting with modest goals that gradually increase in ambition.

“People sometimes call me … because I’m in New Brunswick or something, and say, ‘Can you join my board,’” said LeBrun. “And I’ll say, if you could pick anyone in the world — make a list , anyone in the world — who would be your one, two, three and four?

“And they might think of some names that, they think they just couldn’t possibly reach out to them. I go, ‘Well, why not? They might be really interested in your business. Why not start with who would actually be at the top of your list, versus who you think you might be able to get to say yes.”