StartupNorth

Month: May 2007

  • Skymeter takes on Insurance, Tolls, and Meters

    Skymeter Logo Skymeter is set on replacing parking meters, toll booths, and monthly insurance bills. Talk about big aspirations!

    A prototype location payment system (think GPS black box) has been developed and the Toronto company is forging development relationships from Holland to Singapore. London?s congestion pricing program has perked the interest of governments around the world. Insurance companies such as Aviva and Progressive are considering implementing pay per mile vehicle insurance. And what city wouldn?t want ticketless parking? Greens are excited about Skymeter, as road use charges have the potential to reduce automobile emissions.

    The business model is to capture a percentage of payment just like credit card companies. Sure getting the systems into vehicles is going to be a challenge, but we have high hopes for this MaRS incubated company.

    Contact: Kamal Hassan, CEO
    Blog: Bern Grush, Founder

  • slumberland.ca – Tourism Reservation and Statistics Platform

    Internet Works Planning a summer vacation on Prince Edward Island? You might not know it, but you?ll be booking a B&B using the Slumberland reservation system. And the B&B operator will be reporting their numbers to the tourism marketing authority using Tourism Stats. Internet Works is busy building web services for the tourism industry.

    Internet Works’ pilot customer, Tourism PEI, was so pleased with the Slumberland reservation system and Tourism Stats data collection and analysis service that they?ve been showing it off to tourism authorities in other provinces. The company now has 5 employees, who are finishing off a conversion reporting module to track advertising response rates. Internet Works leases the web services individually or as a package. An enthusiastic pilot customer is a great start as Internet Works begins their journey to be the provider of choice for small to medium size tourism destinations.

    Contact Dico Reyers

  • myhood.ca – Toronto centric apartment aggregator

    myhood.ca is a Toronto focused apartment finder and review tool. Considering that the site was launched just 1 month ago, I find it amazing that there are over 900 reviews of various apartment buildings on the site already.

    The site is a Google Maps mashup that lets you find apartments based on location and marks the location of grocery stores, subway stops and shopping malls on the map. This model is even better in Toronto, where people tend to be particular about what neighborhood they want to move to.

    I already made use of myhood.ca by reading reviews of our new condo building on the site. I think that providing a service that allows condo owners to review their buildings would be useful, although there is a large disincentive to being critical of a building your currently own in. I turns out that the building manager is hard to deal with and that I should make-nice with Janice, the front desk lady. I did that today, bypassing the manager, and introduced myself to Janice. I was glad to know I didn’t need to waste time.

    I also know how painful it can be to find an apartment in Toronto having moved up here blind to both Toronto and large city living period. I can still remember the shock at the sticker price for a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment, not knowing the ups and downs of one building or another just made it all that much more confusing.

    Right now, myhood.ca is trying to use a referral fee model for sending people back to the site where a particular listing originated. If they can make this work, and pay, with all the providers out there, then it could be a lucrative model. There will also be some banner advertising and allowing landlords to purchase “featured listings” that will be displayed more prominently.

    myhood.ca is self funded to date and they are thinking about looking for investment to help them take the site to (I presume) other markets.

    Jeff Hersh is the one-man show behind myhood.ca. It’s pretty evident that he is able to execute well on an idea. A large marketing firm teaming up with a web development shop would not have turned out anything close to myhood.ca for anything less than a 500k budget for the first phase. Jeff has done it solo and is off to a great start.

    myhood.ca was showcased on MapleLeaf2.0 already and The Torontoist has a great review of the site.

    Contact Jeff Hersh

  • easypost.ca – Quick and easy mailing in Canada

    Alright, here is one I am not sure what to think about. Easypost.ca is a dead-easy way to send letters anywhere in Canada. Type in an address, type in a letter and they print it and send it.

    Seems silly right?

    Well, there could be a lot more to this service, which is in a free-beta right now, that could make them more than just a letter sending website. Right now there are API‘s for everything you can imagine. When a programmer wants to add a service to their web-app, they use an API to tell another site to do the work for them. You might, for example, tell Google to draw you a fancy GoogleMap, or you might tell YouTube to tell you what the most popular 10 videos are.

    Freshbooks is one of the few sites doing ground-mailing services right now, but I can think of a few other places I would like to have the service. For example, I wouldn’t mind being able to upload an Word Document, Email or Powerpoint Doc and have it mailed on occasion.

    So, theoretically (and I haven’t asked them), easypost.ca could become a sort of API to connect websites to the real world and make ground mailing super easy.

    Even if they don’t go that route, I think there will be a suprising amount of people who would like a really, really, simple way of sending ground mail, without having to get up from their office chair.

    We will follow up with Easypost later on and see how things are coming along.

    Contact Andrew Kinnear.

  • Sunday Startup Roundup – May 20 2007

    clubpenguinlogo.pngIt was a good week for Canadian startups, especially Club Penguin, who are in talks with Sony for at least 500 million. Not bad for a company from Kelowna, B.C. and that is less than 2 years old. Making millions and living in Kelowna — I don’t want to hear these guys complaining about startup life.

    Ourfaves was also profiled on techcrunch. Ourfaves is sort of like a beefed up Pursudo and not quite Yelp. Google still seems to beat them all.

    It appears that Mesh is a sell out show again this year. Despite a slip up in my Startup’s Guide to Mesh post where I called it a “small time conference”, I am a Mesh-booster now.

    Sean Wise posts about why some deals don’t get done on the Dragon’s den. He cites the following as reasons that the Dragon’s don’t invest in one business or another:

    1. Valuing what you have too much.
    2. Not offering the Dragons a significant equity position.
    3. Asking for too much cash
    4. Not having sales
    5. Not wanting to run the business.

    Those reasons are on par with a “it’s not you, it’s me” during a highschool breakup phonecall. Rather than pretending there is some formula, and one startup fits the formula and one doesn’t, why not just admit it’s all their gut and remind ourselves She just ain’t that in to you.

    Oh, and we missed it a few weeks ago, but Communicopia won a Webby award for Nothing but Nets. That is cooool.

    I am sure I have missed a whole slew of things — so please send in or comment below with whatever you’ve got to share.

  • Work Hack – To Do List

    Work Hack LogoAre you a GTD Junkie? Work Hack might be the To Do List you?ve been looking for? Rami Nasser, of Halifax Nova Scotia, had simplicity in mind when he designed this web based To Do List, which has the look and feel of a whiteboard.

    Recently launched, the site already has a number of potentially useful features: RSS feed, drag and drop arrangement of to do items, and best of all no registration is required to create and access your to do list.

    I have a feeling the already simple site (a plus) will become even simpler as Rami iterates on the design. All in all, the site is well on its way to accomplishing what it sets out to do, and already counts over 10,000 users from around the world.

  • The Startup's Guide to Mesh

    So, you are going to make the trip to the Mesh Conference in Toronto? Well, let’s take a look at it from a web startup’s point of view and see what we should, and shouldn’t, be doing.

    First off, how far along are you? If you are just in the idea stage, I suggest you get some screenshots done at the very least. You’ll want to have a laptop with you that you can whip open and start pouring the kool-aid with about your amazing product X.

    For the sanity of everyone else there, don’t try to be coy about your startup. If someone asks you a question, you should answer it right away. Do not humm and haw. If you don’t like their question, tell them straight up that you don’t want to, or can’t, answer that question. It saves them from thinking “what’s going on here” and it saves you 10 seconds of a racing heartbeat.

    Are you looking for funding? If so, figure out how much and who you want it from. Don’t waste too much time in the actual sessions, there are always smart people around to talk to.

    Please, take as good as you give. If you burst in to a conversation, or start a conversation with a pitch, nobody is going to listen to you. You will be that guy.
    (more…)

  • esy – local price comparison – early stage and ambitious

    picture-2.pngEsy Shopping is an early stage startup, based in Vancouver that is aiming to consolidate local shopping inventory information online.

    Esy plans to launch next month, and we haven’t been able to see any screenshots, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt on how they are going to build their database of locally available products. If they can get that right, they are going to do well.

    Esy will generate revenue through advertising alongside the local shopping search results. While they may get some national advertisers, this model may require them to sell ads on a local level. Selling localized ads for the internet has always been tough and my guess is that it still is today. I’m looking forward to seeing how they handle this at launch.

    Just as interesting as Esy itself is it’s 19 year old co-founder Theo Tonca. Theo founded his first company at age 15 and has been hacking away at the web startup thing ever since. Suffice to say, even if Esy doesn’t fly, Theo will be back and swinging for the fences again soon after.

    We will follow up with Esy after their launch to see how things are going.

  • No Better Time than Now

    mothermeasuring.gifEvery couple of weeks I get asked by someone if I think they should take the leap and really dedicate themselves to their idea. Is it a good time of year? Are they the right age? Do they have enough of a cushion?

    My advice is that there usually isn’t a good reason to quit a comfortable full time job to focus on a startup, and that you should be able to run a startup on the side until you know if it will fly or not.

    The bad thing about that advice is that I really don’t have a clue if it is good advice or not. I have been one of the lucky few who has always been working on a startup with my own great-to-good-to-mild-to-terrible levels of success.

    Statistically, most people take the leap and attempt a startup in their mid to late 30s. I’m not sure why that is, I suspect it is a big group of people who have been making nice salaries since their late 20s, have the house well on it’s way to being paid for, and have the college fund tucked away for the kids.

    When is the best time to attempt your first startup? I am going to take a leap and say that High School is actually the best time. There is absolutely zero risk, but there is generally absolutely zero capital as well. While you are in the teenage years induced haze you can be at your most creative, but you also have a low probability of completely executing on something, unless you are above average (which I expect you are).
    (more…)

  • Off to a great start, thanks!

    startupnorth.png StartupNorth has gotten off to a great start. We are only just over 2 weeks old but already up to 300 visitors a day and about 80 (give or take) RSS subscribers according to FeedBurner.

    While these numbers are still tiny in the grand scheme of things, they are a respectable amount of growth in 2 weeks and I think it shows that there is a need out there for a place to talk about being an entrepreneur in Canada.

    startupnorth2.pngWe are going to focus on getting more west-coast content. As one of the most active startup regions in the country, BC really needs some coverage. We have also started to hunt for great startups in Atlantic Canada and I think we’ll all be surprised at the quality of the ideas coming from the east.

    So, keep the startups coming in and don’t hesitate to ask about contributing to the site. As the site’s popularity grows, we will all benefit from having a healthy community and we will try to find ways to make things less one-to-many and more about helping people connect.