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.