StartupNorth

Author: David Crow

  • OCE Elevator Pitch contest at Discovery 09

    discovery2009_logo The Ontario Centres for Excellence is hosting an Elevator Pitch contest on May 12, 2009 at Discovery 09 event. First place prize is Cdn$5000 and second place is Cdn$2000. Not shabby for a 700 word entry.

    Step into OCE’s Elevator Pitch contest – 12 May 2009
    Metro Convention Centre, Toronto

    Venture capitalists and angel investors can spot a good business pitch in roughly the time it takes to ride an elevator. Test your pitch by getting in on the Elevator Pitch at Discovery 09. Go one-on-one, face-to-face with leading VCs and angel investors and deliver a compelling overview of your tech-based business idea in five minutes or less. Capture their attention, advice, and a chance to win cash prizes for best pitch.

    To enter, visit www.ocediscovery.com/elevatorpitch2009.aspx.

    Startups need to submit a 700 word maximum submission that covers the following:

    • Describe the product or service and its underlying technology
    • What is the market need – what is the value proposition to your intended customers?
    • What is the sustainable competitive advantage of your product or service?
    • Describe the market and market size.
    • What is your market entry strategy?

    Submissions are due by April 16, 2009.

  • Shutterborg launches

    shutterborg Earlier this week ReadWriteWeb covered the launch of Waterloo based Shutterborg. Shutterborg is the work of Jason Miller at developIT who specializes in design and development of web applications and RIAs. Shutterborg is built using JMDWiki and ameobaOS in PHP, Javascript against a MySQL database.

    Shutterborg is a basic online word processor. It lacks many of the features of it’s online competitors Google Docs, Zoho, and Buzzword. ReadWriteWeb hits the button about the key feature and its’ best uses.

    However, Shutterborg, a new online word processor does one thing really well which makes it a unique tool in this space: it lets you open any URL on the internet and edit it like an Office document.

    …the "Open from Web" option that is presented to you upon launch is a pretty clever invention. Here, you can enter in any URL on the internet to open an exact replica of that web page, with the CSS and images intact. You can then edit it as you desire which could obviously lead to some humorous creations.

    Shutterborg look  like an interesting self-promotion tool for developIT. It is an interesting execution and implementation of an AJaX application. It shows the strength and flexibility of the development frameworks used by developIT. Shutterborg also looks like a great proof-of-concept rich editing application for small businesses and non-technical users that need the familiarity of a word processor for editing web content. Great work by a small design firm to garner some online press and traffic of tools that will be useful in attracting and retaining clients.

  • TinEye publically available

    tineyeIdee has removed the “log in” requirement for TinEye today. Registration is now optional for users, but it does provide additional benefits for users including:

    • Social image searches
      Registered users “Share your search results, or post them to your blog. Just cut and paste the search permalink from your browser’s address bar”. It will be interesting to see if there is a social nature to image search results. I’m curious to see how users will use a social search.
    • Search history
      How many times have you closed a browser window just too early? Ctrl+W is just too easy to make a tab disappear. Registered users have the ability to turn on (or off) a search history in TinEye. This makes it easy to both keep the images and the results that you’ve searched for. I wonder if the TinEye searches are refreshed when the page is updated, or if the search results are cached for future access.
    • Early feature access
      We all like being a part of beta testing new features for useful applications. If you want access to the next generation of TinEye features, you need to register.

    Curiously, called out in the February 5, 2009 release notes is number 4.

    4. Introduced ads. Poor TinEye has to eat!

    No surprises here. I keep asking Leila about how exactly she intends to monetize TinEye. One potential opportunity for monetization is through affiliate programs with products like TinEye Mobile which lets you take a photo of album cover art to search for the album on iTunes and the web. You can imagine that this could work for other objects (books, DVDs, etc). I would love the TinEye Book Edition that allows me to snap a picture of a book cover and add it to my GoodReads or Shelfari book shelves. Great to see Leila, Paul and the Idee team building a world class image search and the tools for users.

    Register for your TineEye account today.

  • Boot Camp for Technology Start-Ups

    From Boris at Bootup Labs in Vancouver.

    plugandplaytechcenterThe Canadian Trade Commissioner Service is hosting a Canadian Regional Boot Camp for Technology Start-Ups featuring Silicon Valley experts and investors. The event features the Plug and Play Technology Center in Silicon Valley. The Plug and Play Tech Center now features a Canadian Incubator at the 3 offices in the valley. I’m assuming that this means that Canadian start-ups can get access to real estate while they are working in Silicon Valley doing business development and fund raising.

    The Boot Camp event happening March 16-20, 2009 in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa,Toronto, and Waterloo features Chris Gill of SVASE helping entrepreneurs with pitch preparation and a final pitch review session.

    • Funding Pitch Preparation. Topics will include:
      • What are US investors looking for?
      • Is your business fundable?
      • How to effectively present the problem, the opportunity and the solution.
      • Presenting your go to market strategy and your business model.
      • Presenting who’s on your team, establishing credibility etc.
      • How to present your evaluation of the competition.
      • How to present your financial projections.
    • Pitching Session to a Review Board
      • 10-minute company pitch to local, US and Silicon Valley VC investors
      • Instant pitch feedback by the Board

    The event is happening:

    • Halifax, Monday, March 16, 2009
    • Montreal, Tuesday, March 17, 2009
    • Ottawa, Wednesday, March 18, 2009
    • Toronto, Thursday, March 19, 2009
    • Waterloo, Friday, March 20, 2009

    If you are a startup looking to get help developing your funding pitch this is a great opportunity. Even better if you think raising money in the Valley is easier than Canada (it’s not), you can find out about the process for Canadian companies and start to build relationships that can help you.

  • VeloCity Project Exhibition

    Joey offers his summary of the University of Waterloo VeloCity Fall 2008 Project Exhibition.

    DSC_0105

    Velocity is a student residence, it is a dorm for 70 University of Waterloo students that encourages students to form teams and build projects to be showcased at the end of term Project Exhibition. This was the first group of students in the dorm and there were 16 student projects created. Each team of students provided a 3 minute pitch to the audience in the lobby of the Davis Centre. Amar Varma from Extreme Ventures had a Cdn$1000 prize for the “project team deemed worthy”.

    Sparknav was the winner of the $1000 from Extreme Ventures.

    1. Grocerus – A location-aware web app that matches grocery lists against hand entered grocery store data. Built in PHP.
    2. Gruup – A group buying service.  Built on Pligg in PHP.
    3. Sparknav – A mobile navigation application for use in enclosed (non-GPS) spaces. Prototype build for Android.
    4. Emoshion – A mobile application for location-based fashion news.
    5. Find It Off Campus – A web application for helping UW students use geography and location to find housing. Built in Rails.
    6. Szello Mobile – A mobile consultancy focusing on mobile user experience and UI design.
    7. Fading Hearts/Magical Aces – An anime styled choose your own adventure.
    8. Ufansi – A web application that helps connect donors with charities. Built on Drupal in PHP.
    9. Giftah – A web application that creates a marketplace for gift card exchange.
    10. ClassAlbum – A web application for managing classroom schedules and finding vacant rooms.
    11. Comic Battle – A multiplayer online fighting game built in Flash.
    12. My Story – A publish platform for authors.
    13. CashIn – A wallet with an electronic financial advisor that tracks your spending and provides warnings based on personal budgeting.
    14. inPulse – “Send email to my watch”. A Bluetooth watch that connects to your mobile device to display email, SMS, caller ID on your watch.
    15. Threadband – A causal game for the iPhone.
    16. Metacast – A YouTube or Blip.TV competitor. Allows users to create channels of existing RSS feeds. Built in PHP.

    The projects ranged from a series of ideas expressed on posters; to functioning software. As Rick Segal and Austin Hill conveyed at StartupEmpire, it is great to see entrepreneurs get up in front of an audience and give their pitch. One of the main reasons that entrepreneurs in other locations (particularly Silicon Valley) are better at giving pitches is the number of times they give the pitch and the amount of feedback they receive.

    Generally, the projects and the presentations were uninspiring. This is not to say that the entrepreneurs should be discouraged. But that I was underwhelmed by both the content and the presentation style. It leads me to one of the key takeaways from StartupEmpire. It is that we need to build a better formalized mentoring network for young entrepreneurs. When I look at programs like Techstars in Boulder, CO they are built on the notion of mentorship. Just look at their Mentors (there are 59 listed on the dang page): Brad Feld, David Cohen, Howard Lindzon, Jeff Clavier, Stewart Alsop. The mentors are from all over the US and cover a wide range of expertises in different industries and functions. If an entrepreneur can’t find a mentor that can listen to their situation and coach them on how they could perform, then the entrepreneurs shouldn’t be in the TechStars program. To this end, Jesse Rogers called me out on providing mentorship to the VeloCity students. I will be following up with Sean Van Koughnett to offer my time to mentor any of the teams or students.

    For the hell of it

    “If you build it, they [sic] will come.” – Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams 

    My first piece of advice for any of the VeloCity student is be realistic about what you are building. So many entrepreneurs appear to take the “Field of Dreams” approach to project selection. There is nothing wrong with this approach, however, just because you’ve built software that solves your problem doesn’t mean that there are customers, a potential market or any reason to raise funding. A programming exercise does not by default equal a multi-million dollar company. There are a great number of projects and tools that were developed as to solve problems for a developer (look at rake, ant and Capistrano) that are not businesses. They enable developers to be more productive but are not great businesses.

    Glimmers of hope

    Some of the projects like Sparknav, Emoshion, Find It Off Campus showed the first steps to becoming real businesses. They demonstrated the ability of the team to deliver functioning, stable code. They demonstrated a need in the community – Find It Off Campus already has 108 rental properties after less than 2 weeks of being live. And Emoshion, while too narrowly focused as pitched by the founders to be a great business, it demonstrates a potential white-labelable mobile social networking application that I’ve seen requested by ad agencies and marketers. These startups could benefit from time with experienced technologists, business development persons, investors, and marketers about how and when to monetize and grow their offering.

    It was great to see 16 short presentations from the residents of VeloCity. It will be interesting to see if the quality of the projects and outcomes increases at the end of the Winter 2009 term.

  • Network after hours at StartupEmpire

    microsoftbizspark

    Jevon nailed it.

    The most important part of any conference is in how you meet other people who are attending, and this is a great chance to get a head start on that.

    StartupEmpire sold out last Monday. We’ve been working with my gang at Microsoft BizSpark to build an additional opportunty for people to come together, meet the people attending, the people building new startups, and get a head chance to network your faces off.

    Purchase a BizSpark After 6pm Ticket to gain access for dinner and drinks with attendees, speakers, sponsors and others in the community. The tickets are $10 each and include access to the networking event and 2 drinks tickets.

  • Yaletown Ventures closes $65M

    It might be the end of the world as we know it for venture capitalists. But Vancouver VC, Yaletown Venture Partners, announced their $100M Second Fund with $65M closing today. The fund is focused on early-stage investing in clean tech and IT in Western Canada.

    "The support that Yaletown has earned for its first two funds in extremely challenging market conditions, from institutional and technology industry insiders alike, is a strong endorsement of this team and its investment strategy," said Haig Farris, retired co-founder of Ventures West and one of Canada’s most respected angel investors.

    This quote by the retired cofounder of Ventures West says it all. A strong investment team with a strong thesis can raise money in down times. This is true of entrepreneurs and startups. Good ideas, good businesses and great execution make it easier for startups to raise money even in tough times.

    Yaletown has done a number of IT investments including:

  • StartupEmpire – Student & Startup Tickets

    startupempireIt’s time for startups to buckle down and really understand their expenses. We thought we’d make it a little easier for startups and students to participate in StartupEmpire.

    One thing about a downturn is that it’s not about eliminating spending, it’s about managing cash flows and making every dollar go as far as possible. We are working on putting together the best hands on workshops that will help entrepreneurs go from idea through to customer acquisition and sales – from legal issues to merger and acquisition issues. The goal is to provide valuable and pragmatic advice from real entrepreneurs, funders and service providers. Advice and examples that can help inspire you and hopefully save you the time and effort later.

    Students and startups are the reason we are hosting StartupEmpire. We want to encourage your participation. To help we’ve created a Student Volunteer program. Twenty students will get a complimentary ticket to StartupEmpire in exchange for volunteering and helping with the tasks that make  a conference run smoothly.

    We understand that students and startups are cash strapped. Our goal is been to provide an event that facilitates an opportunity to learn about the mechanics of starting up in Canada; and to facilitate connections between a community of entrepreneurs and funders.

    To this end and with the help of our sponsors, we’ve also created a limited number of Student & Startup Tickets. These tickets are priced at $199/person. They are full tickets, i.e., there are no limitations. From Day 1, this has been about helping entrepreneurs and startups in Canada.

    Student Tickets

    Are you registered full-time in an academic program? High-school, college or university? Then come on down. You might want to consider the student volunteer program. However, if you want to guarrantee your spot at StartupEmpire, purchase a Student Ticket. If you’re selected as a Student Volunteer we’ll obviously refund your fee.

    Startup Tickets

    Who is a startup? We tried to describe a bunch of parameters: privately held; incorporated less than 5 years; less than $5M/year in revenue; less than 5 employees. We just couldn’t figure out a good set of objective criteria to describe startups.

    So, the definition of a startup is kind of like pornography, I’m not sure I could describe it, but I know it when I see it.

    We will let you self-select, although, we hold the ultimate decision on whether you qualify for the startup ticket discount. We are looking for entrepreneurs and startups. You’ve got an idea. You’re building a product.  We’ll let you determine if you think you are a startup.

    If you’ve already purchased a ticket, and you think you qualify as a student or a startup, don’t worry. I’ll be going through the list of participants this weekend and contacting you individually.

    I would like to thank our Leadership sponsors, Microsoft and HighRoad Communications.

    We are also pleased to announce our champion sponsors,

    PriceWaterhouseCoopers
    Ontario Centers of Excellence, Gowlings
    and JLA Ventures.

    Visit www.startupempire.ca for more information on the conference and to register.

  • Start Building Empires

    StartupEmpireJevon and I apparently picked a conference name that exists as a registered trademark. We have been informed by our lawyer that our usage of the name did not infringe on the existing trademark. Rather than start with a potential tenuous situation, we decided we would just rebrand the conference.

    StartupEmpire is the new name. Does it remind you of Star Wars? Or the British Empire? It is ostentatious. It is bold. It is intended to inspire entrepreneurs to start building empires. History remembers the legacy of successful entrepreneurs. JP Morgan. Andrew Carnegie. Howard Hughes. Henry Ford. Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. Jeff Bezos. Mark Cuban. Our goal is to provide the tools to help build the next generation of entrepreneurs build their empires.

    What: StartupEmpire
    When: Thursday, November 13th and 14th, 2008 (all day)
    Where: Diesel Playhouse 

    56 Blue Jays Way
    Toronto, Ontario M5V 2A2

    We are focused on practical, real-world advice from entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts that will help early-stage companies at different stages. How do you build a cashflow statement? What does a marketing plan and budget look like for a startup with no money? What tools and services are available to set up your development, testing and production environments? How important is source control and bug tracking? What does a product roadmap look like for a startup practicing agile development? What does a basic shareholders agreement look like? How do you avoid getting sued? What do you do when you get a cease-and-desist letter? What is a term sheet from an investor? How does a developer do business development?

    We?ll be announcing the next set of speakers in the next couple of days. We?re also interested in learning about what you would like to see at StartupEmpire. Drop me a note with what would make you attend StartupEmpire in an instant.

  • 30 Ideas that need to be Funded

    Paul Graham has published Startup Ideas We?d Like to Fund at YCombinator.

    1. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom
    2. Simplified browsing
    3. New news
    4. Outsourced IT
    5. Enterprise software 2.0
    6. More variants of CRM
    7. Something your company needs that doesn?t exist
    8. Dating
    9. Photo/video sharing services
    10. Auctions
    11. Web Office apps
    12. Fix advertising
    13. Online learning
    14. Tools for measurement
    15. Off the shelf security
    16. A form of search that depends on design
    17. New payment methods
    18. The WebOS
    19. Application and/or data hosting
    20. Shopping guides
    21. Finance software for individuals and small businesses
    22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid
    23. More open alternatives to Wikipedia
    24. A buffer against bad customer service
    25. A Craigslist competitor
    26. Better video chat
    27. Hardware/software hybrids
    28. Fixing email overload
    29. Easy site builders for specific markets
    30. Startups for startups

    It?s a great list for entrepreneurs to start thinking about what to build next. The best part is that a number of folks have been building this software in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and other places in Canada. Here is my quick feedback about stuff that I can think of that fits the Canadian criteria.

    5. Enterprise software 2.0 ? Jevon has been talking about this for ages.

    6. More variants of CRM ? Dan McGrady is building integrate. Scott Annan and Scott Lake are building MercuryGrove. I love applications that focus on improving customer interactions, increasing the resolution of the interaction, these are products that small businesses drool over because they have an immediate impact on the bottom line.

    9. Photo/video sharing services ? Terry and Jeff at ParkVu are doing some really cool things.

    13. Online learning ? John and Gosia have drawn a line in the sand with LearnHub (my view of their opportunity).

    19. Application and/or data hosting ? Reuven Cohen is working at building some of the tools for Enomaly. While not Canadian, I?m intrigued with 10gen, Joyent, GoGrid, EngineYard and others. I wish there were some additional strong Canadian contenders in this space.

    20. Shopping guides ? Omar Ismail is leading the charge for open shopping reviews at ProductWiki. Candice Factor is working on building OurFaves inside the TorStarDigital network.

    21. Finance software for individuals and small businesses ? Mike McDerment and the kick ass team at FreshBooks are taking a stab at financial management tools for small business. George Favvas is building SmartHippo to enable better mortgage and financial information for consumers.

    22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid ? Avi Bryant and Andrew Catton are building a great tool, DabbleDB

    Kevin Leneway, who apparently is part of my brethren in DPE at Microsoft, has started going through each idea on the list one-by-one. He has decided to address each of the 30 ideas to generate ideas for a startup. It?s a great series of posts.

    Are there other Canadian companies that are solutions to one of the 30 ideas? Share them with us!