StartupNorth

Category: Toronto

  • StartupCamp Toronto 2 – Last release of tickets

    startupcamplogo_small1.pngWe have put more Entrepreneur and Guru tickets up for grabs for StartupCampToronto 2.

    It is looking like a great night and it is your chance to hear from some new startups and we also have Leila Boujnane lined up to speak.

    The format for StartupCamp is simple: 5 Startups will have 5 minutes each to pitch themselves. The audience will then have twice as much time to grill them on everything from their marketing plan to the product itself.

    The 5 startups will be selected in advance.

    If you want to get feedback on your business plan, then fill out the form available here by Sunday, April 13th.

    The event will be held on Tuesday April 29th at The Carlu in Toronto. We are putting on this StartupCamp during CIX, which is a new conference with a focus on connecting VC ready startups and VCs.

    Because of the limited venue size and the nature of the event, these tickets are ONLY available to individuals with a startup of their own or “gurus” who are able to contribute from expertise in some domain. See the ticket descriptions for details. Tickets may be revoked when we look over the list. Sorry, but we have to do this.

    Our Sponsors

  • Presenting companies announced for CIX 2008

    If you are going to have a beauty contest (or not), the contestants may as well be good looking, and CIX seems to have delivered. I have to admit that I didn’t even think the list would turn out this well. There is a cross section of everything from startups to companies looking for follow-on rounds.

    There has been some debate recently about the value of events like CIX, and I have to admit, I have not been easy on similar events in the past, but I have to say that I think it is time to move on. If you think CIX is all about a bunch of companies getting up and presenting, then you are wrong. I think of CIX more like a DEMO or Techcrunch 50 for the Canadian community, and that is something we need.

    More than that, a lot has changed in the Canadian Startup community in the last year, and this is a chance to start putting more names to faces, and for more shy startups to start coming out of the shadows. It is also a chance for the Venture Capital community to pull back the curtains and start connecting more closely with the community.

    We are using the CIX space to put on a second StartupCamp. So if you didn’t get a chance to get your name out there at CIX itself, make sure you put your name in the hat for StartupCamp.

    The list of presenting companies was released today, you saw it here first!:

  • StartupCamp Toronto 2: Leila Boujnane

    I am excited to announce that Leila Boujnane, CEO of Idée, will be closing the evening. Idée, who we have previously profiled, is one of Toronto’s biggest startup success stories, and the wonderful thing is that they are just getting started.

    Leila is constantly providing help and guidance to other entrepreneurs, myself included, and she has even been known to take a whip along when a startup isn’t hustling as much as they should be.

    I am going to send Leila 5 questions next week, so I want your help. Post or email your questions about starting a company and growing it to be as great as Idée.

    Our Sponsors

  • stopfinder.com – Should you take transit or take the car?

    stopfinder_small.pngThere have been a handful of Parking-Finder map sites lately. They were all neat, but seemed to lack that extra bit of information I wanted to know: How much is this going to cost?

    As you would have it, I have a meeting today up in the hinterlands that is Young and St. Claire. Because it is pouring rain I thought about taking the car. Because I don’t know the area, StopFinder popped in to my head. The founder of the site, Michael DiBernardo emailed us a couple of days ago to let us know that it launched.

    Stopfinder offers a huge amount of information, but it is all presented incredibly clearly. Subway and Bus stops are placed with nice big markers, and parking lots are easy to spot.

    With StopFinder you enter the address of where you are going and the time you will arrive, as well as how long you will be staying. StopFinder then calculates the closest parking lots, how much they cost in total, and which is the best combination of distance and cost from your final destination. Pretty cool, but what I love is that it also shows you public transportation options for getting there as well. In this case, we are basically right beside a subway stop. So I will do the right thing, leave the car in the garage and jump on the subway. That’s fine by me. I hate driving.

    Michael pointed out two kinds of pain that StopFinder helps solve:

    StopFinder finds the closest, cheapest parking lots and the surrounding TTC stops for a Toronto destination. This eases two kinds of pain:

    (a) There aren’t many good ways to figure out how to get where you’re going on the TTC right now. We think StopFinder beats what is out there.

    (b) When planning a get-together, some guests will come by car and others by transit. You can provide everyone with a single link that helps them get there.

    I am pretty happy with this service so far. The amount of data they seem to have aggregated is incredible. They also have an API that other developers can use to access their data.

    StopFinder might not have the largest audience yet, afterall it is Toronto-centric, but they are solving a real problem. Finding parking was never the problem for most of us, it turns out that it was knowing when to take a car and when to take transit. Even I didn’t know that until I experienced the solution, but I can tell that StopFinder will become a part of my toolkit from now on.

    Give it a try and let us know what you think. Post in the comments below.

  • Launching TalentEgg

    Two months ago we received an email from TalentEgg’s founder, Lauren Friese, brimming with excitement about her latest venture into the world of online recruitment. TalentEgg, which just hatched, is a website that connects high quality Canadian employers with students and recent grads that are looking for meaningful work.

    Job seekers using the site will be able to build TalentCards (Resumes), ask for advice using Grad Q&A (Forum), and read up on how to land a job on the TalentEgg Insider (Blog). Employers can create a free profile, but have to pay to advertise specific job openings, create awareness with site sponsorship, search through TalentCards, and send out targeted emails to job seekers. For the month of April the site is free on a trial basis to employers. TalentEgg hopes to cater to small and medium size employers who can’t make it to every campus recruitment day.

    This is a tough market to crack, TorStar’s Workopolis dominates; even the venerable Monster has had trouble getting traction in Canada. And TalentEgg faces a classic chicken or the egg problem: job seekers are interested in sites with lots of jobs and rational employers will only pay to advertise once the site’s user base reaches a certain threshold. Despite all this, something tells me it is only a matter of time before Lauren Friese figures out how to make this site lay some golden eggs. Congrats on the launch!

  • Reminder: CIX and StartupCamp Deadlines

    Time is running short to apply to pitch at CIX, and also to get help with your pitch at StartupCamp.

    The deadline to apply to CIX is April 4th, you can apply here. It is worth noting that the pricing structure has changed based on feedback and it is now half the price it used to be for startups who present.

    StartupCamp Toronto 2 is happening at the same time as CIX, and you can apply to present here, you have until Sunday April 13th for that one.


    We’d like to thank our first confirmed sponsor as well, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, as well as service providers who have purchased tickets: Mike Middleton (Q1Capital Partners) and Frances Fast (Q1Capital Partners), and Daniel Shapiro (Microsoft)

  • StartupCamp Toronto 2 – Tuesday, April 29th

    startupcamplogo_small1.pngStartupCamp Waterloo 2 was another big success, and we had a blast at StartupCamp Montreal, so we thought it was time we had another StartupCamp here in Toronto.

    The format for StartupCamp is simple: 5 Startups will have 5 minutes each to pitch themselves. The audience will then have twice as much time to grill them on everything from their marketing plan to the product itself.

    The 5 startups will be selected in advance.

    The event will be held on Tuesday April 29th at The Carlu in Toronto. We are putting on this StartupCamp during CIX, which is a new conference with a focus on connecting VC ready startups and VCs.

    The first run of tickets are available here. We will post more information as things come together.

    Sponsors

    Our kickoff sponsor is the Canadian Innovation Exchange.  If you are interested in sponsorship options, please get in touch.

    cix.png

  • Transcontinental acquires ThinData

    thindata_logo.gifThinData, a permission-based email marketing company based in Toronto, was acquired by Transcontinental today. The terms of the deal were not disclosed

    ThinData has a business model which is similar in many ways to that of CakeMail, who are based in Montreal, in that they often team up with agencies and other service providers who deliver the final product to the end-user.

    ThinData works with leading marketers and advertising agencies in Canada, and has received numerous awards and accolades for its innovative campaigns and its email marketing and online database management platform. ThinData, with its approximately 60 employees, will become part of the Premedia Group at Transcontinental under Nicky Milner’s responsibility.

    What is most interesting is that this acquisition was born out of previous work that the two companies have done together. I am sure that Transcontinental was more than happy to test the company first as a customer before approaching them about the acquisition. Just one of many reasons to treat all of your customers well.

    This all-Canadian marriage also shows that there are opportunities and potential exits right here in Canada.

  • Founder's Lunch coming to Toronto

    founders_lunch.pngThe details are few and far between, but the invitations have already started going out. Founder’s Lunch is a Toronto take on the famous, but even more exclusive valley event Founder’s Brunch. If you are interested in coming to the next event, drop them an email and get on the list.

    Many will argue that the last thing we need is another Invite-only event, and I can understand your point, but I can say that my participation in some invite-only groups such as StartupSwarm and others has been really beneficial to me personally and my startup. The main benefit comes from everyone’s ability to be open and honest with eachother.

    So, if you are interested in coming to Founder’s Lunch, email them at the address on the website, and if you are feeling a little pissed off that you aren’t getting invited to some events you think you would benefit from, drop me a note. I want to hear from you.

    This event is not organized by StartupNorth.

  • Alertle – Simplified and Customizable RSS reading

    alertle.pngAlertle, a Toronto, Ontario startup is an RSS Reader that is focused on breaking out beyond the more technically inclined crowd that uses services like Google Reader and Bloglines.

    The company, which has been bootstrapped so far, has been making quick progress. I have used their reader a few times in the last month and there has been obvious progress on the UI and the general flow of the applications.

    When you first log in, the most noticible difference between Alertle and other RSS readers is their focus on “bundles” of feeds. While most readers come with a large set of default feeds, Alertle takes it a step further and provides almost 20 bundles, each with well over a dozen feeds. These include bundles like “Life”, “Autos”, “Videos”, “Nasdaq” and more.

    Alertle really goes beyond just being a feed reader and really offers an easy way for a novice user to change how the browse the web in general. Their interface is relatively easy, but does take some getting used to (at least if you approach it from a traditional feed-reading mindset like I did), but I have found that it grows on you. My one complaint is that the titles of the feeds, which appear below nice large icons, are often cut short and are hard to read. I would prefer to have the titles displayed clearly and in full somehow.

    I was able to easily import my existing subscriptions from Google Reader using OPML, and I think that with a little tweaking I could really get used to this interface. I really appreciate how uncluttered the display window is for the news item that is currently being read, and the list of unread posts is also clear and easy to navigate.

    Alertle plans to generate revenue through advertising and potentially by offering a premium product for enterprise customers. I can imagine that there will be other revenue opportunities for them as well if they manage to build up their user base, such as charging for inclusion as a default feed and generating revenue through Google search referral if they can convince users to make Alertle their default homepage.

    Contact Varun Mathur