StartupNorth

Category: Startups

  • Coast to Coast: Amateur Sports Teams 2.0

    One of the first startups we profiled on StartupNorth was New Brunswick based Yourteamonline. Since then Yourteamonline has launched version 2.0 of their sports team management suite and added a slew of new features. In the meanwhile, Victoria based TeamPages has also risen in prominence.

    Both TeamPages and YourTeamOnline provide player pages, statistics, team pages and league interaction. It seems like we have a coast to coast fight for the amateur sports team demographic.

    clash.gif

    The market for amateur sports related spending in North America alone is $111 billion. More than enough room for two leaders, and even better if they are both from Canada. The amount of targeted advertising dollars up for grabs is staggering. Add on the amount of money that changes hands for local team sponsorships every year, and things are looking up!

    The first similarity I noticed was the abundant use of blue on both companies’ websites. The choice of colors is not where the similarities end however. And this is where I start to wonder a little.

    Both YourTeamOnline and TeamPages are marketing themselves as a generalized sports team management toolkit. If I were calling the shots here (which I am not!), I would approach each sport differently. YourTeamOnline is starting down this path, they have customized versions for Hockey and Soccer, but their marketing is still focused at a general market, which is going to be tougher to capture. This is the same strategy that every other competitor in the marketplace is using and it is going to be tough to stand out, even with a much better than average offering.

    YourTeamOnline and Teampages both focus on letting individuals, teams and leagues build social networks, and each have unique characteristics that, in my opinion, make them the two best team/league platforms out there. Where most competitive packages focus on the minutiae of managing a team, YourTeamOnline and TeamPages focus on the individual users, whether they are coaches, parents or players.

    I am also impressed with the roadmaps that both companies allude to on their sites. YourTeamOnline has plans to launch youtube-like video uploading and a feature called “SportsWire” that helps get team statistics out to the public, newspapers, and other consumers of team data.

    Is this a clash of the titans? A fight to the death? Jackie Chan vs. Chow Yun Fat? I think it is probably more the result of an overdue idea and a huge market, with scalable revenue opportunities. Will there be one winner, or two? We’ll be watching to find out.

    YourTeamOnline and Teampages have each taken early-stage funding.

  • New Brunswick Startup Competition Finalists (Breakthru)

    breakthru.gifThe finalists have been announced for the New Brunswick startup competition we covered a few months ago.

    I have to say, without having seen the actual products, that this list of startups really surprised me. Things are happening in New Brunswick! The mix is as creative, smart, useful and even as frivolous as any mixup of startups I have seen in other regions. Congrats to NBIF for running this contest and getting these startups some exposure.

    I am looking forward to seeing how this shakes out and who comes out the winner. Read on for the full list of finalists.
    (more…)

  • Defensio – Anti-Spam Startup

    picture-1-9.pngOk, this takes guts: entering a market with a niche product where the incumbent is not only a darling of the industry, but owns the primary platform on which you are going to have to compete for users. Akismet really changed everything for bloggers. We used to spend hours a week deleting comment spam, but Akismet made that all go away.

    Enter Defensio.

    Defensio is coming after the same market as Akismet (going as far as to provide only a WordPress plugin so far). We are late to the game in profiling them, and while the reviews have all been really positive so far, most end with the idea that the author will probably just stick with Akismet.

    It would be really easy to write off Defensio at this point. This is the part where the VC tells Carl, Mathieu and the other guys at Defensio that they aren’t differentiated, that the market is too small and that the incumbent has way too much penetration, especially with early adopters. (don’t let the door hit you on the way out)

    I see it differently. The second mover has a serious chance to make it big here. Defensio’s current strategy is to charge high-volume bloggers and commercial bloggers a small fee for using Defensio’s anti-spam technology. This is potentially lucrative on its own. If Defensio can provide a higher level of integration support and a better protection product, then they will be able to win some customers over from Akismet, but it is absolutely going to be a hard-fought battle, with everyone trying to row the boat a little harder in order to win.

    The real opportunity for Defensio however is to raid the markets that Akismet has left untouched. Where Akismet has proven the technology, and opened an initial market which Defensio can sell to, they are also leaving peripheral markets completely alone.

    dartboard.pngIf you believe, like I do, that user generated content is, and will be even more of, a big deal, then you have to accept that SPAM is going to be an even bigger problem down the road. Where Norton and McAfee made millions selling anti-spam products for your Outlook client, Defensio has an opportunity to become the enterprise-strength anti-spam solution for user-generated content.

    Review websites, corporate homepages, public wikis, all deal with serious spam problems. Considering the anti-spam market, which is speculated to be in the $2billion or higher range, still hasn’t started providing the sort of lightweight but bulletproof solutions that bloggers have grown accustomed to means that there is probably an entirely new market sitting there waiting for someone to come to the rescue.

    To do this, Defensio will have to work hard on building some early partnerships, which is admittently a tough job. I am looking forward to checking in with Defensio in 6 months to see how things are going.

    Contact Carl Mercier

  • StartupCamp Toronto – Second Release of Tickets

    The second release of tickets are now available for entrepreneurs. We will also be opening up new slots for service providers.

    Things are really coming together for StartupCamp, a big thanks to everyone who has offered support so far, especially our service providers who have purchased tickets to support the event.

    Even more importantly, we have had some fantastic startups step up to the plate. Here is the list so far.

    Your last chance to submit your startup is Sunday, November 11th Submission Form

    InvestMate
    Investmate creates customized CAPM model portfolios based on personal interests for those with little to medium amounts of money who desire to invest in the stock market.
         		Workspace
    We are building an online IDE to help developers create web applications faster and easier while following best software engineering practices.

    Metatom Enterprises
    Software takes a long time to build costing companies millions in longer development, debugging, and time to market. Our software speeds up build times by distributing the job of compiling across the LAN.
    Issues Done, LLC
    Eliminate procrastination stress by introducing an effective approach to track issues, plan, get reminded and collaborate.
    litterary
    litterary is a social network for reviewing documents. After a document is published other users can highlight portions of it to make comments.
    OfficeZilla.com
    OfficeZilla consists of a core set of features which can be put together in different ways to create new collaboration experiences

    Ogrant
    Ogrant is a social media platform that allows students to get grants for school using videos and other forms of creativity. All grants are funded by schools and corporations.
    MadWhips.com
    A state of the art exotic and modified car classification and display gallery storage system.

    YowTrip
    A social network for world travelers that connects you to people traveling to the same place and allows you to find people hosting other travelers.
    Wheels Mart TV
    Using video to sell used cars online for private individuals and dealers. Think “YouTube meets AutoTrader”.

    Defensio.com (Karabunga Inc)
    Defensio is a better spam filter for social web apps. We make spam management less of a chore with our spaminess ranking and our open API.     		CakeMail (The Code Kitchen)
    CakeMail is a multilingual white label email marketing platform with an architecture that is open to extension by third parties.

    More startups on the wiki…

  • Cover Your …

    Let’s face it, most entrepreneurs break all kinds of rules (the law is no exception). Starting a business is risky and time consuming; when your immediate survival is determined by your burn rate, the quality of your product, and time to market, it is easy to overlook or even knowingly ignore legal niceties.

    The thing of it is… investors want something tangible to hold onto. You won’t get very far with “we’re buddies so it is 50/50” or “we’ll figure out who owns what later”. Partners will also grow anxious without some formality and structure. Adhering to a few best practices may very well determine the near (and long) term prospects of your endeavor.

    Next Tuesday (November 13) from 12:00 – 1:00 PM EST, Cognition LLP‘s Joe Milstone will be hosting a free webinar on legal issues startups can?t ignore but often do. Well worth your time to listen in and listen up.

    What legal issues have you knowingly ignored in your startup? Post your (anonymous) responses in the comments.

  • BlitzWeekend: Launch a Startup in a Weekend

    We were going to make a post about BlitzWeekend, but what’s better than information straight from the source? Here is a guest post from Heri, a co-organizer of BlitzWeekend, with all the details.

    BlitzWeekend (organized by Heri Rakotomalala, Denis Canuel, and Mehdi Akiki) is coming to Montreal this February. We are inviting teams of designers, developers, and entrepreneurs to build a startup in 2 days, from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. BlitzWeekend is inspired by StartupWeekend, but there are some key differences. Where StartupWeekend attempted to get over 60 people introduced and working together on one project in one weekend, BlitzWeekend teams and projects should be setup before the event. We will be providing the space and other necessities, but it?s up to each team to find a project and to organize themselves.

    For new entrepreneurs, we offer an opportunity to go through all the stages of a startup: finding talented partners to collaborate with on an idea, writing a business plan, building and deploying the product. Teams will have an opportunity to present their final product at the end of the weekend and receive feedback from other participants and a panel of experienced entrepreneurs and investors.

    blitzweekeend-website.jpgIf you are already involved in a startup, it is also an opportunity to build our your existing product. 48 hours is ample time to create a Facebook / Open Social app or a widget to distribute your content to blogs. You can also view it as a challenge to test new technologies you haven?t had time yet to try out. Think of BlitzWeekend as your R&D lab.

    We expect most of the teams to focus on web applications, but BlitzWeekend is also open to teams working on innovative mobile applications, desktop software, games, etc. If all you really want to do is hack some hardware, then so be it!

    We will be limiting attendance for the event to 50 people, which should make for about 10 teams. We?ll open registration as soon as we secure the venue. For now, you can join the Facebook group, and post about your potential ideas and team members. Of course, we will also be updating the blog.

    See you in Montreal this February!

  • TimmyOnTime – Time Management via Instant Messenger

    logo.pngI am pretty sure the one tool I would not give up these days would be Instant Messenger. All of my closest business partners and customers are on either GTalk or MSN (with GTalk being far and away a more work-related buddy list). I take IM with me everywhere, on my iPhone, using meebo if I am on another computer, it’s just one of those things that I stay connected to as much as possible.

    When I started using Twitter, it was their instant messenger integration that really got me hooked, and I have always flirted with the business models around instant messenger bots. It seems though, that few useful applications show up for instant messengers, and IM in general is still not seen as a viable platform for applications.

    I think that assumption is flawed, and that’s why I was excited to hear about TimmyOnTime, a work time-tracking application that you use through your instant messenger. You can connect via AIM, MSN or GTalk/Jabber.

    Basically, TimmyOnTime allows you to create, by sending a message, a Project. Each project then has Tasks, which you define, and for each task you can “check in” and “check out”, and TimmyOnTime will then tell you how much time you have spent on a particular Task or Project. You can even tag projects and tasks to keep all sorts of information about them. TimmyOnTime also offers a web-based interface to view reports and manage your projects, tasks and account.

    They have a free version, which limits you to four projects, but they also have very simple paid tiers which not only let you create an unlimited amount of projects, but give you group-tracking capabilities as well.

    Personally, time tracking is not an art that I have mastered. While working on a project, I am usually reduced to keeping notes on paper. This is neither safe or efficient. What I like about TimmyOnTime is that I won’t have to change my workflow in any great way in order to track my time, and I won’t have to install another application, which is the last thing I want.

    One thing I would like to see in TimmyOnTime is an SMS-based option. This would have to be pay-per-use or an option for premium subscribers I am sure, but it would be fantastic to be able to send an SMS while out on the road or in meetings to keep my time tracking up to date. I’m not sure if that is something others would want, or just a heavy SMS user like me.

    Dan Simard and Frank Lamontagne are the two guys behind this startup and they are taking a very pragmatic approach to getting their name out there. They are based in Trois-Rivières, Québec, and they haven’t taken any funding as of yet, but that may change in the future. As they build up their subscriber numbers, and develop their product, I am sure we will hear more from them.

    Contact Dan Simard and Frank Lamontagne

  • $7,500,000 Series B and New CEO for xkoto

    xkoto logoGrowthWorks and GrandBanks Capital have announced a $7.5M Series B investment in xkoto. The startup, based in Toronto, is a leading provider of database load balancing solutions. The funding will be used to expand support of multiple database and ISV platforms, grow its U.S. presence, and accelerate sales. xkoto already counts big customers including UnitedHealthcare, Genworth Financial, InGrid, Travelport, and leading Wall Street investment firms.

    While the use of load balancing technology is already widespread for deployments of web and app servers, corporate data centers have only recently begun to seize the technology and capture the associated benefits (improved performance, lower consumption of system resources, and the viability of using inexpensive commodity hardware). xkoto claims savings of up to $295,000 on the initial hardware/software and recurring savings of $60K per year for each system replaced with a commodity system using GRIDSCALE, their software product.

    In addition to funding xkoto announced today a new Boston based CEO, David Patrick. David hails from Novell where he managed the $450 million Linux, Open Source, and Platform Services Group. Co-founder Albert Lee will become Chief Strategy Officer. Khalil Barsoum an industry veteran and Tim Wright of GrandBanks Capital, have joined xkoto’s board of directors which includes Roger Chabra of GrowthWorks, Mark Stirling of Treadstone Associates, and co-founder Albert Lee.

    This round is exciting as it represents continued interest in Canadian software startups. Is a move south of the border imminent? No decision has been made according to Roger Chabra of GrowthWorks. “The CEO is Boston-based solely because he was too good a candidate to pass up.” Rather than get all worked up about headquarter relocation, lets try celebrating it as both a fact of startup life in Canada and more importantly a sign of success in a larger market.

  • Cake Mail LogoCakeMail launched their public beta last weekend at BarCamp Montreal. The company, founded by serial entrepreneur Francois Lane, is only offering email marketing services through resellers, a pretty contrarian bet in a ?direct from the source? era. It remains to be seen whether or not offering service direct and through resellers would yield superior results, but either way there are some great lessons here for Canadian entrepreneurs.

    Get other people to sell it
    CakeMail is a white label email marketing platform. They are positioning themselves as wholesalers and doing everything possible to empower their resellers (marketing and web design agencies). I?m not entirely sure what keeping a per email pricelist off their site does when larger competitors publish comparison charts, but resellers probably appreciate the gesture.

    Open and abstracted
    CakeMail was designed from the ground up to leverage a community of developers. The UI is completely abstracted from the logic. In addition to offering reseller the ability to completely tailor the visual experience, CakeMail has opened up their API to give resellers the ability to extend the platform to their hearts content. It is a cost effective way to add functionality, experiment, and harnesses knowledge that only exists at the end user level.

    Go global
    Abstracting the interface has another benefit, localization. This is one area where Canadian entrepreneurs can really out do their peers south of the border. The company, based in Montreal Quebec, is a team of six, two of which are based in Eastern Europe. Count the fluencies. Localizing software is a big challenge and an even bigger opportunity (check out our recent post on Languify). CakeMail is already running in several languages, supports email in all characters, and is going to be quickly localized by end users.

    CakeMail at BarCampGet traction? Then funding
    Investors are risk averse. There is no better way to increase your funding prospects AND valuation, than by getting product out to paying customers. I asked Francois about the company?s capitalization and this is what he had to say:

    ?We are currently building a list of interested parties who could provide strategic synergies in addition to capital for rapid expansion into international markets. While we already have paying customers, we’d like to gain a bit more traction before starting funding negotiations in earnest.?

    So take note, this guy has a recipe for success.

  • Savvica Languify – Don't Sleep, Release!

    We covered the return of Savvica earlier and expected we’d hear from them soon. I was thinking more like 5 or 6 months, but instead today we see that Languify, a crowd-sourced translation service, has gone live.

    Languify InfoIt is a service which not only let’s you manage your own translations for your product, but let’s you benefit from the translation work of others. Languify offers a full REST-style API, which allows other systems to programmatically interact with all of the projects, locales, keys, and translations you have on their service.

    I woke up this morning to a few messages from a well known entrepreneur that he left me on Skype at 3am, and I am sometimes amazed by the number of late night e-mail exchanges I have with other startups as we work through the night. I have a feeling that John and Malgosia pulled a few all-nighters to get Languify done and released (8 days from start to finish).

    While you don’t have to work long nights, and I avoid it most of the time these days, I have to admit that most entrepreneurs I know, who are successful, do it regularly.