StartupNorth

Category: Startups

  • Go East! Another Startup Competition – New Brunswick

    The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, another quasi-governmental agency in Atlantic Canada, is running it’s own startup competition for New Brunswick startups.

    There aren’t quite as many prizes as in the Innovacorp competition mentioned earlier, but it is still a pretty serious prize package, including a 100,000$ equity investment by NBIF in the winning company along with a mishmash of services that are provided to the various winners.

    Submissions are due September 28th, 2007. You can get the submission form here and there is a Participant Handbook you need to read.

    These competitions are worth your time whether you are established, just getting started, or even just thinking about getting a startup off the ground. The pressure of developing your business, pitching it and then, hopefully, being rewarded handsomely for your work, is all worthwhile.

    Hey, I won one a few years ago and really enjoyed it. That startup, Blogtrack.com, probably wouldn’t have been launched in the end if I hadn’t received the funding that came in due to that competition. It also meant that angel investors came knocking anew. The rest, they say, is history.

    Hat tip to Harold Jarche for pointing us towards this.

  • indochino.com – Look good and spend a little less

    The beta tag has come to retailing. Online retailing that is.

    Indochino is a Victoria, BC startup that is trying to bring made-to-measure suits to customers who want to look good, but don’t want to spend a fortune on Hugo Boss, or whatever the must-have designer suit is this season.

    An entire suit, which looks pretty good in the pictures on their site, will cost between 250$ and 350$ Canadian. Their pricing is no-nonsense, duties are taken care of and if you need to have further alterations done, Indochino will pay your tailer up to 25$ for the work. Delivery time is 2 weeks from your order, and that includes being hand-tailored in Shanghai, China.

    Shirts are a little more expensive. 100$ to 150$ for a shirt, which I am sure is nice, but Indochino has the problem that their brand is not strongly differentiated — which means it is hard to convince someone to spend that much on a shirt they haven’t seen in person.

    The market for a service like this is huge. Every large city is full of middle aged and younger men who want to look good, but really don’t feel like shopping all the time. If Indochino can find a way to open up this market, then their business will grow dramatically.

    Kyle from Indochino tells me they plan to keep up to date on new trends and styles, in a similar strategy as Zara and H&M. I think this is smart, as it lets you keep selling a lot of new clothing to a young to middle-aged demographic, but I keep thinking that the name “Indochino” isn’t sustainable long-term. It pigeon-holes the offering and limited their horizontal mobility later on. I’d like to hear from them on this.

    These guys don’t sit still however, they are already experimenting in BC with an option that involves having a tailor come right to your house to measure you for your suit. If you aren’t in BC, you can have a sample of cloth sent to you along with a tape-measure, so you can measure yourself. Indochino already has a few hundred customers, and I am sure that will grow to thousands soon.

    Their operation is lean — no inventory or exposure season to season — but they are going to have to do something significant to stand out from the crowd. A strategy focused on driving sales through social networks could, in my opinion, really set these guys apart. I have shared some of those ideas with them directly, so won’t post them here.

    Indochino is a real business with a solid international infrastructure in place, they have the backing of a strong group of angels and their product is good and stylish (I will hopefully upgrade that to great when I have a chance to order my own jacket this week). Now it’s time to break away from the pack and stand out.

    Indochino is tentatively looking at raising a new round of financing based on their early success. Contact Kyle Vucko.
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  • Nova Scotia Startup Competition

    Innovacorp, a Halifax based quasi-governmental funding, assistance and mentoring organization for startups is running a startup competition for companies, or soon-to-be companies, based in Nova Scotia.

    Each first place zone winner will receive a $100,000 prize package of a combination of cash and in-kind contributions and each second place zone winner will receive a $40,000 prize package of a combination of cash and in-kind contributions to be used towards the establishment or further development of their start-up ventures. Prize packages will include support and resources in the form of expertise (i.e. legal, accounting, marketing, human resource services), funding and seed investment to be used by winners to develop their start-up businesses.

    At the end of the competition, one provincial winner will be selected from among the five first place zone winners, and will be awarded a $100,000 seed investment from InNOVAcorp?s HPiTM Microfund.”

    In places with less private-sector startup activity than cities like Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, these competitions play a significant role in getting potential startups to come out of their shell. The bonus for this competition is that, unlike most competitions of this nature, the prize is significant enough to truly launch a new startup.

    They have divided Nova Scotia in to 5 ‘zones’, with significant prizes for the winner and runner up companies in each zone, with one final competition to determine the provincial winner, who gets a 100,000$ cash investment.

    Are you in Nova Scotia? Get off your butt and start building that startup! We will be following this very closely and will try to profile as many of the competing companies as possible.

  • StartupWeekend Toronto is rumbling along

    Reports are rolling in from StartupWeekend Toronto, both from various blogs and some more candid reports via the backchannel.

    Attendees were as many as 60 on Saturday, with an estimated 40 working away today (Sunday).

    The good news? The application is actually getting built. It’s called Lobbythem and it is a very basic platform that lets you create a sort of petition with a few actionable items that come off of it (from what I understand, things like getting key influencers in the lobbying group to push the petition forward, tools to get more individuals involved, etc).

    There is a screenshot here of the app so far.

    Is a business getting built here? It’s hard to say. The biggest hurdle for a lobbying platform is that the ‘enabling’ or community-based lobbying has not been spectacularly profitable yet. Sites like Petitionspot and loads of others are essentially user-generated SEO content, but they are making some money doing it.

    We will get a final wrapup from some participants in a month or so to see how things shake out. In the meantime, keep an eye on the site and let’s see how it all comes together.

    Note: Interested in what is happening at StartupWeekend? Want to check it out? Don’t show up at the site — people are being turned away from visiting on the basis of not having signed an NDA.

    I am going to send the organizers an email to find out what on earth would fall under an NDA that is going on at StartupWeekend. I can’t imagine much.

    Update #2: Just had a call from one of the StartupWeekend organizers. People are not being turned away for not having signed NDAs, but they are trying to keep visitors from dropping by and interrupting the flow. I can understand that completely.

    He tells me the app will launch tonight and I can tell from his voice, there is a lot of excitement in the air. We will check in with them tonight to see if it all comes together.

    Update #3: Some of the guys from StartupWeekend presented at DemoCamp4 here in Toronto and announced that the site will be live later this week.

    Also, there is a bit of backlash starting to surface about how the Toronto organizers handled things.

  • Startup Weekend Toronto starts tonight

    Startup Weekend Toronto get’s underway tonight at 6pm. They are completely sold out, and even if half of those who signed up actually show up then there will be more than enough people to get a fun, and real, startup off the ground.

    A lot of interesting people have been introducing themselves on the forums.

    It’s hard to know what to expect from something like Startup Weekend. Like any startup, everything has to start with a good idea. Instead of starting with a business idea however, StartupWeekend is starting with an event and a group of people. That doesn’t have to be a negative thing, in fact, it can probably be a positive thing.

    I will be dropping by StartupWeekend tonight and again near the end of the weekend and I will be reporting back all of the non-confidential bits that I can find out about what is coming together.

    Experienced Startup founders that I have talked to have all had similar feelings about StartupWeekend. It is something we really want to encourage because it builds a startup culture and exposes a lot of new people to the world of starting a business, but at the same time we feel practically paralyzed with fear at the idea of have our business partners all chosen for us and having to negotiate simply to settle on the ‘what’ that is being built.

    StartupWeekend is, however, anything but a joke. A real company will be incorporated, shares will be divided up and various equity incentives will be distributed to those who perform better or contribute more.

    Update: Jonas and I came for the opening of StartupWeekend. There were at least 30 participants in the room and there was a lot of energy. It was a mix of people across all disciplines. The only concern I had was that someone mentioned that 7 developers didn’t show up, which would l leave them short I think.
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  • DemoCampToronto 14

    We are going to try to do a better job of covering the various *camp events in Canada. For now, a reminder: DemocampToronto14 is coming up on Monday, September 17th at the Toronto Board of Trade.

    Come out, we’d love to see you!

  • Break time is over. What are you planning for the fall?

    Ok. So the summer has been nice. Drinks with friends, long evenings with few worries and beautiful places to see.

    The bad news is: that is all over. September is rumbling towards us and if you have been slacking a little on your startups ideas, it’s time to get a plan ready.

    You’ve probably promised yourself that you will get out to more events, you’ve also probably committed to waste less time with that Xbox or whatever it is that is distracting you, and you most likely have 3 or 4 decent ideas swimming around in your head.

    How are you going to change from relaxing to action?

    Don’t promise, DO
    Instead of waiting until September to start getting back into the work groove, start now. The extra week might not seem like much, but you’ll prove to yourself that you have the personal control to get busy when you need to, and the last week of August is a slow one for everyone else, so you will have less distractions while you work.

    Start talking now
    Don’t just promise yourself that you will get out to more *camp and other events “this fall”. Start calling people who you think can help and take them for a beer or lunch NOW. If they aren’t on vacation, chances are that they aren’t doing much at work either. You’ll get their full attention and, hopefully, you’ll have a solid relationship before the September rush.

    Set goals
    Set some decent personal goals that you want to achieve in the next year. September is the Entrepreneur’s New Year. At least it always has been for me. Do you want to be selling a product this time next year? Have funding? A lot of people will tell you that goals set a year in advance are useless, but they are a compliment to your more immediate goals, and when you hit them, they are even sweeter.

    Focus on one idea
    It is torture walking around with a couple of decent or good ideas in your head, and when they both start to become excellent ideas, then you are screwed. Pick one early and stick with it. The other ideas will have to be “might have been”‘s for the rest of your life, or the next year at least.

    Keep your calendar open in November
    Because we are planning an extra cool event. StartupCongress. End of November, best entrepreneurs in the country, best money people and advisors in the country, all in one place. Open format and focused on giving your startup a leg-up. More info to come.

  • Ontario "Premier's Catalyst Awards" nominations open

    OntarioOntario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his new Ministry of Research and Innovation (with himself as Minister) have been making waves for the past few years in the Ontario innovation community. McGuinty appears to genuinely love the innovation policy file, and speaks quite passionately on the subject.

    While in the past, the Ontario government’s emphasis has been on commercializing University-based research, the mandate for the new Ministry is much broader and bolder – building a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the Province, which is good news to the grassroots startup community here at StartupNorth. Awards are one way to recognize and signal this direction.

    The Catalyst Awards provide five awards of $200,000 annually for developing a commercially successful new, or significantly improved, product or service based on a breakthrough technology. Innovations must have the potential to impact Ontario’s economy, society and/or sustainable development.

    If your startup is doing something new and exciting in technology, you should apply. Please see the page for the Premier’s Catalyst Awards for eligibility criteria and the application process. The deadline is November 1st, but you may as well start now. Good luck!

  • Amazon selects Freshbooks for new Payment Service

    FreshBooksYou have probably heard about Amazon’s new Flexible Payments Service… what you didn’t know is that FreshBooks, the Toronto based invoicing startup, was one of the very first companies invited by Amazon to try integrating the payment service. Great news all around! Amazon’s entry means more competition in the online payment market… good for consumers, good for startups. And FreshBooks was recognized by Amazon as the perfect partner to demo their newest web service utility. Think Canadian startups are going unnoticed by the web giants? Think again!

    Check out FreshBooks’ perspective on the Flexible Payment Service.

  • Mickey Mouse devours Club Penguin

    Disney2Club Penguin, based in Kelowna, has been acquired by Disney for $700M. In an open letter announcing the acquisition, the site’s founders promise to keep the site free of advertising and hint at site localization. Sony had previously attempted to acquire Club Penguin for $500M. This is a huge exit for founders Lane, Dave, and Lance. Congratulations!