StartupNorth

Category: Montreal

  • Lessons in Social Media, with MediaScrape

    We have covered MediaScrape a few times, and when I joked that they might be the next Capazoo, their CEO came through with a great reference to Cocain.

    Well, they are back. Since this post is not an opinion piece, I will just link you to a recent Montreal Gazette article and quote a few bits. In the interest of presenting the other side of the startup-ecosystem argument, I present the one… the only…

    He’d rather make deals with media conglomerates and Silicon Valley giants over fancy lunches than share ideas over blogs or hobnob with venture capitalists at technology happy hours.

    He doesn’t go to local networking events where entrepreneurs talk about their projects and share feedback:
    “Why would I go? There’s no money – there’s no content at those things. I’m busy. I’m making deals. And the times I did go I just heard a lot of whining that there’s no money in Montreal.”
    He doesn’t have a blog where he logs his company’s progress, details its challenges, and invites dialog from the tech community, in the hopes of increasing his Google cred:
    “I don’t need to be a destination site. For us to use social media gimmicks, to drive traffic to our site would put us as competitors with our clients.
    “We’re a behind-the-scenes enabler.”

    Yet this hardly seems to faze Cavell. He doesn’t feel he needs to satisfy doubting bloggers.
    “Screw them,” he said. “We’re a private company. I don’t have to tell them shit.
    “Blogs are great for open-source editorials, but they’re no substitute for researched journalism.”
    One could chalk up Cavell’s philosophy to his lineage. He’s the son of Charles Cavell, the former head of what is today Quebecor World Inc., when it was still a mighty printer, and former chairman of tabloid chain Sun Media Corp.

    An in case you are wondering, yes: Comments are turned on.

  • Pride and Prejudice – Why startups need community

    I was feeling extraordinarily proud of Idée last night when I saw that they received glowing coverage on TechCrunch. It is well deserved, and it seems like they are just getting started in terms of press coverage. They recently had a huge profile in the Financial Post, written by David George-Cosh (who has been getting more and more connected with the Toronto community as of late). We have been tracking Idée for a while now.

    Then as I kept flipping through my news feeds, I came across an embarrassing update about MediaScrape, which Heri and Mathew Ingram both covered well. When we first posted about MediaScrape, Tyler Cavell, the founder, responded in a much more succinct way than he did to TechCrunch’s latest post. Heri had even convinced me to lay off and see how things work out.

    I almost feel like I am doing Idée a disservice by mentioning them in the same post as MediaScrape. Where Idée has focused on perfecting their technology and winning customers, MediaScrape seems to be prone to distraction and tends to make simple matters much more confusing and difficult than necessary.

    Heri made the point in his post yesterday that when entrepreneurs are disconnected from their local community, they seem to be more likely to go off the rails. I think Heri is on to something that investors need to take in to consideration when investing.

    Again, Leila and the crew at Idée are a great contrast and example of how to do things right. While Idée is possibly the busiest startup in Canada, and one that is spending its own money (ie: they have no time to waste), they still manage to be tightly connected to the community here in Toronto. Leila is constantly organizing, co-organizing or speaking at events, and when she isn’t doing that, she spends a lot of time each week mentoring other startups.

    Capazoo and MediaScrape, according to Heri, have never made it out to a single Montreal event and have generally kept a distance from their local startup community.

    Perhaps one of the measures that investors, both Angels and VCs, take in to account when deciding whether they want to put money in to a startup or an entrepreneur should be whether or not that person has been able to take the time to connect with a community of startups. That way you know they have a social and professional circle that will keep them accountable, demand progress and that will criticize their execution, rather than patting them on the back and telling them they are going to be rich.

    If your friends tell you that you will be rich and famous, then you have the wrong friends.

  • CVCA – "The Face of Change" – Montreal

    I am heading to Montreal next week for the Canadian Venture Capital Association’s annual conference. The theme this year is “The Face of Change”, and the idea is to look at what causes change in the VC and Private Equity worlds.

    I am excited to be going for a few reasons. The biggest one is the fact that I have been making a lot of noise recently saying that Canadian VCs need to spend more time connecting to the startup community, and Suzie Dingwell Williams recently said the same thing, so turning down an invitation to the only national VC conference in Canada would have been a little backwards.

    The other reason I want to go is to spread the word about some of the great startups that are popping up these days. We have been lagging behind on writing profiles (I know I know I know), but we are always telling people about some of the cooler ones we are seeing.

    I promise to make a few posts during and after the conference with some notes on what goes on when VCs get together. (besides Scotch tastings that is!)

    Will any of you be there, or in Montreal during those days/nights? (May 28th-30th). I would love to meet up.

  • SmartHippo – Chowhound for Mortgages

    SmartHippo, based in Montreal, has had quite an exciting week. In addition to launching a new version of the site, a US mortgage search engine and comparison community, at Finovate San Fransisco, George Favvas SmartHippo’s CEO has managed to bring together a fantastic advisory board. Board members include Lori Collins, former Senior Vice President and General Manager for LendingTree Exchange; Bill Rice, CEO of Kaleidico; and Toronto’s very own John Philip Green, Founder and CTO of LearnHub.

    SmartHippo is an interesting startup launching a product into a market in turmoil. Interest rates are all over the map, housing prices are deflating, and homeowners are nervous. While there is possibly going to be less action in the mortgage business while the market finds it’s bearings, it may be just the time to bring together a community to ferret out the best mortgage rates.

    LowerMyBills.com was acquired by Experian in 2005 for more than $330M. Bankrate.com has a market cap of $986M. And LendingTree.com is being spun off by IAC. Mortgage origination pays. SmartHippo’s main challenge now is building a community. He is on the right track by “not letting the business model get in the way of business.”

    “LendingTree and LowerMyBills are pure lead generation plays that match the consumer with the banks that pay the most for the lead (not the ones with the best rates). Bankrate lets banks advertise ‘bait and switch’ rates.” While like its competitors SmartHippo makes money with mortgage application origination, their approach is much more transparent: finding and rating mortgage rates and banks is driven in large part by user reports. Transparency works. It is probably only a matter of time before SmartHippo has to deal with a stampede of smart borrowers.

    Check out SmartHippo’s StartupIndex profile.

  • Founders and Funders Montreal – May 14th 2008

    The second Founders and Funders Dinner has been announced for Montreal. Tickets are $100

    This dinner, like the last one and the Toronto event is still by invitation only, but some changes have been made to make sure that everyone has a chance to participate.

    To help expand the community of people we can be invited, we are opening up a registration system for invites allowing anyone who is a founder, angel investor or VC investor to register for an invitation.

    We are limited to 100 seats for the dinner. The fee for the dinner will be $100 which will include drinks and dinner. This is a private networking event and we select the audience to ensure a quality group of attendees have a chance to network together.

    Given the interest we received after the first event and the fact that we won?t be able to invite everyone who has expressed interest to the dinner. As a result we are also going to be hosting an after dinner open cocktail networking (A nice roof top terrace party). The networking event will cost $20 and include two drink tickets.

    Announcements for Toronto and Vancouver dates will be made very soon.

  • MediaScrape – Will Montreal give us another Capazoo?

    TechCrunch is asking some questions about Montreal-Based MediaScrape. I don’t know anything about them, but it seems like they are either stretching the truth or things aren’t as simple as they seem.

    Being an aggregator of video (letting other people pay for all that pesky production and things like reporters) doesn’t seem like a terrible idea on first blush, but the execution in the case of MediaScrape feels little amateurish. That said, things like “Related Videos” and a handful of other features are useful and relevant.

    Anyone know anything about this company? (UPDATE: I think Heri lays it all out well. I look forward to seeing MediaScrape grow)

  • Launching Tungle

    Tungle went live today. As you may recall, the Outlook plug-in meeting coordinator raised $1.5M from JLA Ventures and Desjardins Venture Capital last year. They had hoped to launch a couple months after winning a 2007 Demo God Award, but instead held off to refine the product. Since then, a number of other companies including Jiffle and TimeBridge have entered the fray.

    But direct competition is not Tungle’s main challenge, the status quo is. No doubt, scheduling meetings can be a pain, but changing one’s routine is a lot to ask of customers. Tungle and its backers went into the deal with their eyes open, acknowledging that people are “creatures of habit” and that it was a key risk to their venture. Time will tell if Tungle’s technology will trump routine. For now, congratulations are due to Marc Gingras (CEO), Fang Yang (CTO), and the rest of the Tungle team on the launch.

    Download Tungle, setup a few meetings, and let us know if you think Tungle will cross the “creature of habit” chasm.

  • Running a startup blog isn't easy – MontrealTechWatch 2.0

    Heri, the brains behind MontrealTechWatch, is calling an open meeting to discuss the future of the blog, and I think, by implication, the future of the Montreal tech startup community.

    Heri has been writing MontrealTechWatch for just over a year, and in that time it has not only become probably the most popular startup blog in Canada (certainly the most popular city-focused), but he has also managed to really solidify Montreal’s reputation as one of the most exciting cities for startups in this country. For anyone outside Montreal, MTW is the first place to go to find out what is happening and who’s who.

    “What I would like MTW to be is to turn it into an independent, self-sufficient entity, that would cover new technology, entrepreneurship, hackers, video games, events in Montreal and beyond. Also being a media entity is not a viable business model these days, so MTW is going naturally to take the path of working with local entrepreneurs and other members of the community.” – Heri

    Heri is suggesting that MontrealTechWatch become more of an entity which can sustain itself and drive the interests of the Montreal community forward, and it seem he also wants to expand past montreal.

    I can understand where he is coming from. Maintaining focus and continually keeping fresh content on a blog is hard work and over time even something as simple as a blog about startups or a tech community can really start to take up a substantial amount of time. Eventually things have to change and the work needs to get distributed.

    This is an opportunity for the Montreal community to step up. As I see it, this is a moment of truth. Are you willing to put in the work to preserve something as great as MTW? No other city has been blessed with such a focused, active, and quality focal point. (in Toronto we have David Crow, but he is a moving target, and sticky notes never hold well)

    Good luck Heri. I have a feeling this is the beginning of something great.

  • iNovia launches a new fund – Seed and early stage venture capital

    iNovia is announcing their new fund today. The new fund, which comes in at $107million is focused on Seed and Early Stage deals in the information technology, life sciences and cleantech sectors.

    iNovia, who most recently participated in the funding of StandOutJobs, has been engaging the startup community pretty directly lately and are usually visible at events like StartupCamp, blitzweekend and others. iNovia promotes itself as “Entrepreneurial Capital”. By they mean that they come from diverse and relevant backgrounds. Instead of being full of ex-banker, iNovia tends more towards entrepreneurs and people with experience working with startups.

    With its recent additions, the iNovia Capital management team now comprises a diverse group of professionals, all of whom have operational or financial backgrounds, coupled with strong technical and business expertise. iNovia has also established a network of Venture Partners and Entrepreneurs in Residence, who provide industry insight and expertise, along with access to a large network of collaborators.

    “Entrepreneurial Capital” can mean something else as well, and I think iNovia just might deliver. My definition of “Entrepreneurial Capital” is an Angel or VC who is just as hungry and hustles just as much as any startup. From coast to coast we hear complaints about poor dealflow for VCs and that this hurts their business. This may be true to an extent, but it is about to get a lot worse for those VCs who don’t show that same Entrepreneurial Spirit. Firms like iNovia, Montreal Startup, EVP and others are all going to be scooping up more and more of the best deals at very early stages simply because they will be engaged closely with the very communities that are giving birth to these startups.

    Technology Venture Capital is a startup business in Canada. It is young, the players are largely inexperienced and the market is small but emerging. This is a good thing. If you are a VC with money to spend, you can still win. There is a massive community forming that is almost exclusively to your benefit and that community is working harder than ever before now.

    We will be watching iNovia closely to see if they live up to all my hype.

  • StartupCamp Montreal 2 – May 15th, 2008

    startupcamp_eve2.jpg

    StartupCamp Montreal 2 has been announced. It is taking place May 15th and will be at the SAT again. I am a little sad that I will have to miss it because of another conference, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun!

    Make sure you sign up, and if you are a startup, you should consider presenting. StartupCamps are one of the few places you can get no-holds-barred feedback on your business plan. If you are interested in presenting, add yourself to the wiki.

    Date : May 15th, 2008
    Time : 6pm to 10pm EST
    Location : SAT – Société des arts technologiques

    They are really stepping it up for this event as well and will provide a bunch of help and support for the startups that are chosen to present.

    1) The top five startups selected to present at the event will have the opportunity to participate in a one-day pre-event workshop session. The goal being to have ?pitch? experts help the companies prepare ahead of the event. The workshop will be hosted by Austin Hill, John Stokes, Vincent Guyaux, and 2 other VC / marketing experts.

    2) Presenting companies will have 8 minutes to present, with 10 minutes of follow-up questions from the event Gurus and the audience.

    3) We will have ambassadors on hand prior to the event and during the event to help with match making and networking.