From 2009-2014 StartupNorth had an index of Canadian emerging technology companies and service providers. We have removed this feature.
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Zombie Factories
We like to give out a Zombie of the Year award in our annual Unicorn Awards. The Unicorn Awards are the far more lucrative and weighty cousin of the upcoming Spotlight Awards (are you going?). In 2013 Danielle…
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Products are Lines, not Dots
I see a lot of founders and startups struggling with explaining what they are trying to accomplish. Many are just focused on how they are going to do the next thing. The next release, the next pitch, the next…
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An Investor’s Rendition of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
by Travis Cocke (sourced from Seth Levine) ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land Not a banker was lending, not even “Gold-Man” Foreclosures were hung by the courthouse with care In hopes that Hank Paulson soon…
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Founders & Funders: Nov 18, 2014
It’s that time again – to bringing together the people that start emerging technology businesses and the people that fund them, early. Who should attend? Uhm, yeah. Founders & Funders. Founders You are a founder of a emerging technology…
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How we raised a $2MM seed round in 2 weeks
This is a guest post by Mike Katchen, founder of Wealthsimple, Canada’s first online investment manager. He recently moved back from San Francisco where he led marketing at 1000memories (YC S’10, acquired by Ancestry.com). In May, we raised a…
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We Should Be Building Empires
We don’t build a lot of empires around here. Empires are big, they grow fast, and they use momentum to determine where to apply resources. Empires don’t respond, they set the new rules. Carnegie. Rockefeller. Gates. Zuckerberg. Lutke.…
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Making Canada SAFE
It has been 9 months since PG announced the YC SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity). The Winter 14 batch included Canadians: Taplytics, Send With Us, Piinpoint, Minuum, Gbatteries and others. (There have been an increasing number of Canadian companies since…
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You are supposed to break the rules
Great entrepreneurs truly do not care about the rules. If you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of rules. Some come and go with the times, others never seem to go away: You are supposed to dress a…
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One Post to Rule Them All
Hard to believe that it has been 21 months since I wrote Don’t Panic: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Toronto Startup Ecosystem. There are parts of this post that are a little dated but it generally holds up as…
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Former MaRS CFO saw problems in 2010
The following is a guest post from Mark McQueen, originally written on Wellington Financial’s blog. Thanks to the fine folks here at StartupNorth, there has been a vibrant online discussion over several days regarding the “problems” with the Ontario government’s MaRS program.…
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Searching for life on MaRS
Yesterday afternoon I decided to visit MaRS and see for myself… just how empty (or occupied) is Phase 2? Of the 20 floors, only 3 had any tenants. And all but 1 tenant (a clean tech fund with…
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Ontario Startups…On A Train
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Brydon Gilliss. Brydon has held a number of roles but most recently he is the driving force behind lots of awesome in Guelph including a coworking space, ThreeFortyNine; a personal accelerator, Startupify.me; events,…
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9 Tips to Network Your Way into a VC Job
[Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Jared Gordon Follow @VCJG. Jared is an Investment Manager at IAF and is a lawyer by training (though we don’t hold that against him). The post summarizes Jared’s experience in…
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A conversation about MaRS
Dan Debow (LinkedIn) kicked off a conversation about MaRS on the StartupNorth Facebook group. It is an interesting thread with views on the efficiency of our tax dollars, the applicability of building office towers to stimulate the innovation economy, and the relative utility of…
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Policy Wonking
Wojceich Gryc has an interesting post on the policies that he’d like to see the federal government implement to improve the startup ecosystem. The 5 key points are: Market Access Tax Credits Legal/Tax Advice for Market Access Sales-Oriented…
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Hardware Workshop: May 2-3
Step 1. Start a hardware company. Step 2. ? Step 3. Profit. If it were only that easy. You can ask Pebble, InteraXon, Thalmic, Bionym, PUSH Strength, Kiwi Wearables, ClearPath Robotics among others about the challenges of designing, testing, manufacturing and distributing a…
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New job posted: Front End Developer / Juice Mobile…
New job posted: Front End Developer / Juice Mobile / Toronto, ON, Canada bit.ly/1jveChk
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When should startups pursue a patent strategy?
[Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Bob Stratton and Andrew Currier of PCK IP about patents and patent strategy for Canadian startups. And while “traction is the new IP”, this is one very cost effective strategy…
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The Rise of Fashion E-Commerce and Man’s Escape from the Mall
[Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Thomas Rankin. It is subset of his original post, which is a collection of thoughts and research compiled during some of the earliest exploration into the Dash Hudson business model. ] The…
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Announcing David Cohen’s Visit to Toronto and Waterloo, April 22-23 2014
I’m very excited to announce that David Cohen, Founder & CEO of Techstars will visit Toronto and Waterloo, April 22nd-23rd 2014. Techstars is the largest accelerator network in the world, with programs running in New York, Boston, Boulder,…