StartupNorth

  • MaRS Phase II in the Deadpool

    The MaRS Center is seeing the second phase of development go on hold.

    Phase II, which involved the development of a second tower on the west side of the property, has been cancelled, despite having been ahead of schedule so far. The reason given by Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc, the American developer behind the project, is that they just couldn’t secure enough leases to make the project move forward.

    I first heard about this a few days ago when an unsubstantiated rumor was posted on Urban Toronto (a great forum that I lurk in). Then when I was up in the area yesterday I noticed that the site was pretty quiet, but still wasn’t sure. That was until I looked at the National Post this morning and it was right there on the front page.

    The MaRS center is a confusing thing for tech entrepreneurs. There are a few startups in there, and it is home to a Celtic House office and RBC Ventures. They also have some really fantastic people working there, such as Peter Evans and Allen Gelberg, who have reached out to the startup community in a big way and who have provided a venue for things like Mesh and the Facbook Developer Garage.

    My sense is that MaRS has a much bigger impact on the medical research and commercialization community, but I am not connected to that community and have no way of knowing.

    MaRS was never a center for the tech community however. Simple economics make it impossible for such a high-cost building to truly have an impact at a community level. There are three old garment factories at Spadian and Queen that have had more of an impact. This isn’t a new phenomenon either, when I was building some of my first startups in Charlottetown, the provincial and federal government spent almost $35million building something called the Atlantic Technology Center.

    In terms of the size of the city and community, the Atlantic Technology Center was even more ambitious than MaRS, and it was even more disconnected from the community. While some of the best startups were moving in to great historic office spaces, government contractors and service firms piled in to the Tech Center. It was high-cost, anti-septic and too ambitious.

    The truth is, if you want to transform the tech community in a place like Toronto or any other city, you don’t need $20million, or $200million. For all the dreams of trying to turn some city in to the “next valley”, the point gets missed every time. You could put Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Calgary or Vancouver on the world map with almost no money. Put a couple million together and find the right people to deploy it. We need to start loving our cities and the communities that are coming to life in them.

    The problem is that government officials can ascribe value to real estate. We all love to build big things that people can see, touch and talk about. Until those same people can understand the value of a vibrant and productive community, then we will never get the participation that we truly need.

    It is worth pointing out that MaRS has billed itself as a home for academic research and eventual commercialization, not simply a home for the tech community. I believe that the same fundamental principals are in play however, and that the task of building a commercialization engine in this city is not a real estate problem, but a social one.

    I don’t know what this means for MaRS and their efforts in the community, but I hope it is a chance for them to step back and refocus. They have a great team that I believe will still do great things.

  • Clutterme.com is for sale, on ebay

    Clutterme.com a do-it-yourself website builder and domain purchasing site is for sale, on ebay. This isn’t the first startup to put themselves up on Ebay, Toronto based Tucows bought kiko.com in an ebay auction for almost $260,000 a few years ago.

    Will Clutterme get bids well past $200,000? Probably not, but I think the service is worth something, and a registrar such as Tucows, GoDaddy or another could really make good use of it. Clutterme is what they say it is: A really, really, easy way to make a website. It is the kind of really simple website builder that your mom would be happy to use. They also have a really slick domain purchasing system set up that lets people get their own domain and website builder all wrapped in to one.

    I have had a chance to hang out with Mark and Alex and I know they are going to be successful. They are hard working and passionate guys and they have stuck with this project through thick and thin. It is too bad that ClutterMe isn’t going to be their winner, but I will be the first one waiting to see what their next project is.

    So head on over and place your bids. Someone with the right sales channel and a little elbow grease could make this thing work.

    You can try a demo of the tool here.

  • StartupEmpire: Thanks, that was fun.


    Well, it’s over. StartupEmpire was, by most measures, a success. Almost 300 people in total come by to either the conference and/or the after party and we didn’t lose our shirts in the process.

    I would be lying if I told you that putting StartupEmpire together was easy or even fun (despite the title of this post!). It wasn’t. We struggled with the format, got it wrong, and then had to re-iterate the whole thing in the final stretch. Taking a conference from 2 days to 1 day, and changing venue basically doubles the work.

    We stubbornly pushed forward with the conference for a few reasons, but the biggest one was because of what we saw by the time everyone had piled in to those just-a-little-too-small chairs on the dance floor of This Is London at 9am. The crowd everything I had hoped it would be, a mishmash of students, entrepreneurs, angels and VCs.

    A few people pointed out to me how this wasn’t the typical conference crowd, most people were taking notes like they were going to be tested on it, and the buzz during the breaks was unmistakable.

    There are some people I want to thank, personally, for what they did to help make StartupEmpire happen:

    Michele Perras put up with David and I and kept the rudder of the ship on course. Michele can run the entire operational side of a businessnes, but she is completely unique in that her abilities as an organizer/operator aren’t even her greatest strength: She is one of the most creative and biggest thinkers I know. When I dove in to minutia, she pulled me out.

    Jonas, who has written this blog with me for the last year and a half has been incredibly busy with his own startup these days. When I called him and said “I need your help”, I wasn’t sure he would even have time to step up for the all-hands-on-deck call, but he did. He swooped in and took over contract negotiations, managed a few pages of TODOs and logistics and was there with me unfolding chairs and carrying in stage boards on the night before the conference.

    David Crow, who couldn’t print name badges if his life depended on it, but who still takes the job every time. I’m not sure how Dave and I get ourselves in to these messes, but they usually work out. Dave is one of those guys who does what he says he will every time and comes back with more ideas.

    Rick Segal who stepped up with the idea for StartupSchool and said “let me run with it”. Rick took some of the most dry content of the day (legal, term sheets, etc) and made them a conversation.

    Howard Lindzon who said “do it” back in August when I mentioned the idea of a conference and put his name up to help lead the way.

    Robert Montgomery who helped me navigate a few mishaps and provided support when we needed it.

    The Student Volunteers. Wow, this was one of the most hard working and impressive group of folks we could have hoped for. They took the iniative as soon as they got there and filled in gaps we had left. From creating an ad-hoc system of responsibilities to a make-shift coat check, they handled it all and left me in awe. I’d hire these folks in a heartbeat. A few of them are involved with the upcoming Impact Conference, which looks fantastic.

    The Veterans, those in the crowd who have raised money, knew how to pitch and frankly just didn’t need some of the early-stage content that was on stage. It made me so proud to see some of the tech community’s most seasoned entrepreneurs who get it and were there not for who or what was on stage, but so that they could meet and help the other folks in the audience who are just getting started.

    Our sponsors, who got on board for this event before they knew what would happen with it, and who stuck around when things were changing daily. These companies and organizations are some of the few who truly believe in the tech community and who have proven they are ready to stick by it. When everyone is talking recession and doom and gloom, it is easy to run away and keep your money. Microsoft, HighRoad, Gowlings, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, JLA, OCE all have my gratitude. I dreaded making some of those phone calls two weeks before the event, but they all said the same thing: The community needs this, we want to see it happen.

    Finally, all of you who bought tickets and believed we’d pull it off. I hope you weren’t dissapointed. I met some incredible people through the day and can’t wait to find out more about what you have up your sleeve.

    Most of all, I am thankful to my wife Laurel, who did nothing but support me as I was going between making this conference happen and bringing Firestoker in to one of its most exciting periods yet. At times it was 2+ full time jobs.

    Startups in Canada are not dead, investment in Canada is not dead, smart ideas and innovative companies are not gone. We are just getting started, that is something I believe more than anything right now.

  • Tales of the ridiculous – PickupPal gets slapped

    It has been well covered today, and I am guessing it is going to hit the mainstream press tomorrow. PickupPal, yet another carpooling site, seems to have been the straw that tickled the legal team at the bus companies.

    They were fined $11,000 and now have to restrict their service inside of Ontario to almost nothing. There is an old (well, not that old) law in Ontario that defines what a “carpool” is and it basically forces you to drive with your neighbor Joe to work, everyday, and you are only allowed to pay him once a week.

    A bus company sued PickupPal based on this law and won.

    This case is very simple to me: Greedy bus companies and a meddling government. Bus companies need to innovate and they are either too cheap or too scared to do it. The funny thing about this is that they have now given so much free press to PickupPal that I have no doubt people will be flocking to the site.

    PickupPal is not the only startup here that is dealing with endless beaurocracy and regulatory silliness. I hope they continue to take a stand.

  • Congratulations to the 10 Winners of the StartupEmpire Contest

    Thank you to everyone who submitted entries to the StartupEmpire giveaway. The quality of the writing and thinking was excellent and it was inspirational hearing so many people wanting to further their entrepreneurial careers. Our hats off to all of you.

    While our selection criteria was by no means perfect, we did consider things like the quality of the writing, the uniqueness of the product, whether the person was applying based on need or because they forgot to buy tickets in advance 🙂 and whether they met the submission deadline.

    We only had 10 tickets to giveaway unfortunately so Raymond Luk and I had to make some tough choices. The good news for anyone who wasn’t selected is that there have never been more entrepreneurial events happening across Canada. We hope to meet all of the companies at one of these events at some point in the future.

    So here is the list of winners (in alphabetical order):

    Congratulations everyone. We’ll see you all at the conference in a few days.

    I would like to thank Raymond Luk & Flow Ventures for helping me organize and sponsor this contest.  Flow Ventures is active in the Canadian Startup scene and participating in the Canadian angel investing community.  Both my companies Akoha and Standout Jobs do work with Raymond and his firm.  They are great partners for startups.

    We also want to thank Angelsoft for the contribution of a number of OpenDeal coupons to allow companies to submit their fundraising needs to their network of angel investors.   We will be announcing the winners of the AngelSoft packages at the conference.   I’m now using Angelsoft at three of the venture funds/angel networks I’m a member of.  They have over 400 angel & VC funds using the software with almost 14,000 investors.  This is a great resource for entrepreneurs looking to raise funding and we are thankfull for their support of this contest.

  • Network after hours at StartupEmpire

    microsoftbizspark

    Jevon nailed it.

    The most important part of any conference is in how you meet other people who are attending, and this is a great chance to get a head start on that.

    StartupEmpire sold out last Monday. We’ve been working with my gang at Microsoft BizSpark to build an additional opportunty for people to come together, meet the people attending, the people building new startups, and get a head chance to network your faces off.

    Purchase a BizSpark After 6pm Ticket to gain access for dinner and drinks with attendees, speakers, sponsors and others in the community. The tickets are $10 each and include access to the networking event and 2 drinks tickets.

  • clustershot.com – a fair market for stock photography

    ClusterShot.com was launched today by Charlottetown, PEI based Silverorange. The site is really pretty straightforward: Photographers post their photos, Clustershot handles reformatting them for display and handles the back-end payments and other headaches.

    If you are a professional photographer or a hobbiest, clustershot is an opportunity to get your work out there and to make sure it is available, but without all the headaches of selling your own work.

    Finally, ClusterShot takes 12% of the sale, which is more or less nothing when you consider the bandwidth and transaction costs alone. If you look at other stock photo markets, they are priced far higher than ClusterShot.

    The site is really well put together, I bought a photo and it was really painless.

    Silverorange is the design and development company that has been behind the scenes on sites such as GigaOm.com, Digg.com, DECA.tv and Bebo.

    Full disclosure (thanks to everyone who emailed!): I was a co-founder of silverorange, but currently hold no ownership in the company or any of its ventures.

  • Weekend Reading – November 8, 2008

    Make it easy for your customers.

    BTI Systems raised $15M from Export Development Canada and its existing investors: VenGrowth, BDC VC, GrowthWorks, Kodiak VP, Primaxis, Lucent VP, Summerhill VP, Wellington Financial and MMV Financial.

    FreshBooks integrated with Skydeck.

    Lots of events this month, check out the calendar for more details.

  • Want to meet fellow StartupEmpire attendees?

    We have teamed up with EventVue.com to provide a place to attendees of StartupEmpire to connect and share with eachother.

    If you have a ticket for StartupEmpire you should have recieved an invitation right now to log in to the event site where you can fill out your own profile. Be sure to add your blog and twitter accounts, as EventVue will bring them in so other attendees can see what you have to say.

    The most important part of any conference is in how you meet other people who are attending, and this is a great chance to get a head start on that. I have heard a lot of feedback from people that having tools to help them arrange meetings in advance of an event has been really useful.

    Specifically I know that a lot of people made good use of the Arrange Meeting tool at CIX last year.

    Just over 50% of attendees have signed up on EventVue so far, and we are hoping to get that number up so that it will be more valuable to everyone.

  • All you need is a blog to market your product? You’re so wrong.

    We can’t wait to get started with the StartupEmpire conference on November 13 in Toronto, so we thought we’d pass the time by talking to a Canadian startup entrepreneur who has managed to grow his business from a two-man shop to 27 employees – and counting.

    Mike McDerment, the CEO of Toronto-based FreshBooks, has agreed to talk about some of the things he learned as an entrepreneur since starting his online invoicing and time-tracking service that has so far attracted more than 500,000 users in 100 countries.

    In part 1 of this 5 part video series, Mike talks about blogs and marketing. His take:

    Do you agree or disagree with Mike? Watch the video and discuss with him and other entrepreneurs at the StartupEmpire conference.

    I would like to thank our sponsors who have been understanding and who have helped out in many ways.

    PriceWaterhouseCoopers

    Ontario Centers of Excellence,

    Gowlings

    and JLA Ventures.
    Visit www.startupempire.ca for more information on the conference and to register.