StartupNorth

  • iBegin – From Local Search To Business Data

    ibegin logoiBegin has been doing all the right things, right from the beginning. It wasn’t that iBegin had the perfect business model from the start, they didn’t. Very few startups do, but instead of getting stuck on one idea, they have transformed within their niche and have shot in to profitability.

    iBegin started out as an experiment: a user generated local search site for Yorkville, a ritzy 4 block neighborhood in downtown Toronto. The number of visits to the hyper local site surprised Ahmed Farooq, the site’s founder, so he started exploring purchasing business listings to expand. Dealing with the data providers proved to be a big hassle. Worse still, the data providers used opaque variable pricing schemes and demanded princely sums. And so iBegin discovered a business opportunity, hassle-free fairly-priced business listings: iBegin Source.

    iBegin charges $1000 per state or province, $40,000 for the entire US, and $8,000 for all of Canada. Customers love the transparent pricing. iBegin has already made over 50 sales, 80% of which required no interaction or hand holding. And it is not just customers that have noticed iBegin… this year Ahmed received (and turned down) a buyout offer in the low seven digits.

    ibegin logoAs a local search engine, iBegin used to compete with Toronto based and venture backed startup Ziplocal, which has undergone several redesigns and appear to be struggling with the local search business model.

    It is worth reading iBegin’s philosophy. Notice what they didn’t have from the start: “iBegin was not created by a dozen people brought together to work on it. It didn’t have a CEO and CFO and other related positions. It didn’t have bankers and venture capitalists backing it with millions, helping finance user research groups, and hiring expensive and unneeded consultants and advisers.”

    Ahmed is no one trick pony. He has a number of other ventures including: vB Skins, Is My Home, and the Bloggy Network. Building a stable of successful businesses and reinvesting those cash flows, instead of raising outside financing, has allowed allowed iBegin to experiment, iterate, and evolve. Getting to product/market fit is a significant achievement.

    There are many opportunities for iBegin going forward. Next year we’ll see iBegin expanding into other English speaking countries and offering categories (e.g. health, legal) in addition to regions. How does Ahmed do do it? By listening to customers and bootstrapping his way to a big success.

    Contact: Ahmed Farooq
    Blog: www.techsoapbox.com

  • StartupCamp Toronto – Thank You

    StartupCamp Toronto took place last night and the room was packed. For the main event we had somewhere in the area of 90 people, and we think about 40 showed up for the after party. It was more than we expected, but it all worked out well.

    Thanks to everyone who came out, especially those who traveled from Montreal and Ottawa. Most of all, thank you to the startups who pitched as well as those who demoed afterwards downstairs. The feedback from the demo pods was surprisingly good.

    A Big Thank You

    Once again, a thank you to our sponsors. Without them, this would have been impossible.


    q1media.jpeg hyndman.png
    cogniiton.jpg achilles.png
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    For a full recap of the evening, Anthony Carbone has the most thorough post yet and Leila has some pictures.

    This is now all in the past however, and we are moving on! We have some great announcements to make.

    StartupCamp Montreal is set for January 23rd and will be at the SAT, which looks like an incredible venue. Heri scooped me on the story, which I plan to make him pay dearly for. A wiki should be up and running for the event soon and we are planning on forming a contingent from Toronto to make the trip. We had two Montreal startups at StartupCamp Toronto, so we’d love to see a few Toronto startups make the roll call in Montreal.

    StartupCamp Waterloo 2 is planned for February 26th, 6-9pm at the Accelerator Centre. We will post more details on these events when we have them.

    More StartupCamps are coming. We are working on instigating more and have 2 others in the early planning stages. We are feeling pretty excited about StartupCamp and the startup energy in general across Canada. Each city is developing a unique flavor and niche. Instead of having one dominant city in Canada, we are seeing a handful of cities all buzzing with startup energy and working together while building up their own strengths individually.

    Who knows what’s in store, all I know is that I have a good feeling about it.

  • StartupCampToronto is tomorrow – open to all (8:30pm)

    So, StartupCampToronto is tomorrow. Jonas and I are pretty sure we have taken care of everything we possibly can. Don’t forget for those who have tickets: Things start at 6pm

    As you probably know, we have tried to keep the numbers for this event at a reasonable level. Our hope is that the presenting startups will get valuable feedback that can help their business. We have felt bad about turning down a lot of people who have requested tickets after the fact.

    If you don’t have a ticket, we still want you to come hang out. We have made arrangements to take over No Regrets at about 8:30pm to hang out and get to know all the cool startups who will be there. If you get there on time, you will be there just in time to hear a slew of really great announcements.

    What? StartupCamp After Party

    Where? No Regrets, 42 Mowat Ave, Toronto

    When? 8:30pm

    What else? Demos tables manned by a handful of fantastic startups

    You will also have a chance to hang out with the presenting companies.

    And finally, the people who put up the money to make this happen:

  • One from the Den: HomeBox

    homebox_small.gifRyan Coleman blogged about the Dragon’s Den the other day and made a good observation that the actual makeup of the Dragons makes them almost useless.

    Ryan also mentioned one of the “deals” that got me to do the most screaming at the TV. Jodi Sinden had launched her stationary business (HomeBox) only just over a week earlier, and had one the #1 prize at a trade show in New York, she came on the show offering 20% of the business for $50,000.

    The cast, I mean: Dragon’s, came back with the usual demand for control and offered $50,000 for 50.1% of the company. Jodi took the deal.

    The story however, is not a nightmare, it has a happy ending. Jodi commented on Ryan’s post and said:

    There was a missing piece that wasn’t put to air, but only hinted at: I would’ve needed large future investments of capital to finance inventory, and $50,000 wasn’t even close. The extra little push that made it an attractive deal was that they said future cash investment on their part would never reduce my equity in the company. That is very different than most venture capital groups, where every further investment is in return for another percentage. At the time of the filming, I had a good idea but it launched only a week before, so I only had $5000 worth of sales. Over the two months of negotiation time afterwards, my FIRM orders grew to twice the value of the dragon deal. So I did. Run away that is! Speaking of which, now looking for investment to finance that inventory… Look for the Homebox this friday on The Shopping Channel and in the spring at Indigo and Staples!

    She went from $5000 worth of sales to $100,000 in just a few weeks and told the Dragon’s to take a hike. It sounds like Jodi still has some need for cash to holdover her inventory to handle big orders, but that is a typical bump in the road for a startup that is producing real goods.

    Jodi is not only on to something, but she is executing as well. She went out and got order before she could fulfill them and then worked out the details — smart move.

    You can buy the HomeBox’s online during the holidays. I have bought one already as a gift and think I will go back and buy some more.

  • Conceptshare Announces Major Partnership and New Version

    Conceptshare, who we have previously profiled, has two major new announcements today. We have a lot to cover, so lets dive right in:

    Partnership with Corel, Inc.
    corelcs.jpgCorel, Inc. has partnered with Conceptshare to provide a Corel branded version of ConceptShare that will be promoted directly to Corel’s 10million+ customers. The site, coreldrawconceptshare.com maintains significant ConceptShare branding and maintains the same pricing as the main ConceptShare.com website.

    screen-1.jpgThis launch is for the branded website only, but it is the beginning of a 5 year partnership between the two companies. If this venture goes well, I am sure that we will see more tightly integrated offerings coming from these two companies. This move also positions ConceptShare well ahead of its competitors, none of whom can boast such a significant long-term deal.

    ConceptShare Version 2.0

    screen3.jpgOn the heels of this new partnership comes the announcement of ConceptShare Version 2.0. We managed to get a sneak peek at version 2.0 some time ago and were really impressed. Instead of lumping in dozens of new features, ConceptShare Version 2 feels like a maturation of the previous version. It now has a significantly more professional look and also provides more refined workflows for major tasks.

    Version 2.0 also sees video support coming out of beta status and is also built on a upgraded framwork which will allow much more rapid software releases in the future.

    ConceptShare already counts Avenue A | Razorfish, QUALCOMM, AOL, Monster.com, the National Football League, the New York Knicks and Harvard University as their major clients on top of hundreds of independent designers who all rely on ConceptShare on a daily basis.

    These two announcements take ConceptShare from the rank of fledgling startup to the status of being one of the most polished and reliable players in the online collaboration space.

    Read more about the partnership and the new version on the ConceptShare Website.

  • Digg.com, a client of Canadian web development firm silverorange, is now partnering with another Canadian company: Idée. Idée, who we previously profiled here, will be providing software to detect multiple submissions of the same image to Digg.com’s new dedicated images section.

    Fans of Digg know that a dedicated images section has been in demand for some time now and by avoiding the noise of having multiples of the same image uploaded, Digg can provide a much better service than their competitors.

    From the Digg.com Blog:

    Sorting and Duplicate Image Detection
    digglogo.png We?ve added a new sort to the images section called ?mosaic? view ? it?s great for browsing image thumbnails. To help prevent people from submitting duplicate images, we?ve added image recognition technology from Idée Inc.

    Congratulations to everyone at Idée on this deal and on the new website, it looks great.

    Idée has a follow-up post with a lot of information here.

  • How to botch a launch: Razzle.ca

    We were excited to cover the launch of Razzle.ca here last week. Things were looking up: Razzle.ca was cloning Woot.com, an American 1-deal per-day site which has been very successful, and while there were a few technical glitches that needed to be worked out, Razzle seemed to have the business problems all worked out. Negotiating 365 deals in the space of a year can’t be easy.

    rs110_a_pro1.jpgIt turns out it’s not easy. The first deal to hit the front page of Razzle was for a pair of brand new Sennheiser RS110 headphones for around 50$. By all means, a great deal even with shipping costs factored in.

    The surprise was not just the great price however, as soon as the Sennheisers started arriving at the doorsteps of anxious purchasers, there was a new surprise: The headphones appeared to have been used, some even had hair still clinging to them and some were heavily scratched and had boxes which were ragged and torn.

    Razzle.ca has tried to respond to some degree, posting this notice on their site:

    Coming after several emails asking about the condition of certain Sennheiser RS116s we went and investigated more thoroughly. It looks like CERTAIN products included in our batch of Sennheisers were actually refurbished that we sold as new. We immediately contacted our supplier to ensure that if anything like this happens again there will be immediate repercussions.

    The biggest problem for Razzle isn’t that they sent out some bad headphones, it is that they have now alienated their core audience: early adopters. It is not easy to find the type of purchaser who jumps in with reckless abandon and starts giving their credit card number to a ragtag internet startup. Dozens and dozens of people did, most notable is the RedFlagDeals.com community who could have been a huge Razzle sales channel for years to come.

    To add fuel to the fire, it appears that someone from Razzle has been signing up for multiple accounts on RedFlagDeals and has been contacting members, one moderator on the forum noted that a pro-razzle post made by a brand-new user had the same IP-address (a sort of fingerprint for the internet) as another user who had previously identified himself as a Razzle employee.

    Strong buyer communities are critical for sites like Razzle.ca and Woot.com. Having customers encouraging each-other, providing reviews and ratings, and just generally promoting your site is the only affordable way to generate growth. Instead, Razzle now has product pages that look like this.

    So, here is your chance to learn from a botched launch, and here are a few quick tips avoiding a screw up like this one, which could very well be fatal. These apply to new web apps as much as they do to gadgets.

    • Seed your launch with great products, case studies and/or testimonials. Razzle would have been smart to offer a deal that was actually a great deal. Even if they did so at a loss, the goodwill they could have built would have been critical.
    • If you are working with a new supplier, test the product yourself. Don’t work with fly-by-night importers and refurbishers.
    • If problems do arise, respond passionately. Refund everyone completely, including shipping costs. Step up and take the punches.
    • Do not try to infiltrate established communities. Forums like the one at RedFlagDeals are very cohesive and it is easy for member there to spot fakes in their midst. You have to earn your way into these communities, which Razzle would have been better advised to do by offering great deals.

    Is Razzle dead? No way. If they are serious, there is still an opportunity to make this right. They should contact all of their affected customers to make sure they are happy with their purchase (pick up the phone guys) and for anyone not happy, they should send a replacement or pay for return shipping and offer a complete refund.

    The opportunity is to then return with good, honest, deals on a regular basis and to keep growing the community. If Razzle leaves even a single disgruntled customer out there however, they are dead in the water. The comments are open, did you buy from Razzle? What was your experience? Do you think they can ever recover?

    And good luck to Razzle, you are going to need it.

  • Finally, Wireless Competition Explodes in Canada

    The 3 stoogesShove over Rogers, Bell and Telus. In announcing the rules to the upcoming (May 2008) advanced spectrum auction, industry minister Jim Prentice has blasted open the doors to new wireless competition in Canada. Here is a quick overview of the new rules:

    • 40 of the 105 available megahertz will be set aside for new entrants
    • Incumbents will be required to allow roaming on their networks at reasonable rates (this is crucial as any new entrant may start regionally and take up to a few years to establish full national coverage)
    • Incumbents will be required to share towers with new entrants (significantly reducing startup costs and redundant infrastructure)

    The government has given the would-be entrants (and pretty much everyone except for the existing telcos and their bankers) everything they were asking for. The game is on for startups and new entrants in the Canadian wireless space. So get to it. The crew here at StartupNorth are just this minute back at the orbiting headquarters, scrambling beneath couch cushions for the mere few hundred million in change needed to finance a spectrum bid and national roll out.

    Even if launching a whole new wireless carrier is a little out of your league, this is great news for tech entrepreneurs in Canada. Despite recent improvements, Canada has long lagged the world in terms of mobile adoption, open access to networks and affordable data rates. With wireless rapidly becoming ?the new last mile? of the internet, our ability to innovate is going to depend on the emergence of a competitive wireless market. Assuming the new rules bring real competition to Canada, this announcement is the best thing tech entrepreneurs could hope for.

    If you want a hint of where the wind is blowing for open and competitive wireless markets, look no further than Google?s recent announcement of the Android API and Verizon?s move to open their network to non-Verizon devices (even non-phone devices). Time to get out that whiteboard, and dust off those pitch decks.

    As if this weren?t big enough news itself… The other reason that we?re bringing you this story on StartupNorth.ca is to announce that, starting Monday, the North family is getting a little bigger. WirelessNorth.ca will be launching and joins the StartupNorth family as a partner site. Tune in for more coverage of mobile startups, industry trends, device reviews, and everything awesome yet to come from the Great Wireless North.

  • onaswarm – Lifestreaming in groups

    In the world of RSS, and with users creating more of the actual content that popular sites are reselling to other users, we all start to create little islands of stuff out there on different sites, and rarely do we get the chance to pull it all together.

    I create a lot of my own stuff. I twitter, create seesmic videos, have a facebook profile, have a blog, this blog, and post on another blog, I use last.fm, and so on. It gets hard, or impossible, to serve all of this content up to someone else in a meaningful way. On their own, each tidbit I leave on a site can often lack context, but aggregated together, the lifestream starts to tell a story.

    onaswarm.pngOnaswarm is a new release from David Janes, based in Toronto, Ontario, that is one of the first movers in the personal aggregation space. There are others, such as friendfeed, but everyone in the market so far is early to the game.

    RSS is a real market, and you have to think of it that way.

    To some people RSS is at best just a file format, the vast majority of people don’t even have a clue what it is, but to a few, RSS is a market that is in a lot of pain right now. A market can be defined as “The opportunity to buy or sell; extent of demand for merchandise” and we are seeing that there is increasing demand for products and services which make RSS more useful and consumable to end users and businesses. In the same way that AideRSS and Feedburner have provided specific and useful tools to their target markets, there are subsets of the RSS market that remain open to a lifestreaming player.

    The Consumer Market

    Whoever gets the consumer side of the RSS market right is going to do pretty well. You only have to look at any set of internet usage estimates to get an idea of just how much consuming people are doing. An aggregator that can help people pull in all the content they are leaving all over the place will have a lot of opportunities. As each individual gets more accustomed to creating, and then reading content created by other amateurs, the need to have an adequate aggregation toolset will become more and more real.

    The Enterprise Market

    Standards like RSS are becoming prevalent in enterprise software and as more enterprise software platforms start to produce RSS feeds, there is going to be significant demand for aggregators which bring together feeds in unique and productive ways. There is a need to centralize feeds from tools like Sharepoint, Lotus Notes, and Wikis. Perhaps even email.

    Innovative, Still not Pretty

    Onaswarm has by far the best model for combining all manner of feeds in a reasonable and intuitive way. By reducing redundant information and filtering regularly recurring types of information Onaswarm becomes useful beyond a plain vanilla aggregator. Even better, Onaswarm allows groups of people to loosely combine all of their feeds and then slowly acts as a defacto social network. This is the Toronto Swarm, which gives you a reading of what is happening in Toronto’s tech scene.

    The one downside to Onaswarm is that it really needs a decent UI overhaul. Things feel a little disjointed and a bit ugly. I am not the only one who feels that way, and I am pretty sure the guys at Onaswarm know it is something they are going to have to tackle.

    Until their business model becomes more apparent (I am sure they have one, but are choosing to more generally test and prove the product before they really go to market), it will be hard to know if Onaswarm will be a winner or follower in the Lifestreaming space and RSS aggregator market. I think they are currently the best out there, in spite of the aforementioned need to fix up the UI. While it is not yet clear how quickly the market will or will not mature, the space should ultimately prove lucrative.

    Contact David Janes from Blogmatrix.

  • StartupCamp Toronto – More Details

    We are VERY excited to announce the line up for StartupCamp Toronto. But first, a big thank you to our sponsors. And not just because we couldn’t have put together this event without them.

    Sponsors
    These folks are in the business of making startups successful, without them a startup’s chances drop significantly… and then we’d have nothing to write about! So get to know these guys and gals at StartupCamp.

    Presenting Companies
    The five presenting companies have been chosen, thanks for all your votes! Drum roll…

    Keynote
    Albert Lai, who has started more companies than you have fingers, will be kicking things off with some thoughts on the state of the Canadian startup scene. If we get a few beers in him, Albert might even give us the inside track on his latest venture.

    Venue
    StartupCampToronto1 will be held at No Regrets, which is located at 42 Mowat Ave in the West end of the city. Parking is free in their lot starting at 6pm, and the King and Queen Street streetcars will get you there from downtown as well.

    More Tickets!
    Now that the details are worked out, we have put the last set of tickets up for grabs. This batch is for Startups and Gurus only. Service Provider sponsorships are also still available.

    There’s an After Party… AND EVERYONE IS INVITED!
    We really hated having to turn people away… so we decided to throw an after party at No Regrets! Everyone is invited. Doors open at 8:30pm. The after party is about more than free flowing beer (there will be plenty)… over a dozen startups will be giving demos all night!

    An incredible, but secret, announcement…
    Woah, have to keep a lid on this one. We have a huge new announcement to make at StartupCampToronto, you won’t want to miss this. Whether you just have an idea, or have been slaving away at your startup for years, something is about to happen in Canada that you want to know about.