StartupNorth

  • Why I won't be on The Dragon's Den

    The Dragon’s Den on CBC is taking applications for startups who want to get funded on national TV.

    It probably seems like an OK idea to begin with. You fill out an application, show up in front of some cameras and pitch your company to a bunch of high-end angel investors that you would never have a chance to pitch to otherwise.

    In fact, for the startup community as a whole, The Dragon’s Den should be a good thing. It draws attention to the idea of starting your own business, makes it a little sexy and the show is balanced enough to show the failures along with the successes.

    It really is good entertainment, I’ll be watching every episode this coming season. If they want to really up the entertainment value, they should make Sean Wise the host — he would be much better than Dianne Buckner. Not that I mind Dianne.

    Would I take my startup on The Dragon’s Den? Not a chance in hell, and for a few reasons.

    The first reason is that you are being lumped in with a swath of absolutely ridiculous businesses, why let yourself be tainted by the Bikini Weenie or that umpire guy.

    The second reason is that you are giving up all control of the portrayal of your business. I don’t know about you, but when I go in to a “dragon’s den” to do a presentation, I take some comfort in knowing that I have control over how my business idea is communicated. By pitching on national television, you are letting an editor decide how your business should look, sound and feel. No deal!

    The third, and biggest, reason I wouldn’t think of going on the Dragon’s Den is because there is absolutely no incentive for the “Dragon’s” to make a good deal with me or my startup. Why? Because they aren’t there to make good investments. Judging by the tiny size of their investments, my guess is that the CBC offers them indemnity from loss up to a certain amount (the investments can go bad, and the CBC will compensate them).

    That may not be the case, but it doesn’t matter much anyway, because the real investment that the four investors are making is in themselves. If they lose 400k on investments on the show, that is still 400k well invested in raising their own national profile. The payoffs of being a TV star can, at times, be lucrative. Especially as these four behave a bit like their are thinking semi-retirement.

    So, you won’t see me there, but I’ll be glued to the TV!

  • ConceptShare gets a lot of love on the ScobleShow

    Canada’s most loved, and arguably best, startup, Conceptshare has been doing the conference circuit lately, and this past week at Mix’07, Scoble did an interview and demo with Bernie Aho.

    The lesson for startups? When you can afford it, it really is a good idea to get out there and pound the pavement to get some exposure.

    A review, and hopefully interview, with the ConceptShare guys will be coming soon enough.

    ConceptShare is based in Sudbury, Ontario.

  • Lululemon files for IPO

    Lululemon logoLululemon, a hipper than thou yoga wear company, has filed for an IPO to raise as much as $230 Million.

    Founded by Chip Wilson in 1999 after a particularly good yoga lesson, this Vancouver company?s beautiful stores (think Apple Stores for yoga gear) and high prices have stretched its share of wallets. The curious brand name was selected from an original list that included ?Athletically Hip?, wonder where they would be with a name like that…

    A serial entrepreneur, Chip had previously founded Westbeach Sports, a surf skate and snow retailer, in 1979 and grew the company to 8 stores in Canada and an international wholesale business before selling the chain to a publicly traded US corporation.

    The IPO might mark a good place to end coverage, here at StartupNorth. Congrats to Chip & the lululemon team.

  • The state of Candian Venture Capital

    Suzie on the state of Canadian Venture Capital

    While there’s been a VC famine here for several quarters, public discussion of the issue has been tepid at best. Thank goodness, some of our most prominent players are finally speaking out. In the last few weeks, Terry Matthews and Pat DiPietro have become the Bono and Angelina Jolie of the venture capital scene, using their celebrity to sound the alarm.

    What’s the nature of the crisis? Here’s a sketch of what’s being said:

    Venture capital is fed by the limited partners (“LPs”) who invest in VC funds. Historically, the pool of Canadian LPs who are attracted to high risk capital has been discrete. To bolster the industry(and the startup community), the Canadian government therefore has from time to time created vehicles such as labour sponsored funds to attract additional capital.

    When there is an irrational market (1998-2000), the usual pool of LPs expands to include new players such as US LPs and institutional equity funds. The number of VCs and the amount of venture capital available to Canadian entrepreneurs skyrockets. When the market cools, those LPS retreat to later stage investing, leaving too many funds competing for fewer LPs. A consolidation of the numebr of venture capital investors results, until the next irrational market heats up the investing cycle all over again.

  • Jeremy Wright – Startup Lessons

    Jeremy Wright, fellow Canadian and startup CEO, wrote a great post about his experience starting b5media over at the Chitika blog bash.

    I remember in early 2005 when the first email that kicked b5media off was written. It was something like ?hey, we?re all making decent money, let?s pool together and sell our blogs as a package!”

    Read it all

  • fortuito.us – getting started online

    fortuitous is written by Matthew Haughey. Matt plans to chronicle is experience in starting his own blogging business online. If you have been thinking about getting more serious about your own blog, or about blogging about your own business, this looks like a great place to start.

    I’m going to be sharing the things I’ve picked up along the way here, with a new essay posted every Monday about some aspect of doing business online. If you’re a freelancer hoping to someday ditch your clients, just starting out with a web business, or already have an established blogging empire.

    Visit

  • Sunday Startup Roundup

    Sundays seem like as good a time as any to round up what’s been happening in the Canadian startup scene in the last week.

    We blogged about Eqo.com getting funded and the sale of R|Mail to NBC Universal. On top of all that, iUpload has decided to move it’s executive and sales operation to the US.

    Mark McQueen interviewed Rick Segal to get his thoughts on Friends and Family rounds, Angels, strong teams and more. While that was going on, Suzie at Venture Law Line broke the iUpload news and has been looking back on funds that have come and gone in Canada’s VC scene.

    To top it all off, Sean Wise has just published his new book WISE WORDS which is described as

    Collecting the best columns from his first years at the Globe, this book cover topics relevant to: founders, funders and those that service the entrepreneuiral ecosystem.

    Including: How to create an Elevator Pitch; How to pick a partner; The Art of Business Jui Jitsou; Networking to Survive and 14 questions every investor asks on the first date This tome provides the inside track on funding and growing your business.

    Jui Jitsou!? Sounds serious. The last time I took Jui Jitsou, I think I was swinging by a rope and trying to kick a guy holding a big bag or something.

    If anyone picks up this book, and wants to write a review, let us know! We’ll be happy to link to it or post it. You can get a preview here.

    I am sure there are a lot of things we missed, but we need your help to keep track of all this stuff, so I am attaching a contact form so you can give us the dirt on what you have been hearing. New venture firm in town?, have you met a new startup, or are you starting a new company? Let us know.
    (more…)

  • clearRoot.com – Florist Solutions

    clearRoot is a Toronto based startup that is building a back-end system for flower shops that allows thousands of independent stores to place orders with each-other as easily as it is for them to fill an order themselves.

    clearRoot manages all of the complexities associated with a large Business-to-Business network, and they provide very user friendly front-end software to the flower shops who participate. ClearRoot first started to take shape in May of 2004, but has been growing quickly since April 2006. With over 100 paying customers already (and that’s BEFORE they have even released the software), clearRoot is clearly making sense to their customers.

    The clearRoot business model is based on a pay-per-use fee on each order sent through the system. This is similar to Interac, and if it is priced right, this will drive a lot of growth for clearRoot. Because clearRoot was born out of a team with experience running an independent flower shop, as well as their current ethos of building their software and network directly with customers, they have a great chance of building the next big disruptive B2B platform.

    Until now, clearRoot has been doing a lot of direct selling of their network, but they have also been growing organically in their vertical. Later on, they are planning to do joint-promotion with other complimentary services in the florist industry.

    While growth has been strong, the market for something like clearRoot is also growing and my guess is that is why they are currently looking to raise financing.

    clearRoot is currently run by Jeff Richman and their team is built of people experienced with the florist industry, or developers who are working on building their platform out.

    Contact Jeff Richman

  • iUpload moving south

    Word comes from Suzie at Venture Law Line that iUpload, an enterprise blogging platform based in Ontario will now be moving south to the US.

    iUpload recently took on a large Round A of funding which came in at $7 million from two top tier American Venture Capital funds.

    It’s another missed opportunity for Canadian venture money, which could have easily put together the $7 million needed, and could have kept the company in their own backyard.

    iUpload competes most directly with California based blogtronix, who are currently trying to raise their own funding round. With marquee customers like McDonalds, who are actively using their platform, iUpload might not have the most visibility of all the players, but they have the most traction in their space.

    The most interesting thing about iUpload? For a blogging and Social Media company, they don’t do very much blogging themselves.

  • R|Mail – RSS to your inbox, just acquired

    Randy Charles Morin is best known to some of us as one of the early advocates and defenders of RSS and a member of the RSS Advisory Board, but he also maintains a handful of blogs and has been running his R|Mail service for a few years. Last night he dropped the word that R|Mail was acquired.

    My guess is that it wasn’t a big deal, but it’s also a well deserved payoff for Randy, who is one of blogging’s hardest working guys.

    Randy had funding options and had offers from several sources, none of which were Canadian. He had been looking for funding later in 2006 and in to mid-January of this year.

    The scoop came from PaidContent.org and then Maple Leaf 2.0

    Update: An Interview with Randy on MapleLeaf2.0