We’ve written about CIX Top 20 Follow @CIXCommunity in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. So you’ll be shocked to find that I’m writing about it again in 2012.
What is CIX?
“The CIX Top 20 is an elite index of the most forward-looking companies in the Canadian innovation ecosystem, and connects the key players driving technology-based business both in Canada and beyond.”
Who should apply?
“The CIX Top 20 is open to any Canadian company working in Digital Media or Information and Communication Technology with annual revenues under $10 million.”
Why do you care?
These are some of the leading companies in Canada. Don’t believe me, past participants include:
Alright, there probably is a correlation between the success of these companies and their CIX submission and attendance. But CIX is an amazing opportunity for Canadian startups to generate attention, drive awareness with investors and media, get input and feedback in a safe environment and start to build connections.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Wayne Gretzky
Nothing is foregone conclusion, as in past performance is not an indicator of future success. But you can’t win if you don’t apply (follow the directions on the bottom of the page).
StartupNorth contributor Ray Luk (LinkedIn, @rayluk) announced the launch of Scalability Inc. (@scalabilityinc). It’s a great service that provides backoffice services including bookkeeping, accounting, government filings, payroll, record keeping, and human resources. It’s the combination of tools and the people with the expertise to help with timing that can make a huge difference. Ray seems to have nailed a need in the marketplace with Scalability Inc.
It’s great to see startups building these unsexy tools, and sharing their experiences. It’s particularly interesting to see how many Canadian startups are playing in the unsexy backoffice space. Scalability Inc., Wave Accounting (announced $12MM from Social+Capital), TribeHR ($1MM from David Skok at Matrix Partners), Shopify ($22MM from Bessemer), Dayforce (acquired by Ceridian), it seems like Canadians like critical business apps.
The flurry of high-tech deals last year saw a bunch of promising startups snapped up – Zite, Rypple, PostRank, PushLife, Tungle and Five Mobile to name a few.
The encouraging part of the Canadian landscape is the growing number of high-quality startups being created and, thankfully, funded. It means that rather than having M&A activity “hollow” things out, there are more startups ready to step into the spotlight.
So, who are the Canadian startups that warrant our attention in 2012?
Who’s going to grow in a major way, attract a significant number of users and customers, launch exciting initiatives, or be acquired. Granted, it’s a subjective list but it is an interesting way to speculate on companies that will capture the spotlight this year. If you leave a comment, I’ll update the list.
To get the ball rolling, here are some of my choices for the “Hot Startup” list:
ScribbleLive, the world’s leading real-time content creation and publishing company whose clients include Reuters, AP and FA.
WineAlign, which cracked the 100,000 unique visitor mark for the first time in December
500px, one of the leading places to display and share beautiful photography
Pressly, whose technology is helping publishers create mobile Web sites that embrace the “swipe and read” functionality of apps
QuickMobile, one of the leading event and conference mobile application developers
Atomic Reach, which makes it easier for brand to discover, publish and market content
Wave Accounting, which recently raised $5-million to drive growth of its free online accounting service
Remember Ted Livingston’s insanely great donation to UW VeloCity, well it looks like it is being put to good use. The VeloCity team announced The Velocity Venture Fund. The University of Waterloo and the team at VeloCity are working to put that capital to use for students in the VeloCity residence. It looks like they are both testing their ideas (love this) to make sure students are interested before the full launch of a fund. They are running a contest for UWaterloo students that provides a seed grant of $25,000 + office space + incorporation.
It’s pretty cool. I am hoping to learn more about the Fund that is launching in the fall. Jesse Rodgers is a huge asset to UW.
What does this first version of the funding contest look like?
A hack weekend followed by a pitch night where 5 teams are selected and given $500
Those 5 teams come back in a month or so and have a chance to compete for $25 000 + incorporation + office space on their next co-op work term or following term (so for spring that will be fall)
That is all.
To qualify for the competition:
A current student at the University of Waterloo
Do you have to live in VeloCity? No. But it would give you an advantage.
Editor’s Note: This post was written by Jesse Rodgers. Jesse is the CEO of TribeHR, the Director of the VeloCity Residence at the University of Waterloo, organizer of StartupCamp in Waterloo and an allround great guy.
Jesse stopped by my offices in Toronto to chat about sales, marketing and PR (convenient of @jevon to write about the same topic recently). Jessementioned that the TribeHR team had left Waterloo and were holed up in a hotel room in Niagara Falls. They were living together, working together, writing code and being more productive than they could with the distractions of family, friends and the strong community in Waterloo. I was amazed at the commitment of the team to step away from their personal lives and get the next version of TribeHR built before they head to SxSW for the Small Business Party. You can read the update or watch the caffeine and other stimulant-driven vacation summary. There’s lots startups can learn about improving productivity by going on vacation together.
Barrel to go over the Falls
Over the month of February the TribeHR team has been taking advantage of low hotel prices in Niagara Falls and turned a suite at the Hilton into our office (we were at the Marriott, but the Hilton is $20 less a night and has king size beds). The goal for this little retreat to the romantic city of Niagara Falls: get TribeHR polished off, implement our new user interface, get our go to market strategy figured out, and start executing on all cylinders.
If it works, we will be a stronger team (who can put up with each others snoring) and will have made some awesome progress. If it fails, then we know our team isn’t as good as we thought.
Other cities we thought about were Montreal and Toronto. Toronto would have far too many distractions for us so we had settled on Montreal (we would have loved to work out of the Knotman house). The problem there was that those of us with young kids would be too far away to head home if we had to. So here we are in Niagara Falls, in a tiny hotel suite, working our asses off.
In terms of work hours put in, when you do this, it’s pretty crazy. While in a hotel room, assuming you ignore the casino across the road, you work from around 8am to 12am, take out eating time, it is around 14 hrs or so of ‘work’ per person. It is a crazy amount of focus and the results are great, at first. Once all the easy stuff is taken on, we then have to address the bigger problems and we start to slow down. But we can work through it and it’s a heck of a lot easier when you have completely removed yourself from your routine.
At the end of week 2 we have learned the following:
It takes 5 min to turn a hotel room into an office but the wifi sucks, the tv can’t use a PS3, and anything but pizza is way overpriced.
Not having kids wake you up at 6am doesn’t mean you won’t be awake at 6am.
The US side of the falls gets a rainbow in the afternoon.
The Starbucks coffee is never hot, Tim Horton’s wins
As a team we can take each others grumpy moods and swear it out until everyone is laughing again.
Hotel chairs spin really well, and provide a great distraction near the end of the day
Why have we done this? Because we are still a very much a bootstrapped startup with plenty of distractions (wives, kids, other commitments) in Waterloo, and if we are going to get anything done while things are still so early, we have to immerse ourselves and get to work. It’s uncomfortable and exhausting, but it’s productive, energizing and we love it.
