StartupCamp Montreal follow-up
January 24th, 2008
As you probably know, yesterday was the first edition of StartupCamp Montreal. The SAT was literally packed with 100+ entrepreneurs, VCs, service providers and of course, sponsors. I was very surprised to see so many people considering that it was a first time event. I think it shows that once again, Montreal can make it happen and the startup community is alive. I took some pictures of the event but they all turned out to be bad because of the weird light conditions (dark room with red spotlights) so if anyone has good pictures, please let me know!
Graham Hill started the night with his lessons top 9. I was too busy listening that I forgot to take good notes but basically, what I remember (and I guess they are the most important ones) is that regardless of what people will tell you, it’s the market who will decide whether your idea is great or not. So forget about focus groups and such. I don’t agree 100% about this but I’d say he’s 80% right. If everyone says your idea sucks before it’s even out there, it probably does (the converse would not be true however). Then it was about network, network, network (as in the computer is the network). I guess we already knew that, but perhaps VC’s didn’t know so that’s a great reminder for them. The future is obviously “online” and things like Gmail, Google Docs, SlideShare and so on are the early pioneers of something bigger. The last thing I remember is that you never sell a company; you’re bought by someone else. You never want to sell as this like saying to others that you failed. I never really thought of it that way but it makes sense. If you’re successful then people will come see you. And who wants to sell something successful anyways? No one. So if you’re selling, then it seems like there’s a problem underneath.
After Graham’s Top-9 list, 5 companies presented and had to answer questions from the audience. Some questions were very tough in my opinion but most managed to get answered. Being a CEO means you must know everything about your company and your competitors too! While I won’t go through each presentation, I must say that I was impressed with the quality of the offerings/products/services. Here are some thoughts in no particular order.
I only knew about Tungle and unless you’re a professional, you won’t really understand the value behind the product. I get frustrated almost every day when I try to setup meetings between different vendors and partners that are not on our Exchange server. This is very neat and I hope Microsoft buys them and integrates that stuff into Outlook.
Then I was surprised to hear that iGotcha was actually from Montreal. I’ve seen some news coverage about them but I’ve never seen anything in real life. Perhaps their pilot in the subway was just for a few days. I take the subway everyday and haven’t seen any of their stuff. Oh well. Even if some members of the audience hesitated, I think this technology rocks and I do see completely computerised windows in the near future (instead of mannequins – or even worse, half clothed mannequins). However one word of warning. I’ve seen this technology in Japan roughly 8 years ago at the Shibuya crossing (it was not a touch screen tough but it was covering multiple stories) so I would be surprised if they didn’t have this by now.
Regarding Cozimo, as I don’t face this pain, I don’t really understand how different they are from vendors like Citrix who already offer many similar products (GotoAssist and GotoMeeting). Then again since I don’t have collaborative problems at work, I can’t really say if the market is really $2.5B. I think it’s a bit high and would be cautious about those numbers.
My expectations were very high regarding YourTeleDoctor. I know the team very well and I do believe in them as they are backed by a very good and trustable advisors. Unfortunately, their presentation probably caused confusion in the room (as someone actually told them). The good news is that they have a beta coming soon and 30 or so patients will test the system. While their presentation wasn’t perfect, I give them points for their idea and I know it will succeed. This is a pain that I have (as a father of 2 daughters) and would definitively use this. They are focusing on an interesting market, especially in the paediatrician area as most first time parents often panic when their baby has a simple issue. Instead of heading to the emergency and waiting for hours, they could get an online check up.
Finally, Albert Lai had a very interesting presentation about his failures. I think that a successful entrepreneur must realise that failures (and I put an S) are simply part of the normal path to victory. And even when you had a victory (like Albert) you can still fail miserably after (roughly 12 times to be exact). Part pessimist, mostly optimist, his speech was very interesting and reminded me of Sylvain Carle’s latest presentation. So what are you waiting for? Go work on your startup now!
Update: Sylvain Carle has a post on the event as well
Posted in Montreal, StartupCamp, Startups | Comments (3)
January 24th, 2008 at 11:40 am
It was a great event and I was surprised that only 6 startups were offering an informal presentation of their product out of the 120 startups that “were there”.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Right… I also felt the same way. It’s like if people thought of the event as “all or nothing”. I think next time everyone should demo their stuff *before* the big presentations. A lot of people left after the last presentation.
But anyways, I think it was a very good experience and the folks at Embrase learned a lot. They did a great job.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
[...] Denis at Quebec Valley has also posted a recap of last night’s [...]