Skooiz acquires Yulnews
June 26th, 2008
Yes you read it right. After looking at various scenarios, I decided that at this point, it was better to let someone else pamper my little baby. Skooiz is an Internet company based in Montreal and an official press release should come out fairly quick so come back for more details.
On my side, I learned a lot from this experience. Proper execution is very important. While I planned well in advance by having a well thought of business plan, convincing people and getting funding was another thing. Unfortunately, most people that I talked to only showed interest in the recent days after numerous similar sites popped out here and there (think CNN, Youtube and Yahoo!). I told myself that it was too late in a way. We are indeed a nation of followers, not innovators 
The idea is still very interesting and I offered Skooiz all my help and knowledge as I still believe in social media. In fact, I cannot see a future not dominated by citizen journalists. Mark my words and let’s see what will happen in 5 years.
So what now? Well I do have at least 3 very innovative ideas in mind and this time I know what to do:
- Screw the business plan - Things never work out the way you want anyways.
- Get a partner who is a coder.
Getting funded is a chicken and egg problem. You need money when you start and people won’t give you money when you start. I now believe that it’s easier to get 10M$ than 10K$ and I think many entrepreneurs-wannabee will agree.
So if you’re a web coder and you’re looking for a summer challenge, email me
Posted in Startups, YulNews | Comments (3)
June 26th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
well, well, congrats are in order!
quite impatient what you have next!
June 27th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Thanks Heri. As you know, ideas are not the problem; correct execution is and I learned some good lessons here.
What next? We’ll see. All I can say is that one of my idea will make Hollywood pretty pissed off and usually, disturbing technologies/ideas work pretty well (or at least they change the old fashioned way of doing things forever). Until then, zip!
June 27th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Very cool Denis. I totally agree with the chicken-or-egg problem. This is a real issue here in Montreal and should be discussed more publicly. There are entrepreneurs out there seeking seed funding but there is no structure be it like Y Combinator or just an association of angel investors willing to provide entrepreneurs with the support needed. Anyways, if they can’t help us, we would have get this help by ourselves, like the proverb says!