Archive for July, 2008
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Startup Drinks - Tomorrow!
July 29th, 2008
Heri from MTW points to 2 events and I’d like to focus on Startup Drinks. While I missed the first one, I heard very good things about it and I urge anyone to join..!
StartupDrinks will be tomorrow (Wed. 30th, 6pm) at Café des Éclusiers. Here’s the map as it’s tricky to find if you don’t know where it is.
Posted in Event, Montreal, Startup Drinks | Comments (0)
New mini-project - Vu à Montréal
July 26th, 2008
As you may already know, I’m working on a mini-project called Vu à Montréal (www.vuamontreal.ca) . It’s a web site dedicated to pictures and videos taken from all around Montreal. The goal is to show another side of Montreal. It is part artistic, part news, part funny, part strange. For those familiar with sites like "Overheard in New-York" or "Entendu à" then this is just a logical next step.
The site is in a very early stage (so early that I haven’t uploaded many images yet) but I’m working a lot on finding interesting images. Since the site is going to allow user generated content, I’d like to get the ball rolling.
So if you have any interesting pictures, please visit www.vuamontreal.ca and submit your pictures. Don’t forget to pass this around, it’s going to be pretty interesting I think..!
Posted in Montreal, Startups | Comments (0)
Why do we need VC’s?
July 25th, 2008
Interesting article by the StartupCFO pointing to another post by Silicon Alley about early stage funding.
My feeling is that VC’s tend to wait for the deal of the century in order to throw in as much money as possible in order to get a large part of the pie. While this might work for some industries (Pharmaceutics for example), it no longer works with the Internet industry. A few months ago, the BlitzWeekend project proved that a great concept/prototype could be designed and created in less than 48h. Many people were skeptic but in the end, very interesting prototypes were indeed demoed to the attendees and a judge team.
The facts are plain simple:
- We don’t need expensive Sun servers
- We don’t need expensive bandwidth
- We don’t need expensive Oracle databases
- We don’t need expensive phone systems (PBX)
- We don’t need expensive Aeron chairs either
- We only need money to pay salaries.
Of course, that’s exaggerating of course but that’s how cheap it is to start a business nowadays.
Guy Kawasaki spent 20k on Truemors (one of his startup) and I think he paid too much for it. A big chuck of it was on legal fees actually. Being a VC himself, we can’t blame him for not covering that area. He’s probably used to deal with lawyers.
Everything is in the cloud these days. You can host your web servers and your database online. You don’t even need a physical office anymore. Everything is becoming virtual, even assistants! My prediction is that there will soon be toolkits (like Yahoo Pipes but more advanced) to develop your own online business for a low monthly fee. Everything from code to design to marketing will come out of the box. The worse thing? I’m pretty sure someone is working on this as we speak..!
It’s becoming that easy!
Will we see a change in the way VC’s work with Internet companies? Will we see them leave the Internet industry to focus on other larger industries? It remains to be seen but I believe they must adapt or die.
The way I see it, VC’s must become startup centers where you bring your ideas. If you are accepted, then they will match you with other people so you can use their skills (to fulfill your lacks). You will be able to use their network and office space (if needed) for a few months until your product is ready. A super incubator in some way. That would be nice and we would see way more great companies. Maybe not all rock stars like Google, but a lot of damn good companies for sure. If I were a VC, I’d be working on this right now.
Posted in Funding, Incubator, Startups, Venture capital, investissement | Comments (2)
New ad system
July 20th, 2008
Yes, I’m experimenting with ads but I want to focus on local, meaningful and value added advertisement. If you have a free service, an interesting blog, a special event or anything that would benefit the startup community then please contact me to be considered for free advertising. Companies can contact me as well (denis@quebecalley.com)
Posted in QuebecValley | Comments (0)
Start-up and resource listing
July 20th, 2008
I decided to discontinue the not so popular "startup base" where people could add their startup. Instead, I will use Wordpress’s link system (blogroll) and create various topics. I added just a few startups and resource centers but feel free to email me with your URL.
Of course, this is a totally free service to benefit the community! 
Just visit the advertising page for more details.
Posted in Montreal, QuebecValley | Comments (0)
New theme
July 19th, 2008
I’m testing a new layout so please be patient until everything is under control. I know, I know I shouldn’t be editing on a live server.
Posted in QuebecValley | Comments (2)
