Archive for the ‘Startups’ Category
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)
The startup rate race
January 22nd, 2008
There’s an amazing post on Startup North which is stirring quite a debate in my opinion: Technological innovation is a race.
From the article:
When you meet technology people from Silicon Valley, you’ll notice that they are in a race. They’re in a race to get to work, to get food and get back to work, and to do whatever they need to do to be productive as much as possible. They’re in a race to raise more money than their competitors, grab talent from anywhere they can, sign deals and build big companies. They’re in a race to thrive.
I like this statement but I don’t like the way it starts: “when you meet people from Silicon Valley”. I know some people involved in startups (I am one myself) and I know most of us worked on xmas day and on new year’s eve. It’s a passion more than a race I think.
When you love something, you don’t mind doing it all the way. For example, I enjoy riding a bicycle but not as much as some of my friends who travel hundreds of kilometres “just because they like it”. Well same goes with working for a startup. Most people work 40 hours a week and simply don’t understand why some work crazy hours on their own startup. Well it’s just like the cyclist who travels hundreds of kilometres per day: they LOVE it. They want to see the end result just like the cyclist who wants to see its destination.
So are people from Silicon Valley “different” from us? I doubt. They are, and I admit, in a perfect environment much like cyclists from countries where it rarely rains and where it’s always warm. Does that mean Canadian cyclists are not good? That would be unfair to say. Good entrepreneurs might travel south just like professional cyclists. I also think that “Californians” are not necessarily better at entrepreneurship but rather that there is a large concentration of entrepreneurs and resources over there. This is the snowball effect. This snowball effect can be recreated anywhere. It’s not easy but it’s doable.
Posted in Canada, Startups | Comments (0)
BlitzWeekend is official - March 1st + 2nd 2008!
January 22nd, 2008
Did I just say exciting week? Well as you may or may not know, BlitzWeekend is really official now! Thanks to iNovia and Universite de Sherbrooke, we have amazing rooms for the event. The building is very modern, wifi-ready and right next to the subway station. There is also parking available around the building. Heri from MontrealTechWatch, one of the committee members, is also covering this great news!
BlitzWeekend will be an exciting event taking place on March 1st and 2nd 2008. Other than iNovia and Universite de Sherbrooke’s support, we already have Guru as an official sponsor. They will provide plenty of energy drinks to keep the competition, well, alive and kicking.
So if you don’t have a team yet, don’t despair. You can visit BlitzMaker and register as a designer, programmer or entrepreneur. People are encouraged to form teams ahead of time but we’ll provide guidance if you don’t have a team. Solo teams are welcomed but let’s be honest, time is limited and there will be a lot to do. If you can really start a business on your own in 48h then I’d like to hear from you 
Please talk to your friends about this event. Post on your blog if you have one as we’re trying to spread the word.
Posted in Blitzweekend, Startups | Comments (0)
Canadian Web2.0 Boom?
January 22nd, 2008
From Techvibes: “Toronto-based IDC Canada reported last week that despite the slowing economy in the US, Canada’s technology industry is still poised for substantial growth this year. According to IDC’s report, end-users are expected to spend no less than $81.5 Billion in technology products and related services this year pushing growth in the Canadian IT sector above that of the national GDP and the US economy.
[…] opportunities are growing areas in such as Web 2.0, unified communications and wireless mobile technology.“
It’s pretty interesting to know that growth will not be affected, but seeing how the Canadian stock market reacted yesterday (following bad news from USA), I’m not so sure our growth will be that high. We have to remember that Canada is a small market compared to the USA (roughly 10% in size).
The good news is that if you can survive doing business only in Canada, then your business will surely grow when the US economy will return to its bully stage.
Posted in Startups, business | Comments (0)
MontrealTechWatch’s Startup Guide
January 19th, 2008
Heri from MTW did it again. After launching Montreal’s startup map, he’s now writing a startup guide. This is exactly what I was looking for about a year ago when I started blogging and decided to start my own startup. Instead, I had to look for blogs, connect with people, go to {Bar,Demo,Facebook,Startup}Camps. Which is great in a sense as I learned the “hard way”. Even today, I still learn many new things everyday: new contacts, new blogs, new companies, etc.
But in this world where everything goes very fast (ex: building a Ruby on Rails application overnight), I think this will be a gold mine for anyone wanting to start their own company. As we all know, time is money and time is also often a succeed factor even though VC’s don’t really care. I think that being the first one DOES matter (as long as your product is decent).
Anyways, check it out and please don’t forget to send any information to Heri.
Posted in Montreal, Startups | Comments (2)
Coop Entrepreneurship AKA Join me on a quest to change the world!
January 18th, 2008
I’ve been thinking a lot these days and I have a lot of great ideas that I don’t want to forget about. Some of them were ridiculous and I killed them right away. However some are fairly good and good enough that I want to do something with them. Who knows, perhaps one of them will work out. This reminds me of a presentation by Sylvain Carle probably over a year ago about parallel entrepreneurship. Instead of throwing 1 dice, you throw 10 dices hoping 1 or 2 will win. This is also exactly what VC’s do. They spread their risk over many good companies hoping 1 or 2 will bring back 10x their initial investment.
The problem is how to form a team when most people have a day job and are very busy? It’s not easy.
Programmers are good at programming but might lack marketing or business skills. True programmers like to code. They often code after work. They contribute to open source projects.
Business guys are good at business but they are rarely good coders or designers. Business guys always think about ideas. They come up with a new idea every time nature calls, whenever they see someone frustrated at something and so on.
Designers are awesome at creating something neat and fun to use but might not be able to code a large application or find out if a market is profitable or not. Designers can transform any ordinary web page in a work of art.
It’s very hard to find a multi-disciplinary individual (ex: someone who’s both a great coder and a great business man). I always believed in working as a group instead of working for yourself. Being in a team, it’s much easier to talk about a project, to do research, to design and code it. The reason is you have access to other excellent resources. When you do it on your own, you must be very focused and dedicated otherwise you will quit or fail. Being solo doesn’t work very well.
So you might be wondering where all this is heading? Well I had this idea where people contribute to startups in various ways. I call it “coop entrepreneurship”. People join startups like they join open source projects. They contribute what they can: they code, they design, they write business plans, they do marketing, they invest money, etc. Basically, they contribute their skills (or money if they are investors). Their participation is evaluated and shares are given depending on their participation. Once the project is completed, they look for funding and launch.
I’d really like to “test run” this idea with a few people before brining the concept further. So if you’re a programmer, a designer/user interface expert, a business man, a network engineer, a sysadmin, an investor, a mentor, a coach, a lawyer, an accountant, a secretary, an idea guy or if you think you could be part of a startup then please let me know.
I would really like to hear your thoughts about the model itself. On my side, I think the model is viable as the coop model has been around for ages. It is just being applied in a different way and actually, I know that Cambrian House is doing something similar. In the medium term, the goal would be to create a hub where people could meet, find partners and start a business. Some sort of business catalyst or perhaps a very informal incubator.
So… who’s in? Just email me.
Posted in Help wanted, Incubator, Montreal, Startups, business | Comments (4)
