Archive for the ‘Startups’ Category
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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)
Loic’s winning startup tips list
January 17th, 2008
Most people now know Loic Lemeur, the famous French guy behind Seesmic. He recently posted a “to do” list in order to successfully start a company. His list goes as follows:
- Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible.
- Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
- Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
- Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
- Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
- Be the first to recognize a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
- Don’t spend time on market research.Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
- Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans.They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
- Don’t plan a big marketing effort.It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
- Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.
There’s only one point that I don’t really agree on (point 7 – Don’t spend time on market research). I don’t know about you but even if you have a niche, you still need to properly analyse it. If I focus “ant eating lovers who have 5 kids and have dyed pink hair”, then that’s a really small market and whatever I do, I won’t make any money. Reaching these people alone will be pretty hard so keeping them as loyal customer is probably next to impossible.
So what do you think about this list? Which point do you think is the most important? I found from my current startup that #5 is really important. Without a great team, you won’t go very far…!
Posted in Mentoring, Startups | Comments (2)
Presenting teams at StartupCamp Montreal
January 17th, 2008
Well the news has been out for a few days but I was just too busy to write a post about it. So here it goes. There were roughly 30 startups competing for this event. Some very well known (Standout Jobs, Mobivox and Praized) and some very stealthy (the rest of them basically). 5 “winners” were selected by investors and here they are:
1 - Cozimo
2 - Tungle
3 - Streametrics
4 - iGotcha Media
5 - YourTeleDoctor
Selected companies will each give a 10 minute presentation, then they will receive 5 to 10 minutes of feedback and questions from the audience.
There are still “paying tickets” available (service providers @ 200$ and sponsors @ 1000$) so if you want to participate as a service provider or as a sponsor, please do not hesitate as there might be startups looking for help (lawyers, accountants, consultant and so on).
Non presenting startups will still have the chance to present their company informally so please join us!
Posted in Angels, Montreal, StartupCamp, Startups, Venture capital | Comments (2)
YulNews featured on Intruders.tv
January 14th, 2008
I had the chance to be interviewed during the last BarCamp by Laurent Maisonnave from Intruders.tv
Just before the interview, Laurent captured footage of an arrest right next door. This really shows the power behind “citizen journalism”. People are now becoming journalist and this is the essence behind the project.
Click here to view the actual interview (the interview is in French).
Posted in BarCampMontreal, Startups, YulNews | Comments (0)
