Leadership
How close should you be with your investor?
Feb 28th
by Monica Goyal
How close is to close?
I remember an advisor once suggesting that an entrepreneur should be located 150 miles from their investor. It was just to say that investors want to be close to their investments to adequately advice them. For all our talk of telecommuting, it still does not detract from the practical reality that most work is done face to face. And to really move quickly with new initiatives, nothing beats working face to face with your colleagues.
Monica Goyal
One of the best places in the world to raise capital and accelerate your tech startup is Silicon Valley, California. As Peter Theil, said in an interview with big think: “…Silicon Valley and California is still the best place for technology innovation which is the business that I’m in”. Wonderful if you are American, not so wonderful if you are from any other country. American immigration laws restrict the number of H1B visas they issue every year, making it difficult to secure a work visa even with an employment letter. On the other hand, obtaining a B1 business visa is supposedly relatively easy, and is granted for 10 years. It allows people to come for the day and even permits them to stay overnight.
One solution I recently learned of for non-US tech startups, who want the advantage of being located close to Silicon Valley, is to be offered by Blueseed: a 1000-person cruise ship 12 miles off the coast of Silicon Valley. It’s a floating incubator of sorts just beyond the US shores, where startups are housed, from which they can make day trips to investors, business partners or clients. There are many interesting details about the project in this article. Their website says they plan to launch in Q3 2013, and the cost of accommodation will be $1200/person/month.
While Blueseed presents an ingenious way for foreign entrepreneurs to access investor capital in the US, I find it ironic that the US is still struggling with immigration issues in the tech industry; a sector that has generated quite a bit of wealth for the US economy. In the late 90s, immigration policies and the lack of qualified human capital was impeding growth in the industry. What we saw in the 2000s was the outsourcing of many tech jobs to India. More than a commentary on cost of labour, it was a statement on the inability to supply labour for an industry hampered by restrictive immigration policies.
Although, it may appear we are moving towards more restrictive immigration policies in Canada, it is clear that policies that facilitated the immigration of skilled tech labour did provide a competitive advantage for tech companies. Blueseed highlights the challenges and the pitfalls of US immigration policies. Hopefully it’s not too late for lawmakers in the US to wake up to the dangers of continually hamstringing their own companies and not fully leveraging the ecosystems they have created.
Obama and Canadian Internet privacy rules share common weaknesses
Feb 24th
by Nestor E. Arellano
United States President Barak Obama created quite a stir yesterday when he unveiled a proposed framework for an Internet Bill of Rights designed to protect consumers’ privacy online.
The document called the Consumer Data Privacy in the Networked World essentially adapts for the commercial Internet environment, some globally recognized principles of privacy. Not surprisingly the White House’s framework released yesterday shares some principles outlined by Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart in December last year when she unveiled a guideline for online behavioural advertising(OBA).
Nestor Arellano
Unfortunately, Obama’s framework and Stoddart’s guidelines also share some common weaknesses.
Canada lags behind U.S. in supporting small businesses
Feb 10th
by Christine Wong
We Canadians tend to get our backs up when people assume we’re exactly the same as Americans, but with different accents, eh?
For proof of just how different we are, take a look at how the two countries are using legislation to support startups.
Christine Wong
In the U.S., President Barack Obama is making his Startup America initiative a centerpiece of his campaign. Hit with charges that he hasn’t done enough to get the U.S. out of its economic sinkhole, he’s flogging the following legislative changes under the Startup America banner in the hope of winning a second term: Read the rest of this entry »
Small biz acquisition as a tech talent raid strategy
Feb 7th
by Nestor E. Arellano
There’s usually a lot of media hoopla, happy dances and high fives following announcements of a big biz acquisition of a promising tech industry startup.
The general perception is that a company that has struggled to develop its product and get it to market is finally getting the recognition, backing and mega bucks it deserves to get its game to the next level. In many cases, the reality is a business to which an entrepreneur had poured his heart and soul to, is most likely being closed down.
For many large conglomerates acquisition is not so much about getting its hands on technology as it is about a tech talent grab.
Nestor Arellano
Take the case of Summify, the Vancouver-based social summarizing tool purchased by Twitter last month. Summify is cool. It connected all your social networking feeds such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Then it automatically summarizes which content and updates are most relevant to you.
When Twitter bought the company they actually bought the team behind it. Co-founders Mircea Pasoi and Christian Strat and three engineers were reported to be on their way to San Franciscoto work at Twitter’s head office. Read the rest of this entry »
Should New York look to Montreal for tech hub model?
Feb 2nd
by Christine Wong
What’s the best way to turn a city into a world class hub for high tech startups?
Does a “build it and they will come” overnight approach really work? Or is it a process that can only happen organically over time?
Christine Wong
Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s tiny, brash, billionaire mayor (personal 2011 net worth: $20 billion), is taking the first approach. He’s trying to turn the Big Apple into the next Silicon Valley by offering up $100 million in city-owned land and infrastructure (for free) to build a two-million-square-foot high tech campus on Roosevelt Island, right in the heart of the city. Cornell University and Israel’s Technion Institute took the bait and are now developing the mega project together.
These New Yorkers aren’t fooling around: the campus’s first students are expected to start classes there by 2017, just five years from now. And Bloomberg is throwing some big numbers around, saying the plan could generate 600 startup companies which would in turn create another 30,000 jobs.
The Russians are on the same wavelength as Bloomberg. A similar venture is going on in sleepy Skolkovo, a town just outside Moscow where the Kremlin is building a sprawling facility to boost innovation in energy, IT, telecom, biotech and atomic technologies. The Kremlin is being secretive about exact plans and dollars spent (the KGB legacy is hard to shake, I guess). But skeptics are wondering how startups spawned there will flourish when government corruption and criminal gangs still interfere so much in the nation’s business community.
Canadian startups cashing chips way too early?
Jan 25th
by Christine Wong
Assessing the debris of the Research in Motiondebacle – longtime co-CEOs swept aside, stock price in shambles, failed PlayBook launch and customer confidence rocked by service outages – it’s easy to forget this fallen giant was once a Canadian IT startup.
Christine Wong
While founder Mike Lazaridis and his former co-CEO Jim Balsillie took heat for occupying the top jobs at RIM for far too long (27 and 19 years respectively), today’s startup founders seem to be hanging up their entrepreneur’s hats way earlier. There are no outlets that officially track tech startup M&A deals. But according to an unofficial count by Techvibes, there were 35 Canadian startups acquired in 2011, up from 27 in 2010.
Why are so many Canadian tech startups cashing in their chips early instead of soldiering on to grow and develop their companies into the next RIM (pre-meltdown, of course)? Read the rest of this entry »
This anti-piracy battle may nearly be won, but the war isn’t over
Jan 19th
Minecraft.net's Web strike day splash page graphic.
By Brian Jackson
“PIPA and SOPA? How about NOPA!” So read the protest splash page on Minecraft.net in place of its usual content during Wednesday’s Web strike against anti-piracy legislation being considered by U.S. lawmakers.
While the legislation hasn’t been defeated yet and many Web firms that joined in the protest say they aren’t done, surely they must be doing at least a small happy dance after the Web strike stunt went so swimmingly. Twitter lit up like a Christmas tree with support for the movement and shocked statements of surprise about Wikipedia not being available to instantly deliver answers (which made me concerned about some student’s ability to research, but I digress). Several U.S. law makers publically backed away from supported the Stop Online Piracy Act (in Congress) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (in the Senate), and Google reported that 7 million signed its online petition against the bills.
Even the White House publically acknowledged a petition against the bills, saying “we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”
But the White House staff writing the letter also had this appeal: “Rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right.”
This points out that even if SOPA and PIPA are defeated, the root problem hasn’t been solved. There are powerful content-based industries out there that see their business model as being under threat. Without the ability to control the means of distribution as it used to, the movie and music industries are seeing what used to be profitable business models slowly erode. While I’m skeptical that piracy has played as crucial a role in this as industry lobby groups say that it has, it is no doubt a part of the problem. Piracy, and Internet distribution systems in general have created a generation that expects to be able to receive content for free.
This race to the bottom on price is perhaps most evident in the mobile app market, as I was reminded when attending this week’s GameON: Finance conference in Toronto. A couple of years ago, it was common to see almost as many paid-for apps in Apple’s App Store as there were free apps. But now there are so many free apps to compete against that most mobile developers consider it folly to even try to put a price tag on their product. The accepted ratio of mobile app downloaders willing to pay versus never willing to pay is two per cent to 98 per cent. Read the rest of this entry »
Why aren’t there more women in the tech startup scene?
Jan 12th
by Christine Wong
I’ve asked myself the exact same question while departing various startup events here in Toronto over the past few months.
Where are all the women?
Christine Wong
At one such event this past fall, only a handful of the hundred or so participants were female. At another, I spied one smartly dressed young woman near the front of the room and assumed she was one of the dozen startups there making pitches to a gathering of VCs and angels. When I introduced myself and asked which startup she was with, she smiled and said, “Oh no, I’m just here to watch my husband’s pitch.”
She was the only woman in the entire room besides me. Read the rest of this entry »
OLED, Smart and 3D TVs prominent at CES 2012
Jan 11th
Samsung showcases its Super OLED TVs at CES 2012
by Elliott Chun
Leading up to this year’s show, industry insiders expected OLED to take the cake as a top news maker of CES after unveiling in big-screen formats. This is certainly true, with Korean electronics giants LG and Samsung strutting 55-inch OLED TVs and drawing plenty of crowds to fuel the fanfare. Read the rest of this entry »
Get ready for CES 2012: 10 must haves if you’re in Vegas this week
Jan 9th
A new year means a new Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The desert city plays host to 45th annual show where geeks like me go nuts over the latest connected gizmos, gadgets and appliances. Appliances? Yes, they too are becoming more aligned with this connected world we live in and they are growing in focus during the world’s largest electronics expo. I am looking forward to what big players like Samsung and LG have to in that category. More on that this week.
On the ‘press day’ of CES 2012 and for my inaugural post on ITBusiness.ca, I thought it might be entertaining (- or helpful if you are also in Vegas -) to see what must-have ‘tools’ are needed during the four-day show.
Here are my top 10 must-haves to survive CES 2012: Read the rest of this entry »
