Posts tagged ITB
2011 showed us what Canadian startups are really made of
Dec 23rd
by Christine Wong
Forgive me for stealing from Charles Dickens but it is the holiday season after all: was 2011 the best of times or the worst of times for startups?
- Christine Wong
There were some incredible highs and lows for tech entrepreneurs this year.
On the positive side, there were numerous Canadian startups (34 according to an informal count by Techvibes.com) that made successful exits through being acquired: Rypple, Radian6 (both by Salesforce.com), Flock, Five Mobile (both by Zynga), PostRank (by Google) and Back Type (by Twitter).
One of those deals even involved a resurrection of sorts (okay, now I’m leaving the Christmas motif and veering into Easter territory) as Sprouter, just weeks after declaring it was shutting down due to lack of capital, was snapped up by Postmedia Network Inc. Read the rest of this entry »
Why do startups hate agreements?
Dec 19th
by Monica Goyal
I recently considered entering a business relationship with a startup. These conversations always seem to end with the same awkwardness around signing an agreement. My response, as always, was: I’ll certainly look it over; sometimes I might suggest a revision, and then I may sign it.
Monica Goyal
For some reason, this attention to contracts surprises some. It’s as if contracts are seen as a necessary evil, a nice to have, rather than an important part of solid business partnerships. I totally understand. Most new businesses are most concerned with becoming profitable as quickly as possible, not spending a lot time revising contracts. Read the rest of this entry »
How HoHoTO turned crowdsourcing into a cause
Dec 14th
By Shane Schick
Startups know what it means to be hungry. They tend to be launched by people who work extremely hard for what are sometimes small dividends, at least initially. They have to be very efficient with their expenses and other resources. They know they need to lean on each other for support occasionally, just to survive. They still have it a lot better than the many people in Toronto who go hungry every day — not hungry for success but for actual food. That’s probably why so many of them contribute to HohoTO.
Although it’s a holiday fundraiser rather than an actual company, after three years HoHoTO.ca already looks like more of a well-oiled machine than many other young Toronto tech firms vying for investors and customers. Launched by a group of friends in the local IT scene to help the Daily Bread Food Bank through the Christmas season, the project grew large part through word-of-Web, with the efforts of bloggers, Twitter and Facebook users tapping into their networks to solicit donations, team members or both. This year’s event will take place on Thursday, Dec. 15 at the Mod Club on College Street. ITBusiness.ca is proud to be among the many sponsors. Read the rest of this entry »
Why ‘Small Business Saturday’ would make no sense
Dec 1st
If Canadian small and medium-sized businesses really think that having a day dedicated to them will boost sales, they must worry about competing with Santa Claus for revenue, too.
Shane Schick, editor-in-chief, IT World Canada
The hysteria around Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping periods in the U.S. calendar, has been rivaled only the increased attention paid to so-called Cyber Monday, when online retail also reaches an American Thanksgiving-induced fever pitch. In both cases, it’s the Wal-marts and other giants of the shopping industry that seem to benefit the most. SMBs, often independently operated and unable to compete with the steep margin discounts offered by the big box stores, don’t necessarily see this particular rising tide as lifting all boats. That’s the rationale for “Small Business Saturday,” one of the more desperate marketing ploys I’ve come across in a long time. Read the rest of this entry »
SMBs actually hate social media
Nov 11th
Christine Wong
by Christine Wong
Time for a social media reality check, kids.
The myth: All companies are happily, constantly tweeting, posting and linking up a storm on social media, to their hearts’ delight and their bottom lines’ benefit.
The truth: … not so much.
The reality, based on a few new studies and a roomful of collective gaspers (I’ll get to them later), is that many SMBseither still haven’t jumped wholeheartedly onto the social media train – or the ones that have are struggling with how to use, manage and afford it.
Exhibit A: a surprising 49 per cent – yes, that’s half – of SMBs who responded to our ITB/Dell State of the Canadian SMB survey last year said they weren’t even using social media at all in their businesses. When we asked them why in this year’s survey, the top reason (cited by 35 per cent) was lack of time and resources. Another 16 per cent say they figure it’s just not worth investing in. Read the rest of this entry »
Who needs a Quad-Core mobile device for work?
Nov 10th
by Joseph Fieber
Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual-core processor powers many of the phones and tablets on the market, and it’s similar to the one found in Apple’s iPad 2. That could change soon, as Nvidia has announced its Tegra 3 quad-core processor, which makes its debut in Asustek Computer’s Eee Pad Transformer Prime tablet. Generally, more is better, but does your company really need a quad-core mobile device?
Eee Pad Transformer Prime
The specs
With a design based on the ARM Cortex-A9 processor, the Tegra 3, code-named “Project Kal-El”, boosts by up to three times the graphics performance and five times the overall performance of its Tegra 2 predecessor. The graphics boost is largely due to a 12-core Nvidia GeForce GPU, which lends itself to dynamic rendering of textures and lighting in high-resolution 3D environments, and also makes possible 1080p high-profile video at 40 Mbps. Running at up to 1.3GHz, the extra horsepower comes primarily from the additional two cores, but is also helped by improving the memory bandwidth by three times and doubling the speed of the image signal processor.
Sorting out which equipment to keep and which ones to dump
Oct 20th
by Clare Kumar
Pretend you are visiting your office for the first time. Take a look around with fresh eyes.
What do you see? Does every piece of furniture serve the purpose it was intended for? Are there pieces simply attracting piles of paper?
Clare Kumar
Often when we spend a lot of time in a place, be it work or home, we stop really seeing what’s there. We just accept that it’s supposed to be there, whether it’s working or not.
To make sure that everything in your office ought to be there, take the following steps:
A gamer remembers Steve Jobs: My favourite Apple machine
Oct 5th
by Jason Wilson
By 1987, I was a dedicated gamer. Several consoles littered the Wilson home, along with some old computers (a Tandy, an Apple II, and some nameless IBM compatible).
I gamed on all of these machines, and while I have fond memories of all of them, the Apple IIGS was special. At the time, the Apple IIGSwas the hottest system out there. It could display more colours than any other machine, making it a wonderful computer for games. It had a graphical user interface, one I felt was superior than the black-and-white U.I. of the first Macintosh. It was one of the first 16-bit systems. And it had a synthesizer chip that KO’d the sound quality of any other PC or gaming system. Read the rest of this entry »
Six iPhone 5 features we expect to see
Oct 4th
by Kye Husbands
After months of speculation, and I mean major speculation, Apple sent out invitations today for its October 4 “Let’s talk iPhone” event, so Kudos to my partner, who hit the nail on the head with the October prediction.
The iPhone5 is probably the most anticipated cell phone ever to launch, given Apple’s resounding success in the mobile space and the rapid adoption of smart phones. Read the rest of this entry »
Marketing lessons from my shoes
Sep 27th
By Andrew Berthoff
I recently purchased new shoes online. I like to support local companies, and I always look for things distinct, so I returned to shop at John Fluevog. I don’t often buy shoes, but always enjoy checking out the unique styles – flamboyant or relatively conservative – that this Canadian shoemaker offers.
Shopping online is generally an anonymous experience – call it soulless (as my late fatherused to say, “No pun intended”? Why not?!). With most online shopping sites, the transaction comprises a pre-formatted e-mail confirmation of the purchase and, then, maybe a week later, the arrival of the goods in a plain box with no personalization, no comment, and no thanks for your business.
Andrew Berthoff
Not so with the Fluevians. Even online, they understand that their customer service needs to fit with the style and spirit of the brand – personalized, appreciative and just a shade irreverent. After choosing and purchasing my shoes, I received an e-mail confirmation:
Thank you for placing your web order with John Fluevog Shoes!
We will contact you again within 5 business days to confirm which of our fine locations will be fulfilling your order, and then again when it is shipped. Read the rest of this entry »
