Posts tagged start-ups
Co-working gaining ground with tech entrepreneurs
Sep 2nd
By Nestor E. Arellano
Despite all the good stuff you hear about it, working from home can be a drag some days.
There will always be those moments when you can’t get any work done. Playing with the kids seem much more enjoyable, your wife’s to-do list get’s in the way or for those with no family, working in their jammies sends slumber signals to the brain that no amount of caffeine can jam.
Nestor Arellano
It’s almost like you’d rather work in an office. The trouble for many solo entrepreneurs and small business operations is that renting an office can be very expensive, especially if your start-up is pretty much just that and hasn’t quite begun showing any profit.
Typically office space rentals start at around $1,000/month for a tiny space in an urban downtown location. That’s a big chunk off the budget of many fledgeling businesses.
However in the last three year, thousands of freelancers, solo business owners, artists and small business operators in Canada have been turning to a practice called co-working to help bring down the cost of maintaining a working space. Aside from rent that could be thousands of dollars cheaper, co-workers also benefit from something many business owners stuck on a traditional lease arrangement find hard to get – camaraderie and community. Read the rest of this entry »
How to develop tech products with potential
Mar 29th
By Agnes Haak
As a mentor and consultant to small and medium sized businesses, I have encountered many IT professionals and entrepreneurs who are developing new technology and are asking for help on how to turn their technology into a viable business. The first step in developing “viable technology” is by developing products with the market in mind.
Agnes Haak
Research current products
The first question I ask an entrepreneur is “is there anything like it on the market?”. Too often, programmers, developers or entrepreneurs spend too much time on the idea phase only to find out afterwards that this idea is not new, that it is already on the market, in some way, shape or form. Read the rest of this entry »
Social game revenues still 30 times less than console games
Jan 25th
Nestor Arellano
Last week, Vancouver-based game studio Propaganda Games laid-off 70 workers after the firm was shut down by parent Disney Interactive Studios. Prior to this, Propaganda already had to let go of 100 people last October when Disney decided to abandon development of a new console game based on its Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Increasingly, big studios have began focusing attention on social games which in the last two years have emerged as yet another segment of online gaming that threatens the reign of packaged and console based entertainment.
The two main factors that make social games attractive to investors, publishers and game developers is their relatively low cost of development and gigantic potential user base. Read the rest of this entry »
Sneak Peek: Thought Controlled Computing with InteraXon
Sep 23rd
When I was first introduced to InteraXon, a device was placed on my head and I was told that if I focused my thoughts, I’d be able to control the images I was looking at on a screen.
Krista Napier
And I did.
No, this is not an episode of Star Trek – its everyday business at InteraXon, where the company is positioning itself to help companies integrate thought controlled computing into their existing products and business plans.
Sneak peek: Burstn pics, mobile style
Aug 25th
Picture this: you’ve just snapped some great pictures on your smartphone and want to share them instantly with friends, colleagues, customers, or with your social networks on Twitter and/or Facebook. What’s the fastest and easiest way to do this? Try Burstn them.
Krista Napier
Toronto-based Burstn has launched an app that allows iPhone users (and hopefully soon, at least for my sake, BlackBerry and Android users), the ability to share photos in real time without any hassles around uploading or posting them to a website.
I had a chance to chat with Josh Davey and Dave Senior from Burstn recently. Here’s a sneak peak into our chat: Read the rest of this entry »
Should your business be on eBay?
Jul 28th
Lately a lot’s being said about businesses needing to stake their claim on the social media arena.
But does your business need to have presence on an online auction site such as eBay as well?
Nestor Arellano
If you’re selling something or looking to buy something, the answer could be yes. eBay is no longer just a place where kids hock their tired Nikes of adventurous souls like Canadian Kyle MacDonald try to trade up a single red paperclip for a house.
Over the years, start-ups and big businesses alike have found buying and selling on eBay both profitable and affordable.
Imagine the potential market. Canadians now buy more than $1 billion worth of goods on eBay every year and sell more than one million items each month on the site, according to the company. Read the rest of this entry »
How a little company could thrive in a big boys’ world
Feb 4th
Bigger isn’t always better – at least that’s how DAVE Wireless sees it.
At the Toronto Board of Trade breakfast on Feb 2, Dave Dobbin gave an insightful and humorous presentation on what to expect from the new carrier when it launches in the spring of 2010 under the consumer name, Mobilicity. 
Dobbin admits that as a small player, the company has received its fair share of speculation around how it will succeed in a market surrounded by the National incumbents, and where some have questioned whether the Canadian market is even large enough to support another carrier. In response, Dobbin made a compelling case on Tuesday that outlined how the company plans to position itself for success.
Much of the reasoning Dobbin referred to can be generalized and extended beyond the Canadian wireless sector to any small company that finds itself competing with their own “big boys”. In a single word, the secret to success appears to be “differentiation” and finding a niche where size alone becomes less important. So how does Mobilicity plan succeed in a big boys world? It plans to do the following:
Lack of Marketing Savvy: Is It Restricting Growth Among Canadian Startups?
Jan 8th
Canada has an abundance of innovative ideas, exemplary technical talent, and infrastructure to support its technology initiatives. So why is Canada not positioned as a country that is synonymous with innovation and commercialization?
One theory: SMBs in Canada struggle to market themselves concisely. Unconvinced? Consider the events that unfolded at the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) held on December 2, 2009, where twenty Canadian startups in the ICT, digital media, and cleantech markets, strutted their stuff in front of investors from across North America.
