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2010 Start-ups to Watch

Ian — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:28:42 +0000

This is the fifth year at for TheCodeFactory Start-ups to watch. Previous years choices will be posted next Monday.

There are two conflicting messages that are often heard, which one you hear depends on if you are an investor or a start-up. “All of the good start-ups will get funded” is what you tend to hear from investors. “There is a real shortage of funding” is what you tend to hear from many start-ups. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Bottom line is that good investors fund teams not ideas anyway. Ideas change and morph as start-ups pivot and work toward refining customer development and business model. I don’t think any start-up I know ended up where they started out, in terms of idea.

On that note of funding teams let’s start to unveil this year’s “Start-ups to Watch 2010”.

These choices are in alphabetical order.

Select Start Studios; Tariq, Adam and the rest of the team make an excellent combination of business and technical skills. If I understand correctly they also have some excellent advisors that help with those inexperience blind spots. A strong team that is gaining tons of experience in a growing market space certainly a start-up to watch in the next five years.

YOUi Labs under the lead of Jason Flick is the most mature start-up in the mix this year. They have already accumulated numerous awards (too many to mention) and landed funding from the Ontario Centre of Excellence Investment Accelerator Fund, definitely no small feat. YOUi Labs is quickly moving into that high growth phase of start-up development. I really like the market space that they are in, their team and future prospects.

Zeebu Mobile: What can I say these guys rock and have I known them since they were just a sparkle in the eye of the Lead to Wins application process. Dan and Anthony make a great founding team, they have a strong advisory board and Chris Saunders makes an awesome early employee. I see them almost every day and have been impressed at their progress in the past year, very likely they will be one of TheCodeFactory first graduates.

Wishing everyone much success in the year ahead.

Ian Graham

Commencing Count Down … 3 … 2 … 1

Ian — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:19:44 +0000

Photo Attribution: Steve Jurvetson

BlogON set to resume Tuesday September 7th with a whole new line up of fun stuff for the fall. There will also be some new content including;

The Innovation Series of posts, my ramblings on Canadian Innovation in a global context.
Chating with Entrepreneurs, great things learned by chatting with folks here,
Start-up EATS, where to eat in the downtown Ottawa core for < $5.
Students and Start-ups video Series,
A super stealthy new video series set to de-cloak in mid-late September
Plenty O other fun stuff.

As the summer of the saw draws to a close ...

Let the Awesomeness of Autumn lift off begin!

Ian Graham

When Lunch goes BAD.

Ian — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:37:37 +0000

True Story.

I occasionally have lunch at an undisclosed location very close to TheCodeFactory. I was gathering change to pay the $6.77 and pulled out a $5 bill, loonie, 3 quarters and gave the money to the cashier. I then proceed to search for two pennies to complete the transaction. I handed in the two pennies and was ready to go on my way.

The cashier then said “That will be $6.77”.

I said “I gave you $6.77.”

She showed me her hand and there was only $5 bill and 52 cents. I was certain that I had provided 3 quarters so I said, “Well what’s in your other hand?”

She showed me her other hand and there was a loonie and toonie. I had mistaken a toonie for a quarter and paid too much. I am guessing that this person thought if they could get me to give them another quarter they could pocket the toonie for themselves. I took back the toonie and gave her a quarter and didn’t think much of it.

After reflecting on it I thought, HEY WTF! Had she quietly taken the $1.75 extra I never even would have noticed the mistake. By trying to get the whole toonie she lost the $1.75 she could have had.

Not sure what the lesson is here but I am sure there is one.

From my perspective I’ll be keeping a close eye on my change at this particular place and am blogging about the experience.

Ian Graham

Making money isn’t evil …

Ian — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:19:53 +0000

… Making money being evil is evil.

Thanks for that sentiment Kneale Mann. Kneale had tweeted that some time ago and I often reflect back on that thought. Money in and of itself isn’t evil … go figure. However, I sometimes encounter the sentiment that for profit and social venture is mutually exclusive. Somehow making money is evil and implies that you are only in it for the money.

I am a huge supporter of ethical capitalism. If you are in business then you are in business to make money. Customers exchange their money for your service or product and that is all good. If you are making money at it even better because that means you are providing value. A for profit business can be a social venture and help to create wealth and value for the local/global economy.

Over the course of my two week holiday I have spent a bit of time reading a number of innovation reports. Interestingly enough the Legatum Prosperity Institute ranks the relative prosperity of 233 nations (Canada is 7 by the way … we can do better but that topic is for another day) on nine sub-indices. One of the sub-indices is Economic Fundamentals. For the 90% of countries that have achieved the minimum level of monetary success more money does not significantly improve quality of life. However, for those bottom 10% of countries that have not secured the minimum level of success then nothing but money will improve the quality of life. If you think money isn’t the most important thing then try living without it.

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs turn philanthropist after achieving success. Through their creation of abundance they help others. Abundance is a great thing … scarcity creates problems.

I firmly believe that an organization can be both for profit AND a social venture,

Ian Graham

Summertime Series – Sharpening the saw

Ian — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:50:32 +0000

Regular readers may have noticed a decrease in the number of blog posts. I will be scaling back the number of blog posts during the summer to roughly one per week.

Steven Covey wrote several of my favourite books including; Principled Centred Leadership and the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 7 is Sharpening the Saw. Sharpening the saw is a metaphor for taking the time to take care of you. The intent is to rejuvenate you in each of the 4 areas of; physical, social, mental and spiritual.

Part of rejuvenation involves more play and less work. Let the summer of the saw begin.

Ian Graham

Summer Time Series – Life by Numbers

Ian — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:59:16 +0000

Its 5am raining and the neighbourhood is just starting to come to life. Birds are chirping, the odd car drives by and the coffee pot has just finished brewing. It is the perfect time for writing with little or no distractions and a fresh mind.

I am feeling very reflective today and pondering to myself that big question should we live our life by numbers. So often in western society we try and boil everything down to a very specific solution. Nice compartmentalized solutions that speak for themselves. In school particularly in engineering and science there is usually some formula or method for determining the “right” answer and correct methodology. Life isn’t a formula or a methodology and I don’t think you can boil everything down to a causal analysis or finite solution. Perhaps the key point is numbers are important but they are not the only dimension to a potential outcome.
The challenge of course is that how you feel about a possible outcome can be equally or more important than what you think about a potential outcome. In fact Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink delves deeply into the science of “thinking without thinking”, which really is very likely feeling. You often hear stories about CEO’s that make decisions based on that gut check. Getting in tune with how you feel about a potential decision and visualizing the outcomes IMHO is probably as or more important than the math.

Perhaps one of my most important lessons learned in the last two years is don’t live your life as a slave to numbers. Numbers don’t always tell the whole story and sometimes you just have to go on that gut check.

Ian Graham

Announcing “The Studio”

Ian — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:28:59 +0000

Coming to Suite 408 real soon “Media Style Studio @TheCodeFactory” The studio is a joint venture of Media Style and TheCodeFactory and our newly minted logo is shown above. Couldn’t wait to show it off.

The studio will be of professional quality for podcasting and video complete with Green screen and an array of tech gadgets. Expect an announcement about some custom TheCodeFactory content in the near future.

Ian Graham

appshowcase with MC Rob Woodbridge

Ian — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:15:11 +0000

When: Tuesday June 22nd
Where: The Velvet Room (62 1/2 York Street)
Why: Mobile apps rock and a great line up of Ottawa talent including Zeebu Mobile.

Registration Link: http://bit.ly/9qaF4T/

Presenters: Glitchsoft, Magmic Games, QContinuum, Wicksoft, Zeebu Mobile

Rob Woodbridge is quickly becoming a world thought leader in the mobile space. His Vlog untether.tv chronicles leaders in the industry and offers inspirations and insights into the business of mobility. Some of Ottawa’s rising stars in the mobile space will be highlighted at the appshowcase. Hope you can make it sign up is above.

Ian Graham

Summer Time Series – Small Victory

Ian — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:06:39 +0000

Perhaps one of my proudest moments in the past two years was last week when the summer time edition of Carleton University Alumni Magazine came out. Thank you to Zachary and Fateema for their contributions to the article. The article is entitled “Office 2.0” and has a picture of some of the really talented people that are Carleton Alumni and faculty. While I am not a Carleton Alumni I have worked very closely with the students, faculty at the university and like to think I share the same entrepreneurial spirit.

In the picture from left to right are:

Richard Alam – co-founder Blindside Networks, BEng/96, MEng06
Tony Bailetti – Associate Professor, Technology Innovation Management Program
Michael Weiss – director, Technology Innovation Management Program
Jason Daley – President Ucreate Media, BComm/99
Steve Muegge – faculty member, Technology Innovation Management Program, MEng04
Ian Graham – founder TheCodeFactory

Reflections, Small Victories and looking forward

Ian — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:02:40 +0000

TheCodeFactory quietly celebrated our second anniversary on May 26th, 2010. A very happy day and certainly cause for some reflection and the opportunity to look back over the last two years. There is also a time to ponder the infinite opportunities that have unfolded in serendipitous sort of fashion. Finally where does TheCodeFactory go from here …

I have decided to turn these thoughts into my Summer time series of blog posts. I am not really sure how many posts there will be or the exact content, however, I am really looking forward to writing this series. As the title suggests the themes will be:

- Reflections
- Small Victories
- Future Plans

These posts will be in a pseudo random order.

Next post – Small Victories – The Carleton Connection

Ian Graham