Posts filed under 'Entrepreneurship'
Co-Founders Monday- May Edition: Monday, May 25th, 2009
by Magda Rocki
Looking for that star partner to join your budding technology project or looking for that key project to contribute to? Make your way down to our offices this upcoming Monday May 25th at 6:30pm and meet and mingle with entrepreneurs, investors, students and coaches–all interested in participating and gaining awareness of new tech projects.
Join us! Register for the event on Meetup.
Attending for the first time? Read the recap of the January or February edition.
5 comments May 20, 2009
Women and tech startups: a perfect fit : Part One
by Magda Rocki
At each technology, entrepreneur-heavy event, someone consistently comments on the number (and customarily the lack of) women present. Having marginally attended some of these tech happenings, it’s true that the female presence –whether in the role of a founder, entrepreneur or even participant –figures in the minority.
A few years back, Business Week showcased the best young entrepreneurs in tech, all aged 30 and under and considered ” on the cutting edge” of the tech world. Of the 45 entrepreneurs presented, only 3 were women. Dismal numbers some might say.
Yet, according to the National Association for the Self-Employed , women are strongly represented among entrepreneurs, as women-owned businesses outnumbered new men-owned businesses by nearly a 2-1 ratio in 2003.
Instead of delving into the causes behind this noticeable absence, this series will focus on the beneficial reasons why women should consider jumping into a tech startup environment. Part One of the two-part series will explore the natural abilities that women possess which make them a valuable asset in a startup while Part Two will focus on outlining potential career paths in the startup space and an overview of the resources and support groups geared towards women in the tech landscape.
Basing myself on conversations with both male and female startup junkies and on the meritocracy-based culture of startups, there seems to be no clear reason why there shouldn’t be more women in tech startups. continue reading
5 comments April 21, 2009
Starting up during a recession?
by Olivier Cabanes
What are the ideal conditions for an entrepreneur to take the leap and launch his startup? When is the right time to jump in? As far as economic cycles are concerned, I think there is probably no “right time”. In fact, motivated and competent teams/individuals should always be able to draw advantages from the environment they operate in, regardless of the economy.
At last week’s Capital Innovation, it was interesting to hear JLA Venture’s Pierre Donaldson speak along those lines as he drew a picture of the 2009 VC landscape. Here are three things he mentioned that I think every entrepreneur should remember in times when valuations are down and venture funds are scarce:
- Adverse economic conditions will give rise to stronger companies as they force entrepreneurs to run a tighter ship.Consequently, the balance sheets shown to VCs will be healthier and the chances of getting funded are increased.
- While layoffs are generally bad news to most people and the overall economy, they can be a great opportunity for startups. Previously unavailable or unaffordable dream candidate might be looking for a job now, and the perks offered by startups might be more appealing to them than in past times.
-An entrepreneur that has a good business to show (team, product, and business model) should be able to raise funds in order to scale and grow. VCs might have handed out fewer term sheets in the past few months, but companies still got funded.
So when you combine this with the stimulus plan outlined by Quebec in its recent budget (see also Raymond Luk’s post on the subject), I think 2009 should offer a very decent environment for tech startups.
2 comments April 1, 2009
Conducting your startup’s offsite: tips for success
by Magda Rocki
Last week’s post dealt with pre-planning the basic elements that assure your startup’s offsite is successful: who should be there? Talking about what, when, and why? This week’s focus is on executing the planning and ensuring everything runs smoothly the day of the offsite and onwards.
STEP TWO- Day of the offsite: Executing the planning and guiding your team towards resolution
Ask your team to turn off their cellphones: no distractions allowed! It can even be a good idea to disconnect the internet access during topic sessions, so that participants remain focused on the task at hand. The goal is after all to have everyone participate.
Remind the participants of the agenda items and add missing items ( if needed): to decrease the incidents of tangents and off-topic discussions, make sure to stick to the proposed agenda items. Think of the agenda items as promises you don’t wish to break.
Add comment March 25, 2009
Recap: March YULHackers
by Magda Rocki
Who had time this past Saturday to leisurely enjoy the lovely beginnings of spring? Certainly not this dedicated group of knowledgeable entrepreneurs, creators and programmers present at the freshly minted YULHackers event.
Highlights of the event:
- An unconference format was adopted: Participants were greeted at the door with a giant, blank post-it board and markers and directed toward filling out alloted time slots with their topics of interest.
- Sebastien presented his programming language Sugar: The engaging presentation focused on the origins of Sugar, its practical applications through a journey into its design and syntax, and concluded with a few slides on its admissibility as a good replacement to JavaScript for front-end web development. Presentation slides can be found here.
- A group discussion was initiated about the future format and branding related efforts for YULhackers: So far, thanks to the magical hands of Alok, we have a website, a simple wiki and a tumblr blog.
- Peter of the Navarra Group presented their micro-finance web app which will be used for an online – lending system.
Thanks again to all the participants for attending, especially Alok and Heri for organizing and Sebastien and Peter for presenting their work. I’m certain that with your continuous enthusiasm, input and participation, the event’s dimensions will quickly grow into one of Montreal Tech community’s “ must attend” events. Keep tab on the next event by checking back here or here .
1 comment March 11, 2009
Unconferencing Free Hackers3
by Magda Rocki
After a brief reformatting pause, we are once again delighted to be hosting the Free Hackers event this upcoming Saturday, March 7th 2009 from 1-7 pm. On the hacking menu: a presentation and hands-on workshop on the programming language Sugar– by Sebastien Pierre founder of datalicious– followed by an open hacking session. The full details and the sign-up for the event can be found here , so join us and let’s revel in the new Free Hackers format!
Add comment March 2, 2009
More than founders at Co-Founders Monday
by Olivier Cabanes
This week, I attended Co-Founders Monday, and I was very pleased to meet a crowd that was composed of passionate individuals with a desire to learn, share, and talk about anything related to tech businesses.
Everyone came to the event with different goals in mind, and it made for a very interesting meeting. I met university students looking for work experience within a dynamic startup environment, developers looking for a project that would light up their interest, entrepreneurs looking for a partner in crime, investors looking for promising ventures, etc. I’m glad to see that this event is helping to create new relationships and new business ideas, as this kind of diversity is something we had hoped for originally .
It is great to see that this gathering emphasizes execution behind great ideas (i.e. finding a partner or a person that has a specific skill set, gather advice, etc.) rather than promoting secrecy. It shows that members of the community realize that ideas are important but that efforts also need to be directed toward the development and execution. Otherwise, amazing ideas will never even have a chance of becoming reality.
I’m sure the Co-Founders Monday meeting format will evolve over time, and I hope the positive things I noted above will keep on being part of the event’s formula.
Thanks to everyone for their involvement and I hope to see you next time!
1 comment February 19, 2009
Co-Founders Monday: Find Projects & Partners
by Martin-Luc Archambault
We will be hosting the next Co-Founders Monday, this upcoming Monday, February 16, at 6:30pm. We hosted this event for the first time last month, and it was fun and very productive. In case you missed it, here’s a wrap-up of the last event.
The goal of Co-Founders Monday is to mix people and create partnerships that transform ideas into reality. The event is open to people who:
1) do not have a specific idea in mind and would love to hear about other cool projects and maybe join one and help it succeed;
2) have an idea and are looking for help to make it happen.
At the last event, a great majority of the participants tended to lean toward presenting their projects, so we are certain that if you are interested in joining a startup, you will be in high demand at the Co-Founders Monday.
So, if you are interested in learning about new projects, or if you would like to share your own projects with others, please register here as spacing is limited.
Add comment February 11, 2009
20 Co-founders gathered at Bolidea to talk about their startup and to possibly find a partner…
by Martin-Luc Archambault
We’ve just hosted our first Co-Founder’s Monday this week, and I have to admit that I was really impressed by the genuine passion and motivation projected by people in the room.
Unfortunately I had to leave after welcoming the attendees, but from what I heard from the event organizer Felipe Coimbra and from Raphael Ettore, an entrepreneur in residence at Bolidea working on ArtFox , I think the event was an overall success. Many thanks to everyone that attended and especially to the organizer, Felipe.
continue reading…
5 comments January 22, 2009
Creating new hybrid events for a better Montreal Startup Community
Challenge Your World at Montreal NewTech
by Olivier Cabanes
Today, entrepreneurs – whether they have a business or technology background – who want to start a business have access to a lot of help and resources, such as events that promote sharing project ideas, interests and skills with peers. However, it seems like most of these gatherings are made for groups with similar backgrounds. As an example, Montreal NewTech mostly attracts business-oriented entrepreneurs or investors, while developers prefer to hang out in events such as Free Hackers. Bolidea decided to participate in the latter and is also willing to do the same for other crowd-specific events as we believe they bring tremendous value for entrepreneurs and their start-ups. It is through events like these that entrepreneurs can get specialized feedback, insight, support, and maybe funding! While we entirely encourage crowd-specific events, we think that there aren’t enough “hybrid” events – events that create synergies between different crowds.
Participants at the first edition of Free Hackers
Of course some “hybrid” events do exist, such as Co-Founders Monday, which we will be hosting for the first time next week, but for these types of events, it seems to be quite difficult to get the different crowds to show up with an equal amount of interest. Often, there will be more people from one crowd and the other crowd will end up feeling overwhelmed and out of place. That is the problem Bolidea would like to tackle in order to help our startup community thrive even more. We want to be able to successfully unite business-focused personalities with developers and investors in a way that will spark new ideas and relationships which we can then hopefully help grow into independent, successful companies.
We don’t have the winning solution yet, but we’re working on it. One thing we are doing is getting feedback from individuals that attended our events and also gathering suggestions from people in the startup scene for eventual events. We want to identify why crowds don’t necessarily want to mix and what would make them want to. Everyone involved in the tech community is welcome to let us know what they think the winning “hybrid” event would be; if you’re a business brain, a tech guru, a startup fan, a money man, what you’ve got to say is important to us. What do you think is the key to making a “hybrid” event successful – what type of “hybrid” event would YOU want to attend?
And of course, if you share our vision and you want to organize an event, give us a shout – maybe we can help!
2 comments January 15, 2009
Should you work for a startup?
by Magda Rocki
One of Bolidea’s main objectives is to attentively find and recruit capable people interested in working for the technology startups that we build. In order to do so successfully, we obviously need to be aware of the factors that make it interesting for someone to work in a startup environment.
So, we carried out a semi-scientific analysis by drawing on our communal knowledge of the corporate environment, our personal experiences, as well as feedback from other startup employees. That being done, we can now present a few of the many reasons why we believe you should consider working at a startup. continue reading…
2 comments January 12, 2009
Our Offices
by Magali Janvier
Our first offices
Our first offices were located in the Old Port, a historical and pleasant Montreal neighborhood, exceedingly lively and happening in the summer, while more tranquil in the winter time. Not only was the neighborhood lovely, our office space felt really cozy and was fun to work in. The work spaces were divided in little rooms each of them with their different feel: the well organized marketing/design room, the paper and poster plastered Biz Dev spot and the coders’ area, likely dark and always overflowing with blue “bawls” bottles. Not only did all the staff love the office space, people arriving at the offices never missed a chance to compliment on how great it felt. There was a fireplace, big wooden ceiling structure beams and comfortable couches surrounding a long coffee table. That’s where we always sat at lunch time, eating our homemade or McDonald lunches – the McDonald’s was right around the corner – talking about the next release but more often about the latest party. Indeed the place was perfect for parties, the famous fireplace was always topped with multiple bottles of booze – too often left over booze such as absinthe – but renewed with the drinkable kind before any plan of festivity. Writing this brings back good memories. Overall it was great, but as everything, there were some downsides.
1 comment December 10, 2008
The Team Behind Bolidea
by Magda Rocki
The mastermind behind our enterprise, Martin-Luc Archambault (pic: bottom left), concocts and engineers seamless business strategies that cause our mouths to fall open – more often than not – during meetings. Having sharpened his visionary approaches on more than a few online businesses, he enthusiastically seeks and shapes everything into fast: turnovers, entrepreneurs, executions, and automobiles. Open and receptive to all things entrepreneurial, he is one of the investors behind Montreal Start Up and is always excited to brainstorm and talk about business with anyone. He attributes his farsighted intelligence to daily nibbles of dark chocolate. continue reading…
Add comment December 8, 2008
Got a Problem?
by Martin-Luc Archambault
We’ve always been coming up with cool ideas of products that we like to think people would really need. In the past, we’ve usually been too swamped working on other projects to develop even a fraction of these new ideas. The result is that we missed out on a few amazing business opportunities that others executed on and that became great successes.
It’s commonly said that for a startup to be successful, the stars need to be aligned. In theory, that means a lot of things, including a fantastic team with a great idea and a real market. We think the toughest thing to nail down is what makes an idea “great”. We don’t have the perfect answer to that, but after much reflection, we are now convinced that no idea can be great if it doesn’t really solve a market problem. continue reading…
Add comment December 4, 2008
