Blogmatic

… you were starting out.

I have received a lot of great advice from many people that I respect and admire in getting TheCodeFactory up and running. One of my favourite gems is the title of this post; “Remember who was good to you when you are starting out.” It was Peter Kemball founder of Acorn Partners that let me in on this bit of wisdom at our very first meeting, even before they had agreed to be a founding partner at TheCodeFactory.

Probably one of the toughest things to do as a start-up and as a new business I consider TheCodeFactory a start-up, is to succeed. Early on when you have limited funds and are trying to get traction it is a tough go. Once you are up to critical mass and “successful” it is a whole lot easier for companies to be supportive and jump on the bandwagon. However, always remember those that supported you early on because they are the ones who believed in you and your idea while those standing idly on the sidelines waiting for success are indeed fickle friends. Good partners and those to which I am genuinely grateful and do business with are the ones that contribute now or in the early going and continue to be supportive on the road to success rather than after reaching “critical mass”.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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I meet with Jeff Eisen my life coach on a regular basis and have benefited greatly from his wisdom. We last met at TheCodeFactory about two or three weeks ago. As we talked he mentioned that your journey through life should be effortless and easy if you are on the right path. At least that is my recollection.

I have given this considerably thought and reflected on the sentiment of effortless and easy. I tend to agree with the first part if you are pursuing your passion in life then time passes effortlessly. However, I struggle with the concept of life should be easy.

Should life be easy?

Personally I don’t want things to come to easily. My preference is to work hard and earn success. Most successful people in life fondly remember the early days in their journey when they had little, worked hard and reflect back on what great times these were later in life.

When I worked for a large multi-national company I had a great salary, good co-workers, life was relatively easy and I had a whole lot to be grateful for. However, at the same time life was somehow less fulfilling than it is now when I am pursuing my passion in life. Life is a whole lot of hard work right now, yet at the same time in terms of personal fulfilment never better. I appreciate the weekends far more, value my time with family more than ever (perhaps because there is less family time), have met an incredible number of excellent people and am more determined than ever to achieve my goals. I like hard work and don’t want easy.

When life is easy I don’t think we fully appreciate all the great things we have, in fact we take them for granted. .

Cheers,

Ian Graham

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It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent,
but the ones most responsive to change.

— Charles Darwin

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It’s that time of year again. Time to reflect on all of the start-ups I have meet over the past year and highlight three Ottawa area start-ups which, in my opinion, have some real potential and the right stuff. Each year this task gets more challenging because Ottawa really has a rich and vibrant start-up community and as a rule of thumb I learn of a new start-up every business day. Since this is my third year picking the ones to watch the talent pool is progressively becoming richer and deeper. 

Ottawa area Start-up veteran and a company that provides excellent leadership in the community is TravelPod. TravelPod is founded by Luc Levesque. TravelPod is perhaps one of the most Internet savvy companies in the world and an excellent example of the sort of latent talent that exists in the Ottawa area. TravelPod was the first company in the world to develop a facebook application and when Facebook announced on a Friday they would be opening their interface TravelPod had an application available on the Monday. The TravelPod website comes in at roughly 7,333 in Alexa ranking and has a Technorati authority of 3,591 incredibly impressive.  What I like most about TravelPod is their ability to innovate and the exceptional people and culture of the organization.

Lavablast is a company I have had the opportunity to get to know very well and use their product at TheCodeFactory. I am continually impressed by their “can do” attitude and the strong team that they have assembled. We originally met after Start-up Ottawa did a post for the Start-up directory introducing them to the Ottawa community. I went on their website, submitted an information request and within a week we had a signed agreement. One TheCodeFactory member indicated that our member profiles were missing Twitter and wouldn’t it be neat if each time a member signed in we could issue a tweet. Sent a note to Jason Kealy and within two hours the feature had been added. Lavablast has a good understanding of their target market, strong technical capabilities and excellent people. Definitely a company to watch.

Exocortex led by Ben Houston and have a remarkable world leading product in the area of fluid simulations. With patents pending a growing team and exceptional technology they are a most awesome company in the making. What I like most about Exocortex is the founder. If you have ever seen the movie Good Will Hunting, Ben is Will Hunting, one of the most brilliant mathematical minds in the world. However, there is much more to Ben than exceptional intelligence. Ben is also a very pragmatic individual and going about building his business in all the right ways; by adding to his body of knowledge, seeking advice from numerous sources and adding good people with complimentary skill sets to his team. Exocortex is an Ottawa area Start-up to watch.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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There has been a terrible tragedy here in Canada where at the time of writing of this post 12 people had died and many others became sick from Listeria in some products from Maple Leaf Foods. I have been particularly impressed by the response of the company to this horrific situation. Maple Leaf foods has taken the approach of “facing the brutal facts”. They were quick to acknowledge the problem and put in place measures to correct and address the situation. While this won’t undo the damage done it does speak volumes to the character and culture of the company.

The President and CEO have acknowledged the situation in the media, on TV and in an open letter that I found in the Ottawa edition of Metro. My take on the situation is that Maple Leaf foods have taken the problem head on and I think their actions are commendable. By “facing the brutal facts” they have shown much character and conviction as an organization.

Ian Graham

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I often find inspiration in quotes. This past weekend I attended my uncle’s funeral and while traditionally a sombre occasion one that my uncle wanted to be a celebration of his life rather than a mourning of our loss. In this respect there were a couple of inspirational quotes that I wanted to share.

The first is from my uncles’ sister in law to my aunt regarding reflecting on their marriage.

“Don’t mourn because it is over, be grateful that it happened”.

The next was from one of the speakers at the ceremony reflecting on my uncles’ leadership style. This is a quote from Henry Truman that I really like.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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Can I choose none of the above?

In terms of support both companies have equally dismal performance. This is somewhat of a paradox and the reason I say that is when you talk to the customer support people they seem like good people that are genuinely trying to help. The trouble is none of them seem to have any authority to solve the problems that you have. Typically when I call either of these organizations for support I am transferred to four or five different people. The last time I had a billing issue with Rogers I had to escalate the problem to the VP of Customer Advocacy and National Quality to get it resolved. I have a new billing issue with Rogers now and am dreading the thought of having to dial in to that stupid automated attendant and trying to get to the right person. Perhaps that is the point make support so difficult that no one calls you.

From an organizational perspective what does this say about these two companies? In a word; “Dysfunctional”. If you are going to employ and have a support organization give them the ability to resolve the problem. It seems to me that there is absolutely 0% empowerment at these companies and they have a very top down bureaucratic command and control support structure. What they need is something like 1-800-O-Canada which is a single point of contact for all Canadian government services. I have used it and it is awesome, you call in, talk to a real person and they direct you to the appropriate contact. Most bizarre, who ever thought I would be recommending that private enterprise be more like the government? 1-800 would resolve the auto-attendant crap. Next step in the solution is to give the support people some latitude and capability to resolve the problem. So basically that’s it give your customers easy access to someone that can solve their problem.

In terms of business and marketing I think that Rogers is easily way out in front. Rogers does a great job of attacking Bells Landline service and internet with their home phone offering. Bell expressview may have a reasonable showing in rural areas but will, in my opinion, never gain much traction in urban and suburban areas. Where Rogers competes they win. Bell has retired those cute and cuddly beavers Frank and Gordon and is rebranding. “Frankly” I never understood the beaver campaign and am reasonably certain that while Frank and Gordon were very popular they never did anything in terms of selling Bell services. With the recent acquisition at Bell and announcement of 2,500 layoffs things are going to go from bad to worse. Bell is a dinosaur waiting for the meteor to hit and start the ice age.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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I have written about passion being a key driver for entrepreneur a number of times; Passion the poison pill, Entrepreneurial Characteristics, The 3P of Entrepreneurship and Stupid Passion. I am also a regular reader of Ben Casnocha blog and he recently had a post “Can Making Money Be the Main Driver for Entrepreneurs?” There was an excellent comment by one of his readers that I wanted to share with everyone:

All money and no passion = sell the business at a premium (say 5 years revenues) before it zags.
All passion and no money = find a co-investor to share the risk before you go belly up.
Lots of passion and lots of money = buyout competition before it becomes a threat.

Something to think about.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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There are all kinds of stories circulating in the media about how low the wireless adoption rate is in Canada. The assumption is that this is a bad thing and reflects poorly on our wireless service providers; Bell, Rogers, Telus and the others.

In a few words, ill conceived fluff.

That’s right fluff. Of course there is a lower percentage of wireless penetration in Canada when compared to other countries, particularly those in Europe. This is mainly due to geography. Just checked Statistics Canada and approximately 20% of the Canadian population are rural. When we say rural in Canada this really means rural and rural means no access to wireless cell phone service.

Let’s do a little Blogmatic math. The total addressable market in Canada for wireless cell phone service is 80% (26.4M people) of the population or those that live in urban and suburban areas. According to the media the wireless penetration rate in Canada is anywhere from 62% to 67% (65% * 33M = 21.45M people). Therefore when you factor in geography the actual Canadian wireless market penetration rate is 81.25% which is comparable to other industrialized countries.

Comparing Canada to the EU is not an Apples to Apples comparison more like apples to oranges. However, comparing Canada to Australia may yield some interesting results.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

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There is a very cool idea called Vencorp being championed by Sean Wise of Wise Mentor Capital. I had previously seen reference to Vencorp on Startup North and there is a recent article in Profit Magazine that gives a more detailed overview of the venture.

What I like about this approach to funding start-ups is that it takes into consideration that starting a business today is less capital intensive and the fund also leverages the wisdom of crowds to determine which companies receive funding. Rather than have a fixed board or serial entrepreneur judging the merits of a proposal the Vencorp community vote on a monthly basis to determine which start-ups are fund worthy. To become a member of the Vencorp community all one has to do is sign up and membership is free. There are incentives and points awarded to community members based on their track record of contribution and success. Community members can use points for various items  within the Vencorp site.

I really like this idea and wish them success. This is a very timely initiative that addresses the needs of the start-up community and provides a merit based system for awards. Vencorp is providing an innovative service to entrepreneurs, start-ups and the community at large. Perhaps a matching contribution from the provincial government could be leveraged to deliver some much needed value to the start-up community. Personally I would much rather see all levels of government supporting initiatives like Vencorp with matching funds than building bureacratic boondoggles.

Cheers,
Ian Graham

PS, also posted on TCF blog but thought this is such a great idea I would double dip.

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