By Leo Valiquette
Last month’s content lineup featured great posts that shattered common myths about finding and defining a customer base and how to market an app, as well as insights on securing a patent and recognizing a great CEO. We also looked at the genius of Audi’s Spock vs. Spock ad campaign and some of the weak links in Canada’s commercialization ecosystem. And of course, there was plenty of sage advice for neuromarketers and strategists alike.
In case you missed any of it, here is a handy recap of our posts, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
May 13: The marketing genius of Audi’s Spock vs. Spock, by Leo Valiquette
May 15: Design by committee is just plain wrong, by Francis Moran
May 27: The third way that government can, and must, support Made-in-Canada tech, by Leo Valiquette
May 21: Why shouldn’t it be made in Canada?, by Leo Valiquette
May 07: If you’re so afraid of spilling the beans that no one knows you have any …, by Leo Valiquette
May 02: Startup Canada Communities seeks to build regional economies ‘from the inside out’, by Francis Moran
May 23: ‘Everyone’ is not your customer, by Francis Moran
May 09: 6 small business statistics that may surprise you, by Brent Barnhart, Chamber of Commerce
May 08: Accelerator metrics in Canada (or anywhere), by Jesse Rodgers
May 14: The business of evolution: We’re not as clever as we think we are, by Bob Bailly
May 16: Fiction: Media relations is ‘free advertising’, by Francis Moran
May 30: To sponsor or not to sponsor: 6 questions to consider, by Leo Valiquette
May 22: So you’ve developed an app … now how do you market it?, by Peter Hanschke
May 28: Selling an invention to a patent examiner, by David French
May 29: Everyone has competition, by Francis Moran
May 06: Peeling away the layers of a great CEO, by Denzil Doyle
Image: May 2013 Calendar Printable
By Leo Valiquette
“Canada is open for business.”
So said Jason Kenney, Canada’s Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, in a media release issued last week to promote Canada’s new Startup Visa.
In what the federal government is touting as a “first of its kind in the world,” the visa is intended to accelerate the immigration and citizenship process for entrepreneurs from abroad, particularly technology entrepreneurs, who are vetted by criteria that include investment, and endorsement, by Canadian VCs.
“The new Start-Up Visa will help Canada attract the world’s best and brightest entrepreneurs to build businesses, create jobs, and fuel economic growth,” Kenny said.
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By Francis Moran
I love working with young technology companies, and that’s part of the reason I volunteer as a mentor at startup accelerators like Montreal’s Founder Fuel. I was there yesterday, putting on a session I do for each cohort that teaches these budding entrepreneurs a framework for the strategic planning of their marketing function.
I was reminded yesterday of a conversation I had with a Founder Fuel CEO a couple of cohorts ago. It was just a few days before Demo Day, that high-pressure moment when each cohort company presents its investment proposition to a room full of angel and VC investors. I had been working with the CEO on his messaging for his investor deck, and the revised deck he was reviewing with me and another mentor reflected some of that work.
Then the other mentor said, “You know, this is too high level. Half the people in the room aren’t going to understand what you’re talking about.”
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By Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are memeburn, ReadWriteWeb, TopRank Blog and Fast Company.
Meaningful social measurement: A lesson from the underpants gnomes
Sam Beckbessinger looks at why measuring follower counts on social media is a meaningless metric that’s quickly falling out of favour. Instead, she proposes four more meaningful metrics that offer greater insight into the community you’ve created around your brand.
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By Francis Moran
Startup Canada, the grassroots campaign that is seeking to foster a more entrepreneurial culture in Canada, today launched its most audacious initiative so far with the creation in 15 different cities across the country of Startup Canada Communities, a combination of online and in-person networks intended to give entrepreneurs swifter and more immediate local access to all the resources needed to start a new venture.
We’ve been enthusiastic backers of Startup Canada from its very inception, and as I attended town hall meetings and other events across the country last summer and fall, one consistent theme sounded by entrepreneurs everywhere was that they needed both a one-stop clearing house for information about all the programs and resources available to them and a network through which they could connect with other entrepreneurs, with mentors and with all the other elements of the startup ecosystem.
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