By Francis Moran
Two of the many events at last week’s Waterloo Region Entrepreneur Week featured presentations by young entrepreneurs who were generous in the sharing of personal stories and business and life lessons learned. Ryan Blair is a self-confessed former hoodlum and street-gang member who eventually embraced “legal entrepreneurship” and has built and exited a couple of companies. Y Combinator general partner Garry Tan shared his journey from “born employee” to reluctant entrepreneur and the lessons he learned along the way.
Here are a few of the things I heard that I really liked.
“You have to figure out what the customer is afraid of and become a solution.”
Read More
By Alexandra Reid
If you’re interested in how the changing media landscape and consumer behaviour are impacting the future of advertising, the upcoming Social Media Breakfast Ottawa presentation featuring Sean MacPhedran is for you.
MacPhedran’s passion lies at the intersection of advertising and entertainment, but he also admits he’s a bit of a sci-fi geek, too. As both director of creative strategy at Fuel Industries and general manager for the Tomorrow Awards, MacPhedran is an expert on how advertising influences and is influenced by the consumer, and how understanding this symbiotic relationship can help advertisers reach consumers as their consumption behaviours change along with evolving technologies.
Read More
By Alexandra Reid
As many of you probably already know, Google Plus finally rolled out brand pages this week. Upon first review, brand pages look very similar to Facebook pages, but a closer look reveals added benefits that will help businesses make closer connections with their supporters.
I’ve read lots of articles this week about whether or not businesses should create a brand page right away. Google Plus has been growing at an astounding rate, hitting 20 million users by its first weekend, and millions have joined since. Google Plus is now the fastest growing social network, already boasting 40 million users and attracting large enterprises including Pepsi, Toyota, H&M, CNN and the Dallas Cowboys. As Business 2 Community puts it, “Facebook may be at the center of the social world, but Google is positioned firmly at the center of the business world.” For these reasons, and because of its unique features, I think businesses should begin establishing their presence on the channel as soon as possible.
Google Plus brand pages are similar to Facebook in both appearance and layout, but some publications, such as Wired, have argued that Google Plus trumps Facebook, and even Twitter, in functionality.
Read More
This is the third article in a continuing series that will feature case studies and anecdotal stories from entrepreneurs, consultants and veteran marketers about their efforts to develop, implement and measure marketing programs to bring technology to market and grow market share. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
Many startups with aspirations of grandeur have fallen prey to the temptation to call themselves a “leading provider of …”. But at Teamly, founder and CEO Scott Allison and his team appreciate that earning the label is a “big hairy audacious goal” which takes a lot of hard work and no shortage of hustling.
Teamly is a two-year-old startup which has brought to market an innovative productivity and project management tool which it delivers through a Software-as-a-Service (Saas) model. Or, as described in the company’s vision statement, “Teamly provides online teamwork software that helps businesses be more successful through more aligned and effective people.”
It’s a compelling value proposition at a time when the typical workplace is filled with more distractions than ever which erode productivity and throw the best laid plans out the window. But productivity tools are legion and many fail to live up to their hype.
Read More
Thank you for being with us for the ninth month of our new blog. In case you missed them, here is a recap of our posts from October.
Moving forward with our two new series, Technology Marketing 101, and A Startup’s Story, we uncovered how startup BlueArc managed to move past the “wow” factor of its technology to achieve market penetration, explored the fine art of the business hustle and how it helped CommentAir Technologies bootstrap its way to market, explained how telling the right story helped Screenreach drive customer acquisition, and introduced a new startup, Genevolve Vision Diagnostics.
Beyond our series, we further investigated the roles of the IP Co-ordinator and social media champion, shared more best practices on PR and marketing and examined how the brain reacts to technology, among other subjects. And of course, we also paid our respects to the Pitch Innovator Steve Jobs. We welcome your feedback.
Read More
By Francis Moran
