Posts tagged ‘communitech’

Suggestions for public support to entrepreneurs (troubling facts about MaRS Discovery District – Part 4 of 4)

April 27th, 2010 by Greg Boutin
Sunrise at North Point Park, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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As my previous posts show, Ontario’s current hub-centric model for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship is expensive, unfair, and ineffective. The Minister of Research and Innovation should take note and explore alternative models, rather than continuing to pour taxpayer’s dollars into an expanding bureaucratic network with high fixed costs and built-in inefficiencies.

The Chamber of Commerce in Ottawa has taken notice too and is criticizing the lack of oversight of OCRI and its expansion in activities it traditionally conducted, according to an article in the Ottawa Business Journal yesterday.

To explore alternatives and fuel a discussion, I have highlighted a menu of options below. As a disclaimer, I am not a policy expert on the matter of entrepreneurship, but a practitioner, so do please consider those as draft proposals for crowdsourced discussion and improvement.

(more…)

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Troubling facts about MaRS Discovery District (Part 3.5 of 4)

April 22nd, 2010 by Greg Boutin
Interior of the MaRS Discovery District resear...

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In my previous posts, I took a good look at MaRS Discovery District, to raise attention about the meager $400+K salary of the institution’s CEO, the restrictive $130M in subsidies, the crystal transparency of grant decisions, the real estate successes, the tireless dedication of a selfless network of underpaid advisors mostly stemming from the visible minorities of our beloved city, the fantastic public-private partnership and synergies of the hub with private incubators and providers, and the focus on supporting actual start-ups as opposed to associating with companies on a proven winning trajectory that could make for great political advertising.

Well, I am glad to report today that Waterloo’s Communitech, too, is on its way to becoming a success story itself. Not to be left behind in the “space” race with MaRS, it is adding an impressive tool to its arsenal, one that will without a doubt propel Canada from its position of innovation laggard to that of superstar: yes, it has secured the lease to a building! (more…)

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Tech vs. Biz Type Divide: Tackling the Number One Product Failure Driver Headfirst

July 3rd, 2009 by Greg Boutin

I am back after quite some time, my ability to blog being constrained by business requirements. I am indeed happy to report that Growthroute's activity is growing rapidly, with clients in the web 3.0 space in particular. I know, I know, I have not even published my thoughts about semtech yet. I was there for less than 2 days, but there were some interesting things I took away that I have not seen expressed anywhere yet, so I will blog briefly about that very soon.

In the meantime, I have just published the slides of a beta presentation I gave at Communitech, the innovation and entrepreneurship hub in the IT mecca that is Waterloo, Canada — and I believe it should be of particular interest to ventures in the semantic web and web 3.0, since it tackles the gap between techies and business people, discusses how that affects commercial success, and explores potential solutions. The post and slides can be found here. I welcome all constructive feedback, with few limitations on what constructive means.

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Vampires vs. Werewolves, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Techies vs. Marketers (Beta Talk at Communitech Next Week)

June 15th, 2009 by Greg Boutin

I was invited by Communitech in Waterloo to give a talk to their Product Management peer-to-peer group. It will take place next week, on June 26th at 10am. I will test a few themes I have been playing around with, on the topic of launching successful market hits. Here is the blurb, feel free to communicate this widely:

Vampires vs. Werewolves, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Techies vs. Marketers (BETA)

A beta discussion on creating market hits, with Greg Boutin, founder of Growthroute Ventures www.growthroute.com

On my left, mad-science Techies: “One really doesn’t need marketing if the product sells itself. Look at Apple etc.”. On my right: snake-oil Marketers. “It’s all about PR and advertising, not building things in the lab”. A rivalry as ancient as Vampires vs. Werewolves or Pirates vs. Ninjas. Let the fight begin (with Product Managers in the middle?)

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Starting a Venture in Canada?

February 9th, 2009 by Greg Boutin

Jacqui Murphy of Tech Capital wrote a fascinating blog post today, listing the top resources any venture in Canada should be aware and possibly take advantage of in this downturn economy. Quote:

  1. There is amazing talent on the street right now. Many of these folks have received severance packages and are approaching the job market with “flexibility” in mind. Reach out to these people and engage with them as advisors, employees who are interested in working for equity, and/or potential co-founders/partners. (more…)

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