Posted: January 6th, 2010 | Author: Chim | Filed under: Education, Food for thoughts | Tags: Canada, Food for thoughts, Guide, Interesting, Internet, Sweden | No Comments »
I found out a quality of life index of over 100 countries. Canada is positioned at 11th together with other 8 countries.
Quality of Life Index 2009
Read more here.
Posted: December 22nd, 2009 | Author: Chim | Filed under: Education, Entrepreneurship, Food for thoughts, Startups, Venture Capital, Web 2.0 | Tags: Business plan, Canada, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Food for thoughts, Internet, Venture Capital | No Comments »
Posted: December 8th, 2009 | Author: Chim | Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Food for thoughts, Fun, Shopping, Startups | Tags: Business, Canada, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Food for thoughts, Fun, Internet, Startups, Tools, Trends | No Comments »
It is hard to make money on the Internet. Currently, there are two famous ways to monetize on the Internet: advertising and e-commerce. In the advertising side, we have Google AdWords, Yahoo Marketing or Microsoft Advertising. These companies make money by having big audience that attracts advertisers’ money. For instance, Google gets money when users click ads. In the e-commerce side, we have eBay, Amazon, Newegg, etc. They gain profit from buying low and selling high price. They have strong brands and first-mover advantage. It is almost impossible to create a company to compete against these behemoths.
However, that did not stop entrepreneurs to come up with more startups. A lot of entrepreneurs created other viable ways to make money on the internet. One of the most interesting way is the Make-Your-Own-Stuff Web 2.0 companies. They are characterized by Ajax site structure with big buttons and fonts and crowdsourcing or customization features in their websites. They make money by selling cool things that a lot of people like. Some companies sell t-shirts, mugs or print arts for your iPhone.
I’m going to present four companies that fit in this Make-Your-Own-Stuff Web 2.0 category:
Threadless home page 2009 winter
Threadless is a company that sells crowdsourcing designed t-shirts (from Chicago). Simply, people send their t-shirt designs; other people vote for the best and cool designs; Threadless make t-shirts from those winning designs to the mass. People buy them. [This is a classic successful web 2.0 company that relies on crowdsourcing and social interaction.]
Gelaskins Canada Startup Homepage 2009
Gelaskins is a Canadian company that sells cellphone and other electronic gadget special skin protection with very interesting design. They have a lot of designers that create cool designs for all those cellphone protectors. The protectors are made of a special plastic-rubber easy to remove and glue that not only make your iPhone or Blackberry more beautiful, but also protect your gadget from scratches. [Great potential to grow.]
Scarfmaker an Estonian startup
Scarfmaker.com is a startup from Estonia and it allows users to customize scarf with their own designs. I think the idea is great and it may grow very very fast. Currently, I think the company is backed by Swedish VCs. I will be watching the developing of this company.
Crazy Custom Caps Home page 2009
Crazy Customs Caps is a typical company that offers customized caps. There are many many companies that allow people to create customized caps but not many of them set up a website. Although, the idea of this company may not be original, the business framework of allowing users to customize their products is definitely catching on in the web 2.0 landscape.
All these companies belong to the e-commerce category of money making website, but they are able to compete against big players because they have a special value proposition to customers. Most of them offer unique items created by the crowd or by user’s customization of the product. Interesting niche market.
Posted: August 31st, 2009 | Author: Chim | Filed under: Venture Capital | Tags: Articles, Canada, Venture Capital | No Comments »
The trouble with venture capital
There is an article from the Financial Posts (a prestigious finance newspaper in Canada) that backs the idea that there are too much money in the venture capital industry. It says almost the same thing from my older post that the VC industry must shrink in order to get a higher return to investor. Read the older post here: http://www.chimkan.com/2009/06/18/kauffman-foundation-says-u-s-venture-capital-industry-must-shrink/
Posted: August 17th, 2009 | Author: Chim | Filed under: Finance, Food for thoughts, Private Equity, Venture Capital | Tags: Canada, Entrepreneurs, Finance, Interesting, Market, Money, News, Private Equity, Startups, Valuation, Venture Capital | No Comments »
Canada - USA - Niagara Falls
People in the venture capital industry know that the VC industry is not going well in Canada. That is why it is even more important to know the situation in a quatitative point of view.
The SME Financing Data Initiative is a government website that publishes quarterly reports about the venture capital industry in Canada. The summary is that the level of investment and funding is the lowest since 2003.
VC investment and fundraising, Q1 2008 and Q1 2009
There is an increase in the number of investment in the seed stage startups. However, all other stages of deals fell.
VC investment by stage of development, Q1 2008 and Q1
Also, you can see better how the distribution deals in Canada per provinces is.
Number of companies receiving VC by province, Q1 2008 and Q1 2009
I haven’t added all the number, but the impression that I have is that the venture capital activities in Canada is decreasing significantly. You can read the whole report here: http://www.sme-fdi.gc.ca/eic/site/sme_fdi-prf_pme.nsf/eng/h_02156.html
I took the report from the Money Tree Report from PriceWaterHouseCoopers and there is a lot of interesting results.
According to the report, the number of deals remained flat but the value increased slightly compared to Q1. But if we compared to Q2 2008, the value of investment drop 48.6%. In this perspective, Canada is not doing that bad at all.
Number of deals in US
Another interesting fact is that the number of seed stage investment increased as in Canada.
Seed investing increasing
This is actually good news. The more we invest in early stage company, the more growth we can expect in 3 – 5 years. So, those who want to gain fast money should not get into the venture capital industry now. But, it is important to get into this industry now to invest in new companies and expect a good exit in 3-5 years; this is the average needed time for a company to mature for an IPO.
The current situation in the VC industry is not good. But, actually, this is a good opportunity to have a readjustment in the industry, lower the valuations and we may have a better return from the portfolio companies in the next 3 -5 years.
