The Praized Blog

Just received a notice that the second edition of Startup Camp Montreal has been announced for May 15th at the Societe des Arts Technologiques (SAT). I attended the first edition and it was very interesting. More than 180 people showed up (140 entrepreneurs, 30 VCs and industry experts, 5 students and 5 organizers). I don’t think I’ll be able to attend as I will be in California that week but I definitely invite everyone interested in startups to register.

More info from the e-mail announcement:

Following the success of the first Startup Camp Montreal, we are happy to announce the second edition of the event scheduled for May 15th, 2008.

The second edition will be similar in format to the first with the following changes:

1) The top five startups selected to present at the event will have the opportunity to participate in a one-day pre-event workshop session. The goal being to have “pitch” experts help the companies prepare ahead of the event. The workshop will be hosted by Austin Hill, John Stokes, Vincent Guyaux, and 2 other VC / marketing experts.
2) Presenting companies will have 8 minutes to present, with 10 minutes of follow-up questions from the event Gurus and the audience.
3) We will have ambassadors on hand prior to the event and during the event to help with match making and networking.

The complete details for the event are posted at www.startupcampmontreal.org, however the basics are:

Date: Thursday May 15th, 2008
Time: 6pm-10pm (or later)
Location: SAT (www.sat.qc.ca)

Registration is required, so please go to http://startupcampmontreal2.eventbrite.com to register.

My network of contacts has been pinging me recently about all sorts of job opportunities. I’m obviously not available currently (Praized Media stealth start-up anyone?) but I figure I would give some exposure to a couple of those opportunities.

In Montreal:

• Yellow Pages Group, Senior Manager - Lead Generation

Description: the Senior Manager – Lead Generation is the national prime on Lead Generation programs/initiatives from a marketing standpoint. Responsible for the design, implementation and execution of the end-to-end, cross-functional lead generation framework, from lead sourcing to lead processing. Responsible for developing and delivering the annual lead generation plan and budget with measurable targets of new, qualified sales leads. Lead cross-functional teams to support program/product launches with Lead Generation initiatives. (Yellow Pages Group has 50 other jobs listed on their web site currently.)

• Canoe, Senior Product Manager, Espace Canoe

Description: in French here

• CakeMail, Marketing Manager

Description: amongst other things, work with Sales, and Product Development groups to drive projects, define and implement a customer communications and lead generation strategy and contribute to the product improvement process.

I was also pinged by headhunters for a business development job at Askmen.com and a Vice-President position at Edelman, both in Montreal also. I don’t have a description for them.

In Seattle:

• Marchex, Director of Business Development

Description: The Director of Business Development will be responsible for driving the reseller business development strategy and execution across the portfolio of Marchex businesses reporting directly to the VP of Business Development.

In San Francisco:

Solstice Beverages, Inc., CEO / GM

Description: We are seeking a CEO / GM that can lead our efforts. If you are, or know of, an experienced, entrepreneurial and passionate consumer brand builder and general manager who yearns to have the autonomy to build and manage exciting brands & products.

Heard of any other interesting job opportunities? Send me a line!

Montreal Gazette’s Roberto Rocha writes about the effervescent Montreal Web ecosystem today and the Praized team is featured. Excerpts:

But now Montreal is witnessing an Internet renaissance. New Web companies are sprouting up and venture-capital firms and “angel” investors who fund early-stage ideas are starting to pay attention, sowing the seeds of a new economic sector in the city. The activity is being driven not by government subsidies or by tax incentives, but by a desire to create something new and to meet like-minded people who see the Internet as the great new business frontier. (…)

Inspired by the collaborative nature of the Internet, local geeks with bright ideas started meeting at informal, community-organized events called BarCamps. The global movement that began in the Silicon Valley was the grassroots retort to stuffy, invitation-only tech conferences. In a BarCamp, computer whizzes show the first drafts of their garage projects to anyone who will listen. (…)

In a nondescript downtown office, Harry Wakefield and Sébastien Provencher are having one of their final meetings before taking their own startup, Praized Media, global. Their walls are barren save for an expanding pile of empty Guru cans by the windows and diagrams scribbled with the lingo of the new Internet economy - words like widgets, Ruby on Rails and tags.

“These kinds of get-togethers help good ideas bubble to the top,” said Provencher, who met his co-founders at YULbiz, a monthly gathering for business bloggers. Through their BarCamp connections, they assembled a team convincing enough to raise $1 million in venture capital from Garage Technology Ventures, a Silicon Valley VC firm that opened a Montreal office. Established industry groups “haven’t clued in to the fact that there’s a vibrant Web community here,” Provencher said. (…)

Praized Media is also mentioned in this list of Montreal networking venues and start-ups.

James Surowiecki, of The Wisdom of Crowds fame, will be presenting at the Infopresse360 conference in Montreal on February 27. You can get a sample of what he’s going to be talking about in this video but the general pitch is:

“Intelligence alone does not make it possible to grasp all facets of a problem, or examine it from all sides. The author will show that groups are better than individuals when it comes to tackling organizational problems. Acclaimed speaker James Surowiecki will explain his thesis that mass collective wisdom is the best way to move businesses, the economy, communities and nations forward.”

What it means: I saw James Surowiecki at the Google Zeitgeist conference in 2005 and it was brilliant. I highly recommend it! As an added bonus, you’ll get to hear one of my former undergrad teachers Stephane Gauvin talking about “Building Relationships in the Social Web Era”. You can get your tickets here.

Yesterday morning, I had the opportunity to moderate a social media panel at the Infopresse conference on social networking. Sitting on my panel was Guillaume Bouchard from NVI, a Montreal-based SEO/SMO firm. He explained to the crowd of more than 280 people how, by using social media tools, he manages to generate brand awareness and increase the online street cred of Canpages, a Canadian directory company competing against Yellow Pages Group in Canada.

It starts with the creation of original and quirky content in the Canpages blog. His team then seeds that content in the various social news sites like Digg and Reddit. Working with a large network of friends and contacts, he’s able to catch the eye of online influencers who might (or might not) promote that piece of original content.

His best success so far with Canpages has been this blog post about “Weird Canadian Restaurants”. It was submitted to Digg and generated 676 diggs and 101 comments. It was promoted to the first page of the site and generated good traffic (he did not disclose how much) for the Canpages blog. It was also favorited by people in StumbleUpon, another social tool that has the reputation of driving a lot of traffic. The post was well enough crafted to be picked up by Dan Mitchell from the New York Times, which generated some more traffic to the Canpages blog.

What it means: a great use (and a great understanding) of social media tools and sites to build a new directory brand and make it more exciting for “cool kids”. This is also a great strategy to build new incoming links to your domain, thereby increasing your page rank in Google. You’ve got to wonder though if there are long-lasting positive effects from both a brand equity and online directory site usage but I don’t think it hurts given the runner-up position they occupy in the market.

It looks like Canoe411, the new online directory from MediaPages (Quebecor Media’s directory company) has soft-launched. Powered by Local Matters’ Destination Search Platform, it includes data from InfoCanada.

MediaPages has announced that, in 2008, they will “begin publishing urban directories, co-branded with Vidéotron (Quebecor Media’s cableco), in the Greater Montreal and Greater Quebec City areas. These directories complete an array of regional directories currently published by MediaPages in communities across Canada, co-branded with local and community newspapers owned by Sun Media and Quebecor Media.” You can see an example of their print book here.

Canoe.ca, Quebecor’s portal, has yet to replace 411.ca with the new site.

Update (02/11/2008): it looks like the site is gone.

During the first edition of StartupCamp Montreal on Wednesday night, keynote speaker Graham Hill of TreeHugger.com fame offered 9 lessons web entrepreneurs should take heed of.

1. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Humans don’t really change. If something feels wrong, it probably is.
2. Incentives drive the world. For employees, for business development, etc.
3. Truth is told at cash registers and not in focus groups. Look to the data and test a product by selling it.
4. Listen to Fred Wilson.
5. The network is the computer. It has to be open and all about online applications. Think Gmail, Last.fm, Mint.com.
6. Think product first, marketing later. This new connected world takes care of a good portion of marketing if you have a great product.
7. Barely enough money is a good thing. It keeps you hungry and makes you focussed. Helps you find what’s the core of your business.
8. Companies are bought not sold. It might be a cliché but it’s true. Play hard to get.
9. Good guys win in a connected world. Media has been democratized and spin control does not exist anymore.

The first StartupCamp Montreal is officially announced! Happening January 23rd, 2008 from 6pm to 10pm at the SAT - Société des arts technologiques (where else?), “Startup Camp Montreal is an event dedicated to everything Startup. A great event for Startups, investors and on-lookers alike. Montreal has a vibrant business community, that is worth celebrating. Come meet and learn from each other on the ins and outs of starting up. This event is not just for Montrealers, all are welcome”.

You can get more information on the web site and a first series of free tickets is now available. You can reserve your place here.

The first edition of FacebookCamp Montreal is now officially announced. It’s Wednesday November 7th at the SAT and it starts at 4pm. RSVP on Facebook here. If you want to present something, you can register on the wiki. I attended the first Toronto FacebookCamp in August and it was great!

(via Springwise)

Montreal-based Brandfame has launched itself as a product placement agency for YouTube and other online video sharing platforms, connecting makers of online videos with brands that want to be integrated into the next viral video blockbuster.

Advertisers can list products they’d like to have featured in videos, and search for upcoming videos by producers to find a match for their brand. Producers indicate which productions they’re willing to integrate products into, and can search for brands or products they’d like to work with. Once a deal has been made, the advertiser pays the producer, and Brandfame takes a cut. The startup is also working on an auction system for advertisers to bid on product placement in new videos by hot producers.

What it means: first time I hear about this company from Montreal. According to these web sites, the founders are Nadim Elgarhy and Sebastian Gary. I like the concept because it replicates a model that’s already very successful offline. Main challenge will be getting enough video producers & usage to make it attractive to brand owners. I think ad agency relationships might be the key to a successful deployment. Similarly, Business 2.0 had showcased NextMedium last year, a firm that wants to automate product placements in offline movies.

Update: eMarketer talks about product placement.