May 2013
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This past weekend, Startup Weekend Hamilton had its successful third year of business creation. Over 50 people from around the Hamilton community and surrounding areas gathered at Radius Café on James Street South for a weekend of hard work, innovation, and fun.
Imagine trying to create and build a business in just 54 hours, that’s exactly what Startup Weekend is all about. Two groups of developers, designers, marketers, business professionals, animators, and engineers came together to do the impossible, and took away some great prizes aimed at their brand new start-ups. Congratulations to Pastee, winner of a 2 hour consultation with Strategic Innovation Works and to Walkbug winner of a 1 hour consulation with Strategic Innovation Works, a Net@ccess hosting package, a SEO package from KKTI, and 6 months of office space at Platform 302.
If you missed out this year, keep checking back for more information for Startup Weekend Hamilton 2014!
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April 2013
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Giving your business a competitive edge with Mitacs
Dane Svenson, Mitacs Communications Coordinator
Innovation is the key to business success and staying ahead of competitors. But many businesses struggle to find the innovative thinkers they need to enhance their existing processes, products and technologies.
Mitacs is ...
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Giving your business a competitive edge with Mitacs
Dane Svenson, Mitacs Communications Coordinator
Innovation is the key to business success and staying ahead of competitors. But many businesses struggle to find the innovative thinkers they need to enhance their existing processes, products and technologies.
Mitacs is a national, not-for-profit organization that connects businesses with academia for research projects, innovation and idea sharing. Partnered with universities across Canada, Mitacs is able to link companies with the right expertise, specialized knowledge and skills they need to develop solutions to problems, conduct research, or overcome challenges.
Two internship programs operate in Southern Ontario – Mitacs Enterprise and Mitacs-Accelerate.
Mitacs Enterprise is exclusive to small and medium-sized STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) companies operating in Southern Ontario. Through Mitacs Enterprise, businesses can access a recent university graduate in a STEM field for a full-time, six-month, cost-shared internship – with Mitacs paying up to half their salary. Mitacs will work with the company to determine how the program can provide maximum benefits, then develop an internship proposal and help find a suitable graduate with the right skills and qualifications.
Mitacs Enterprise provides the ideal opportunity for companies to evaluate new graduates as a potential future employee, while accessing their skills and knowledge. As an added benefit, Mitacs provides the intern with business management training and any intellectual property developed during the internship belongs to the company.
Mitacs-Accelerate, is for shorter-term (minimum four months) research-based projects, where graduate students or postdoctoral fellows help solve a specific challenge or develop ways to improve existing processes. The internship is cost-shared, allowing businesses to leverage their R&D budget for maximum return. For a four-month internship, the company contributes $7,500, with Mitacs matching this for a total $15,000 of research funding.
This investment provides the industry partner with an experienced researcher, unique access to university facilities and new connections within the academic community. Mitacs-Accelerate is open to all industry sectors and companies across Canada; applications are accepted year-round and usually approved within four to six weeks.
If your business has a research challenge or is looking for new, innovative ideas, visit the Mitacs website and learn how Mitacs programs can give your business the competitive edge.
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March 2013
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Success with First Ontario Credit Union In the last year I have moved my residence and my business to Hamilton ON. I have recently transferred both my personal and my business banking from one of the big banks in Toronto to First Ontario Credit Union. I am ...
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Success with First Ontario Credit Union
In the last year I have moved my residence and my business to Hamilton ON. I have recently transferred both my personal and my business banking from one of the big banks in Toronto to First Ontario Credit Union. I am using their location on King St. W. in Dundas, ON.
I have been able to open both personal and business accounts with no monthly fees and a USD account with a very low fee. These savings alone make my move to First Ontario a good choice . I have also found services not available to me at my previous bank. I often need to transfer money in different currencies to suppliers outside Canada. First Ontario’s Hyperwallet allows me to do this online, which saves me a trip into the bank. Additionally, the cost of the email transfers to banks outside of Canada is significantly lower than a wire transfer, which adds to the savings with First Ontario.
I have found the PAT system (Personal Assisted Tellers) easy to use and convenient because of the extended hours that it is available. What I have come to appreciate most with the PAT is the documentation that comes with each transaction which creates a good paper trail for my bookkeeping.
In addition to the above, I have been impressed with First Ontario’s staff and their service and interest in my business needs. I think First Ontario is able to combine the benefits and efficiencies of internet banking with the personal service required to respond to more complex banking needs. I highly recommend First Ontario for other businesses.
Irene Healey, New Attitude
Hamilton, ON
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In a global economy, it is becoming more and more challenging to remain competitive. This is especially true for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that recognize the need to innovate if they are going to remain ahead of their competition. Unfortunately, many SMEs are faced with barriers that keep them ...
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In a global economy, it is becoming more and more challenging to remain competitive. This is especially true for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that recognize the need to innovate if they are going to remain ahead of their competition. Unfortunately, many SMEs are faced with barriers that keep them focused on today - not thinking about tomorrow. The risk with this mentality is that if you are not planning for the future, how can you expect to lead your future market? The question then becomes: how can C-Level executives of a SME start to plan for the future?
Well, like any organization or individual, it is important to understand where you are today, where you want to be in the future, and then all you are left with is planning how to get there. Start with where you are today, what challenges is your organization faced with? Once you understand these challenges, you can use them as a guide to identify what stage of growth your company is in and how to get from one stage to the next.
Generally there are four stages of growth an organization goes through with a single product:
- Start-up
- Scale
- Compete
- Transition
By understanding these challenges in the context of your growth stage you will recognize what is important, what to address, and how to take your company to the next level.
Doing all of this on your own proves to be difficult; time constraints are ever difficult to overcome. You may also not be willing to spend an exorbitant amount of money on consultants, and even if you did, do they have access to the right connections and resources that will see any strategy through the implementation phase? Not likely, which is why Innovation Factory, Hamilton’s Regional Innovation Centre, developed LiFT, a program specifically designed to help you see the big picture, understand the challenges you face, design and work through an implementation strategy, all while connecting you to the resources and expertise to ensure the greatest impact for your organization.
With the LiFT program, you will get access to expert resources including seasoned executives, tailored workshops, and innovative seminars that will help you drive the innovation-based growth throughout your organization and take it to the next level. Best of all, as a non-profit, these resources are available to you for free or at very little cost.
To launch this program Innovation Factory will be hosting a kickoff conference on March 19 from 8:30am to 12:30pm at The Atrium in McMaster Innovation Park (175 Longwood Road South). The conference brings together leading innovators in the Hamilton community and surrounding region to discuss the challenges they have faced in various stages of growth and how being innovative enabled them to succeed. You will also hear recently appointed CTO of Canadian Tire, Eugene Roman give a keynote address and learn how one of Canada’s oldest corporations is leading through innovation.
For more information about the conference, or to register go to: 2013liftconference.eventbrite.com
To connect with Tyler please call 905-667-2611 x224 or email lift@innovationfactory.ca
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Guest Blog written by the Canadian Digital Media Network The call for nominations is now open for the CDMN Moonshot Awards, established to recognize Canadian companies that create jobs and wealth for Canada through innovation in digital media (ICT and mobile). This is the inaugural year for the awards, ...
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Guest Blog written by the Canadian Digital Media Network
The call for nominations is now open for the CDMN Moonshot Awards, established to recognize Canadian companies that create jobs and wealth for Canada through innovation in digital media (ICT and mobile). This is the inaugural year for the awards, designed to acknowledge leading companies that contribute to the CDMN Moonshot goal, that anyone can do anything online by 2017.
An expert panel of judges, including Host: CTV Question Period, Correspondent: W5 & Digital News Evangelist, Founder of New Man Media, Kevin Newman; Director at OMERS Ventures, Sid Paquette; Deloitte Canada’s Chief Innovation Officer, Terry Stuart; RocketScope Managing Director and Founder, April Dunford; and, CDMN Managing Director, Dr. Kevin Tuer, will be evaluating the nominees and determining the winners.
The ceremony for the first ever CDMN Moonshot Awards will take place on Tuesday, May 14 at CDMN Canada 3.0 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario, where awards will be presented in four categories:
CDMN Digital Media Dynamic Company of the Year
Recognizing the Canadian company demonstrating the greatest increase in productivity through the adoption of digital media; three finalists will be recognized.
CDMN Digital Media Globalizer of the Year
Recognizing the Canadian company demonstrating the greatest increase in international sales, investments or other contributions to the growth of the Canadian digital media industry internationally; three finalists will be recognized.
CDMN Digital Media Innovator of the Year
Recognizing the Canadian company demonstrating the greatest degree of innovation through the adoption of digital media; three finalists will be recognized.
CDMN Digital Media Company of the Year
Recognizing the Canadian company that made the greatest contributions to the growth of the Canadian digital media industry in 2012/2013, selected from entrants to the CDMN Digital Media Innovator, Globalizer and Dynamic award categories.
Any Canadian company is welcome to apply; self-nominations are also welcome. Nominations close at 11:59pm ET on April 12. Finalists will gain entry to CDMN Canada 3.0 2013 to attend the awards ceremony at an unpublished discounted rate. By submitting a nomination, the nominee agrees to let CDMN use the nominee’s company name in marketing and promotional material for the CDMN Moonshot Awards and CDMN Canada 3.0. Visit www.canada30.ca/awards for updates.
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November 2012
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We’ve compiled our very favourite top 10 STARTOFF Hamilton moments! Check out the moments and some accompanying pictures! Share with us some of your favourite moments on facebook.com/innovationfactory.ca and on Twitter @itbeginswithIF . 1. Awards Day at Radius 2. Halloween & Game Crash
3. ...
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We’ve compiled our very favourite top 10 STARTOFF Hamilton moments! Check out the moments and some accompanying pictures! Share with us some of your favourite moments on facebook.com/innovationfactory.ca and on Twitter @itbeginswithIF.
1. Awards Day at Radius
2. Halloween & Game Crash
3. James Street North Supercrawl
4. Launch Day
5. Orientation Night
6. Installation Day
7. Energy Mid-Week Challenge
8. Information Mid-Week Challenge Scavenger Hunt
9. Relationship Mid-Week Challenge
10. Daily Dose of Information Poll
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Like no other contest, STARTOFF Hamilton brought together many innovative Hamiltonians. Startup companies are forever looking for new and creative ways to find more supporters and customers. Through STARTOFF, innovative Hamilton companies were able to leverage Innovation Factory’s news and social media presence to gain public knowledge and move their ...
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Like no other contest, STARTOFF Hamilton brought together many innovative Hamiltonians. Startup companies are forever looking for new and creative ways to find more supporters and customers. Through STARTOFF, innovative Hamilton companies were able to leverage Innovation Factory’s news and social media presence to gain public knowledge and move their companies forward.
We are constantly striving to show the world the greatness of the innovation and tech industries that Hamilton has to offer, and with competitions like STARTOFF, we have that ability. STARTOFF was able to capture the love for innovation and originality in Hamilton through the 27 unique and very creative startup companies who participated in brand new competition.
Hamilton is a growing community of startups and entrepreneurs, companies are flocking to Hamilton to take advantage of the growing innovation and technology community. That’s why STARTOFF is such an important and much needed competition to raise awareness for the budding industries. Innovation Factory is so proud to be a part of this process and seeing these companies succeed is our upmost important goal. Innovation and Hamilton go hand in hand, we need to increase awareness and show the world the amazing talent we have in our beautiful city!
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Being an entrepreneur with a small business, looking into the future is a daily necessity. We thought it would be fun and beneficial to chat with our STARTOFF winners! Check out their answers to our questions below! More to come later this week! 1. ...
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Being an entrepreneur with a small business, looking into the future is a daily necessity. We thought it would be fun and beneficial to chat with our STARTOFF winners! Check out their answers to our questions below! More to come later this week!
1. What was the best part of the contest for you?
ilearnulearn – The best part of the contest was the great exposure it provided to some of the entrepreneurial minds and the diversity of businesses that Hamilton’s startup community has to offer.
Nervu – The best part of the competition was the chance to expand and connect with the
Hamilton Community, and leverage the publicity to acquire new attention for our business. We received a lot of attention and interest and created a lot of unique, engaging content to connect with our future customers.
Ontario Bamboo – The way we got to see the mass support from our customers and friends.
The BinPad Product – The support we received from friends and family.
Trend Trunk – The ability to involve the community (Hamilton in general, our friends/family and customers)
2. What was the most challenging part of STARTOFF?
ilearnulearn – The most challenging part of STARTOFF was definitely engaging the community to make sure they understood the rules of the contest and getting them to vote 5 times a day for 22 days straight!
Nervu – The most challenging part of the STARTOFF competition was finding a way to acquire votes without irritating our customers and interested parties. The duration of the contest made it such that it was difficult to sustain a high level of voting from different people. Also, the websites server was not equipped to handle such a high volume of people, which resulted in voting being quite difficult at times.
Ontario Bamboo – Getting those closest to us to support and vote
The BinPad Product – The most challenging part was the length of the contest and the toll it took on our family life.
Trend Trunk – Getting people to vote daily (and make sure they vote 5 times each day)
3. Out of the whole prize package, which part are you most excited about? What will be the most useful for you and your company?
ilearnulearn – The entire prize package is great! But we’re definitely looking forward to impressing potential clients with the meeting space provided by McMaster Innovation Park and Innovation Factory.
Nervu – The trademark application will be immediately the most important for our company. Our logo and brand are very important to the success of the company and need to be protected.
Ontario Bamboo – The exposure of winning.
The BinPad Product – We are most excited about the help with patenting and marketing and we think this will really help our company.
Trend Trunk – We are most excited about the Trademark application, as we can apply a trademark for Trend Trunk
4. What’s your plan going forward after STARTOFF?
ilearnulearn – The plan is to keep this momentum going and continue to push forward. For us, this was only the tip of the iceberg. Although there’s still a long ways to go, we as a team have come to enjoy the journey. We hope to launch our beta before the end of Q2 in 2013 for market testing and grow the business going into 2014.
Nervu – The plan moving forward following STARTOFF is to file for our Trademark as soon as possible. We will be launching within the next two to three weeks, and will use the rest of the services we have won throughout the operation of our first three months of operation.
Ontario Bamboo – We just received our long awaited LCBO Manufacturers License so we will use the exposure to invite people to our Bamboo Beer Launch for the Christmas Holiday Season
The BinPad Product – Our plan going forward is to use the help and see if we can find an investor.
Trend Trunk – Promote that we won, and share to the press in hopes to get more PR
5. If you were chatting with STARTOFF participants next year, what would be your best piece of advice for them?
ilearnulearn – Think big, think positive. Don’t be ashamed to talk to anyone and everyone! Project your ambition and get out of your comfort zone. The more you do so, the more feedback you will receive, and the more that you’ll learn.
Nervu – Create unique content and use cool visuals. Sure, you can spend all of your time writing the same “Vote for me!” message in all your texts, emails, tweets, Facebook posts and so on, but it does start to get old after a while. Pushing out unique content tailored to the personalities of your customers and community members will make them feel not as if they are being coerced into voting, but rather that they want to vote out of their own free will. It also doesn’t hurt to make a plan. We found it was difficult to sustain a consistent level of voting because we didn’t want to annoy our customers and followers. In order to avoid this, we would do “voting spurts” where we could post a lot within a short amount of time and not bombard our users with constant pleas to vote.
Ontario Bamboo – No matter the circumstances, just keep going. Competitions like this are here to help you not anything else. I had several business contacts from other cities wishing they had something like this where they were from (Toronto). So be thankful!
The BinPad Product – We would advise them to build a strong support network before the contest starts and be ready for the long haul if its a 3 week contest again!
Trend Trunk – Come up with innovate ways to get your message out
If you want to know more about any of these companies click their names below!
ilearnulearn
Nervu
Ontario Bamboo
The BinPad Product
Trend Trunk
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Being an entrepreneur with a small business, looking into the future is a daily necessity. We thought it would be fun and beneficial to chat with our STARTOFF winners! Check out their answers to our questions below! More to come later this week! 1. ...
[Read more]
Being an entrepreneur with a small business, looking into the future is a daily necessity. We thought it would be fun and beneficial to chat with our STARTOFF winners! Check out their answers to our questions below! More to come later this week!
1. What was the best part of the contest for you?
2Go Energy - The best part of the contest had to be the sense of community that it created. People were really involved in the voting process and using their social media to ask others to participate as well.
Athelink - The congrats e-mail!
Campus Helper - Staying within Top 10 and doing everything I could to stay there through the social media channels
dinnerlicious! - It forced us to begin to conceptualize our social media strategy.
Green Pixel - Meeting other up-and-coming, young businesses in Hamilton was the best part! A few years down the road, we'll all be sitting in our yachts saying, “Remember when we did STARTOFF? That was pretty awesome.”
2. What was the most challenging part of STARTOFF?
2Go Energy - The most challenging part of STARTOFF had to be to remember to cast our daily votes!
Athelink - Keeping our fan base engaged for 3 weeks.
Campus Helper - Reminding and getting people to consistently vote every day and having to send reminders by all sorts of communication platforms (email, text, call, social media alerts). VERY time consuming
dinnerlicious! - That it ran for such a long time and it was hard to keep people interested in voting every day for almost a month.
Green Pixel - Nothing! Maybe clicking on my browser's Refresh button but I wouldn't call that a challenge. The support from iF and the voters made the competition fun, exciting, and very easy.
3. Out of the whole prize package, which part are you most excited about? What will be the most useful for you and your company?
2Go Energy - We’re most excited about the KPMG accounting services and the Business Development Loan. Both of these will be really useful to our company moving forward.
Athelink - The Trademark Application
Campus Helper - Ballagh LLP Trademarking services and NetAccess phone services because getting our trademarks was something we had been planning and it’ll be nice to look more professional with extension lines.
dinnerlicious! - We’re very excited about the trademark application and this will the most useful to us.
Green Pixel - We're most excited about the business and accounting consultations since we could use some advice and direction from professionals in the realm of business.
4. What’s your plan going forward after STARTOFF?
2Go Energy - STARTOFF allowed us to establish a consistent communication network which we will continue to use going forward.
Athelink - We are getting ready for launch with our 10,000 player tournament in February.
Campus Helper - Working on execution and growth strategies for our pivot. Also to keep up using social media as one of the foremost platforms to get our name out there.
dinnerlicious! - We’re putting our efforts into marketing and expansion.
Green Pixel - We are continuing our projects as usual! The consultations will help us steer the business side of the company in the right direction but, creatively, our production will not change. We'll still be making fun games and having fun making them!
5. If you were chatting with STARTOFF participants next year, what would be your best piece of advice for them?
2Go Energy - Our best piece of advice would to network, network and network. Ask people to post your requests on their Facebook pages and ask their friends to participate. Don’t be shy!
Athelink - Build a large following online before STARTOFF so you can rally the troops to vote!
Campus Helper - If you were chatting with STARTOFF participants next year, what would be your best piece of advice for them? Acquire a lot of votes early because it sets the tone, and get the core group of people who you know will consistently (for 3 weeks) do everything they can to get you votes.
dinnerlicious! - Rather than focusing on just getting votes, try to develop a strategy to use the competition to grow your network and social media presence. Rally up your troops early on and post reminders daily!
Green Pixel - Reach out to Hamilton as much as possible! Even if you have clients/fans/customers from all over the world, it's the people of Hamilton – the people who live, work, and play in the city that you're trying to make an impact on – who will vote enthusiastically and consistently. So, reach out to the locals – online and in person!
If you want to know more about any of these companies click their names below!
2Go Energy
Athelink
Campus Helper
dinnerlicious!
Green Pixel
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We had such a fun time with STARTOFF that we just can’t wrap it up yet! Congratulations to our STARTOFF Hamilton winners and to everyone who participated, what a difference you’ve all made! Check out what the media has to say about STARTOFF! CBC - Hamilton's entrepreneur community gets ...
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We had such a fun time with STARTOFF that we just can’t wrap it up yet! Congratulations to our STARTOFF Hamilton winners and to everyone who participated, what a difference you’ve all made!
Check out what the media has to say about STARTOFF!
CBC - Hamilton's entrepreneur community gets a boost
The Hamilton Spectator - Startup firms share prize bonanza
Don't forget, just because STARTOFF is over for the year doesn’t mean we can’t keep supporting our local businesses and entrepreneurs!
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