Author: xitdemo

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Is healthypets.io the Next Big Thing in Pet Health Care?

Originally Published by Toronto Dog Spot

Have you ever used TeleHealth Ontario? It’s a great resource that allows nurses to triage you health needs over the phone and give you advice and direction on those pesky things that come up in life that makes you say “Hey, what do I if…?” Three years ago when I became a mom for the first time, my family physician, obstetrician, emergency doctors and nurses and other new moms recommended TeleHealth. When you’re a newbie everything seems like a big question mark, mostly because you never had to think of it before or have never been put in that situation. Clever system, really, as it reduces visits to the emergency department, long waits to see your family doctor, and it gets you answers and direction fairly quickly from the comfort of your own home.

TelePet?

If you’ve ever had a pet, or this may be your first time having a fur baby, (Congratulations!) you may be just as panicked about the unknown – and you’re not alone. I love the old Portuguese saying “No one is born knowing everything.” That phrase has gotten me through some anxiety ridden moments, let me tell you. But, the one thing that can ease the not-knowing is knowing. Figuring it out. Having someone guide you to the answer. It’s going to be okay.

Wouldn’t you know it; I came across a new, wonderful service for pet parents in Ontario. A company called healthypets.io helps pet owners avoid unnecessary, and often costly, trips to the vet when all you need is some good advice. The inception of this company came from the frustration, time, energy and money spent on taking a sick puppy, with a lot of issues, to the vet up to once a week! Soon to discover, however, that not all visits were absolutely necessary and all this pet mom really needed was some good advice. But where can one find legit veterinary council without having to go to the vet? Well, Emma Harris, founder of healthypets, thought there has to be a better way and set out to answer this very question. Just as TeleHealth has qualified nurses answering the phone, she envisioned real, live veterinarians waiting to answer your concerns. Your questions may be as simple as, “My dog ate a sock. What should I do?”, “My dog has a dry nose, should I be worried?”, or (and I kid you not) “My dog rummaged through my purse and destroyed my tampons… I don’t even know what question follows this because I can’t imagine what could happen, but what do I do?” (Shout out to my Berner Titan for this fine example!)

As a company, healthypets.io, has a very simple algorithm; their 1-2-3 “Don’t Sweat It”, “Hmmm, lets monitor this”, and “It’s serious” approach. After your triage if you fall in the first two categories, you’ve likely saved yourself a trip to the vet – and the bank. However, if it is serious, they will direct you to the vet, recommend one if you don’t have one, and, if you loved the service you got, you can keep the same vet when you actually need to take your pet in for a visit. This is a great tie-in with the “Got a Pet, Get a Vet” initiative through the SPCA. If this is your first contact with a veterinarian, it’s a great time to get one! You never know how much you need a professional until you realize you don’t have one.

Pricing

K.I.S.S. Muah – keep it simple stupid – another “words to live by” favourite of mine and healthypets does a good job of it in the pricing department. You can pay $35 per 15 minute call or you can subscribe to a yearly package for $19.99/month. Yeah, TeleHealth is free (well, not really we pay taxes for it), but we all need to make a living! Speaking of health care in Ontario, I’m going to mention my plug in for OHIP pet insurance here. It could be an optional tax for pet owners – just think about it Justin!

So, if you are a new parent to a four-legged companion and you have the first time jitters, maybe healthypets is a good place to start. I haven’t used the service myself, but I never used TeleHealth before I became a mom either. Like anything, it’s nice to know it’s there.

Would you use healthypets? Let us know what you think of their idea as a pet parental support service for the health of your furry BFF.

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Startup Culture: Why Michael Litt says Vidyard will Always be a Startup

When does a startup stop being a startup? Is it at certain revenue earned, number of employees, after achieving a repeatable, scalable business model? According to Michael Litt, CEO at Vidyard, the answer is, hopefully, never.

There is much debate in the business world about when a startup loses the trendy label and transitions into a “regular company.” However, notable tech giant, Facebook, has been around for more than 10 years and employs over 1,000 people, and Airbnb has raised over $3 billion dollars to date, yet, both are still regularly acknowledged as startups. So that begs the question, what makes a startup a startup?

During our interviews for “Startup’s Guide to the Galaxy” we found one common theme among successful entrepreneurs. For them, the startup label is more than a stage of their business development, more than a metric that can be tracked and identified on a revenue statement – it’s a mindset and a culture, centred around innovation, customer experience, and continued improvement.  

We sat down with Michael to discuss Vidyard’s journey from bootstrapping to success and learn more about how Vidyard fosters a culture of continued innovation to ensure they will always be a startup.

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Clinton Ball: So when is a startup no longer a startup?

Michael Litt: Good question. Startup-ism is a frame of mind. The feeling drives innovation, keeps the business fast-moving and fast-reacting. Companies that stop being startups are the ones that cease to the the most innovative and fastest-moving company in their category.

Vidyard will be a startup till the day I leave this company, because innovation and moving-fast are core mandates of mine in terms of how we retain a competitive advantage and stay ahead of the field.

Clinton Ball: That is interesting. Silicon Valley serial-entrepreneur Steve Blank says something along the lines of a startup is no longer a start up until it reaches its repeatable scalable business model, but it sounds like what you’re saying is that it’s more rooted in the culture.

Michael Litt: If you develop pockets of a repeatable, scalable business model, then that model is under threat by macro-economic things like competition or talent issues. If you’re constantly fixing these things, then that’s a big company problem.

I agree with him to a point, but businesses that get to a point when they just have one repeatable process that they manage and work on and focus on will get out innovated by new startups… so you have to keep that sense of urgency with business.

Clinton Ball: So at the level you are at now, how do you stay innovative and how do you make sure that you don’t fall into the trap of just of just being driven by business metrics and board objectives?

Michael Litt: Everyone at Vidyard is responsible for thinking creatively about new and innovative ways we can approach the market. To foster that development, we host company-wide quarterly events called “Pitch Yard” where the whole company breaks down into groups of ten or so that are cross-functionally aligned. They discuss ways Vidyard can improve our product and go to the market with something new, the present them in front of the whole company. The winning team is rewarded with a dinner anywhere they want!

The intent of Pitch Yard is to create new, inspirational ideas for how we can go and impact the market. It helps us constantly look at the field to see what the competition is doing, what companies are doing in the very early stages, and to see if there’s something that we missed in the market that someone else has picked up (and if we should focus on it too).

Clinton Ball: That’s great, so obviously a big part of it is a clear strategy around the people that you hire and how you attract them. What are some key principles that guide culture in your organization?

Michael Litt: Continued transparency is always on my mind within our business. We call this radical transparency because we communicate everything to everyone. If we expect people to be as creative as possible while making the best decisions for the business, we need to get them all the information they need to make the best decision. This is where cross-functional communication, exposure to market challenges that the company may be facing or more is vital. Whether it’s a customer service lead, a marketing rep, a sales professional, or a product developer, transparency inspires people to think creatively because everyone feels empowered to solve the problem. We hire so many problem-solvers, whether they’re makers, builders, or people with creative outlets on the side – they bring this type of thinking into the company. This is why transparency helps us collaboratively share a set of values that inspire creativity and critical thinking.

Want more pro advice from Michael? Check out “Passion vs.Purpose: Building a Startup Brand”

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Purpose vs. Passion: Building a Startup Brand

Passion: The powerful emotion that drives you to work for your own success.

Purpose: The why behind what you do. The impact you make on your customers, your community, the world.  

After years of working with startup founders, we’ve seen countless innovative products and services and a lot of passionate people along the way. But with so many passionate entrepreneurs, how do we select the best-of-the-best, those most likely to succeed in the AC’s Accelerator Program?

When we evaluate applications into the program, we weight founder attributes like curiosity, a willingness to continually learn, and having a clear purpose as primary criteria for admittance, and for good reason.

Passion alone is not enough. In the recipe for success, passion and purpose are needed in equal measure. If you are in it for the long haul, and you should be, passion and purpose feed into one another. Before you have an established brand, your purpose – the real problem you solve – is the first thing that helps you get customers. Your passion is what sells your customers on your ability to deliver on that purpose.

An excellent example balancing purpose and passion when building a startup is Waterloo tech company, Vidyard. We interviewed CEO, Michael Litt, to learn more about how they leveraged their purpose and passion to build the Vidyard brand.

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Clinton Ball: The first question is Purpose vs. passion, what have you learned as it relates to running your business today?

Michael Litt: I would say that…Purpose and passion should be aligned. When we started Vidyard, we identified our purpose as helping businesses put their videos online. Our purpose was plain and simple. We built a long-term vision around what that could become.

My passion was always for our customers. It was the only thing I could be passionate about, because when we built Vidyard, it was just a couple co-founders and I writing code – trying to throw ideas around and see what sticks.

The passion for the product came later once we saw it in our customer’s hands, providing them with value, and changing their careers. This inevitability lead to the development of our stakeholder list, which is what I’m passionate about. That list includes our customers, Vidyardians (our staff), shareholders, and our community. The stakeholders get me out of bed every morning.

Clinton Ball: What about storytelling. What is the purpose of telling a good story and around branding?

Michael Litt: Storytelling is absolutely essential. When you start your business, you have no customers and therefore no customer stories. The only reason someone would buy something from you is because you have purpose and you’re passionate about it. You need to have a story about why you have that purpose, and why you have passion to draw your buyers in.

At scale I don’t think that changes, people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it, and that’s why both purpose and passion are both so important.

Our story was a video content production company. We made videos for businesses that didn’t know how to put them online. We built software to help them do that and then built software helped us analyze it. All of a sudden our customers realized there was huge value here, and that’s kind of when the journey started to scale. Our purpose inevitably drove our passion, and that story is what really aligned us with the first few customers.

Clinton Ball: For startups that are just starting out, what do you think is the best approach to marketing and getting that first customer? How do you sell when you don’t have a brand yet?

Michael Litt: When you’re getting started, you have to put yourself out there in front of people. It’s the only way to sell when you don’t have a brand and no one is visiting your website. When we got started, we built a crawler to scan the DMOZ for every business that had a video on their home page. That list extracted 80,000 companies. I’d spend the first few hours of every day sorting through that list, and prioritizing 100 companies that I would contact the next day. The next day, I’d contact those 100, and prioritize my list of 100 for the next day again. This happened over months.

When you have no brand, and no customers, the only way to communicate is to sell your vision, your purpose, and your passion by putting yourself out there in front of people. I’ve seen so many companies that build the digital site of their business, but they miss out on the sense of urgency to put themselves in front of the customers. Maybe they don’t have the experience, or they’re introverted so it’s scary – but it’s ultimately why the never moved into the next phase of their business.

Clinton Ball: Lean startup methodology vs. a design centric approach. In your opinion, do you think it’s a mix of both of those things, or do you prefer one over the other?

Michael Litt: Well Steve Jobs and Elon Musk both got their career started doing exactly what I just described. By the time you have the personal brand, by the time you’re Apple, by the time you’re Tesla, it’s a completely different story of design first and they will come. So we’re talking about 2 very different ecosystems. Any company story, like Nike, McDonald’s, Oakley, always has that essential starting point of like just grinding it out and putting stuff in front of people.

Clinton Ball: Speaking about first clients, how did you land them? Was it a product of many meetings, how long did it take to find someone that was willing to take the risk with Vidyard and believed in you and your vision?

Michael Litt: In the early stages of our business, we were making videos for companies, so we had a client list of those who trusted us and had bought from us. We built software to solve their problems. We were easily able to communicate what we were doing because that line of communication was already open. We were able to implement out Vidyard software in their business, and that was essential because it was a service-based sale. We were then able to talk to the customer and develop a feedback loop so that we could iterate our product accordingly.

Clinton Ball: Let’s talk about leveraging that feedback. How powerful do you think it is to leverage testimonials, and a positive customer experience in order to generate new sales?

Michael Litt: When you start your entrepreneurial journey, FOMO (fear of missing out) is a major driver for people. If you’re able to develop a relationship with someone who will be a reference for you, they’ll be able to communicate your passion and purpose about how you’ve changed the way they do business. Others will hear that, lean in, and start buying your product too. If you have someone who becomes that hook and is willing to make that commitment to you, it’s so important to hear their stories and keep the relationship strong so that you can leverage it for future buyers.

Want more pro advice from Michael? Check out part 2 of our interview with Michael “ Why Michael Litt says Vidyard will Always be a Startup.”

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Emmetros Launches MemorySparx One – Their First in a Suite of Products for People Who Live with Dementia

For Mary Pat Hinton, helping people who live with dementia and their care-partners have a better quality of life is personal.

Seeing her grandmother, Jean, suffer with Alzheimer’s disease in the 80’s, a time it was not well understood and there were few resources available for patients, made a lasting impact and inspired her to change the way those with dementia cope with their conditions.

As a result of her experience, Mary Pat started Emmetros – a company dedicated to creating solutions that help dementia sufferers to live independently and with dignity.

In 2016, Mary Pat joined the AC’s Accelerator Program to help guide her business to success. “Before I joined the AC, I did a lot of research into incubators and the resources available to entrepreneurs like me,” Mary-Pat explains. “I came to the AC because of their focus on long-term success and their stellar mentorship team.”

When she started Emmetros, she knew she wanted to create something bigger than a single app to support people living with dementia, and the mentors at the AC helped her build out her business in a way that will see the company develop a full suite of solutions that will work together to create an all-in-one digital solution – not only for those living with the disease, but for their families and care communities as well.

“The mentors at the AC are like an extension of my team. They are always there for me.” she explains. “They are incredibly experienced, can shift focus easily, and can go as deep into my business as I need them to. No moment spent with them is a wasted one,” she adds.

Last week, Emmetros launched MemorySparx™ One. The first application in the planned suite of solutions to support those with dementia and their families.

MemorySparx One is a digital memory aid that helps individuals living with dementia organize and recall important information like personal photos, health information, and more.

Traditionally, those living with dementia (or their families) were instructed to create paper booklets to help them organize and keep track of important information. “One of the major challenges with paper-based memory aids is keeping them up to date, while making sure that they remain easy to use and meet the changing needs of a person who is experiencing declining cognitive abilities,” Mary Pat explains.  MemorySparx One leverages decades of research on the value of those paper-based memory aids and combines it more than a thousand hours Mary Pat and her team have spent partnering with and getting to know people who live with dementia, their families, and academic researchers to create a mobile digital solution that provides these people with a way to communicate with confidence and greater independence, wherever and whenever they need to.

MemorySparx One allows users to:

  • Add and update content using intuitive templates designed with the unique needs of people with dementia in mind
  • Store personal details, captioned photos, audio recordings, and personal health information in one easy-to-access tool
  • Access information that’s important whenever and wherever it’s needed – at a doctor’s office, a social engagement, or a professional event
  • Keep track of personal health history, medications, and changes to mood or behavior so you can speak for yourself at appointments with care professionals

Emmetros’ next focus is on developing their complementary suite of products and on continuing to build out their incredible team and work culture. ‘We are fortunate to have a team of very talented and experienced people. Every one of them is incredibly passionate about our vision,” Mary Pat explains proudly. “When I started this, I never expected that people would be asking me how they could join our team, but they are and that’s pretty amazing. Every single day I wake up grateful.  There’s nothing better than that.”

MemorySparx One is available for iPad and is on the iTunes store now. For more information, visit memorysparx.com.

Media Contact:

Tabatha Laverty
Community Manager
tlaverty@acceleratorcentre.com

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Freeze Frame: AC JumpStart Funding Fuels Vidhub’s Market Expansion

According to eMarketer, there were more than 77 million millennial digital video viewerso in 2015, representing 92% of all US millennial Internet users. Video is the preferred communication platform for this demographic, used for everything from entertainment, to personal communication. It is also increasingly being used for online learning, as more educators turn to video as a simple and intuitive way to better engage learners.

Shub Sengupta and Adam Zmenak are co-founders of Vidhub, a simple to use video review and collaboration tool. The two met back in 2013 at a 24 hour startup event hosted by Communitech, and felt that instant chemistry that happens when two entrepreneurs are destined to work together.  “I think we placed second or third in that competition. But more importantly, we knew we worked really well together as a team,” says Shub.

Shub, a video producer by trade, was quickly able put a new business idea on the table for the team to tackle — a platform that would allow clients to provide better, more accurate feedback to video production teams. He explains, “the video production process is not particularly collaborative. Producers typically need to set up and share footage using a video sharing platform such as YouTube or Vimeo. Then clients provide feedback via email, identifying the changes they want – for instance, I’d like to edit this section out, around five minutes into the video. But the process of collaboration is slow and it is usually really inaccurate. To give good feedback, you need to zero in on a precise second, and frame. So often, there’s a lot of back and forth between the producer and the client to get clarification. This slows down the editing time, affects both the video company and the client and often drives up costs and pushes out deadlines.”

Shub describes his brainchild, Vidhub as ‘SoundCloud comment meets Google Docs for video.’ Simply put, it lets people discuss videos online just as you would in person. Video is uploaded to Vidhub directly or from any video platform (Vimeo, YouTube, Dropbox are all supported). Everyone on the team is automatically notified, and is invited to comment. When a person begins typing a comment, the video is paused so the information can be tagged to a frame and specific time. Everyone can see all comments and can collaborate. Comments can also be exported to a PDF, subtitle or text file. A visual heat map running underneath the video allows people to view footage uninterrupted, but exposes where comments are located in each frame.

Initially, the Vidhub team focused its attention on the video production world – a market they knew well and understood. After building a solid footing, with customers using the product around the world, they are now expanding into the higher education market. “Video is now heavily used by faculty for online and blended learning, and we began getting inquiries from professors, who wanted to encourage student participation and improve learner engagement,” says Shub.

A focus on the education sector also demands more commitment from the two co-founders, who until recently have run their startup in parallel with freelance work. “We’re beginning now to gear up for buying cycles in schools leading into the fall of 2017. The education market is more hands on, and takes more focus and effort. It is a market that makes very big decisions, but not often. So we felt it was time for us to go full time on this venture.”

The move to full time has also allowed Shub and Adam to take more full advantage of the programming and mentorship offered through the Accelerator Centre to allow them take the business to the next level. The company also landed $30,000 in AC JumpStart funding, made possible through FedDev Ontario, which provided the critical fuel for growth. “It was the JumpStart funding that enabled us to finally go full time on our venture,” says Shub. “We had enough revenue to validate but not quite enough to pay the bills. JumpStart made up the difference.”

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eleven-x Joins CENGN As Newest Partner

May 05, 2017 11:30 ET

WATERLOO, ON–(Marketwired – May 05, 2017)

eleven-x™, Canada’s first and only Low Power Wide Area Network employing LoRa® Technology, is pleased to announce that it has joined Canada’s CENGN (Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networking) as the consortium’s newest Partner.

The partnership between the two companies will utilize CENGN’s lab infrastructure and SDN/ NFV engineering expertise, along with eleven-X’s long-range wide area network technology to provide small to medium enterprises (SMEs) with the opportunity to test and validate their Internet of Things (IoT) innovations in a real environment.

Providing a carrier-grade network that is purpose-built for applications focused on IoT, eleven-x utilizes LoRaWAN™protocol to offer low cost connectivity and data communications for Enterprise IoT, Industrial IoT and Smart City initiatives.

Featuring low power consumption, extended battery life of up to 20 years and long-range capabilities, the eleven-x network facilitates real return on investment. With a wide variety of uses such as Asset Tracking, Lighting Control (streets and buildings), Water Flow Monitoring and Metering, Health Monitoring, Environmental Monitoring and Soil Moisture and Nutrient Monitoring, the ability for all types of organizations across Canada to become more efficient while reducing costs is possible now.

CENGN’s goal is to strengthen Canada’s leadership in global ICT and next generation networking. By partnering with eleven-x, CENGN will be able to leverage eleven-x’s technology to enable SMEs to test their products and services in the CENGN environment, and accelerate their time to market. This will catalyze the growth of SMEs, and the ICT sector as a whole.

“We’re extremely excited to join the CENGN team and truly look forward to engaging with them and other member organizations to fully realize the promise of IoT with our next-generation network for the Canadian marketplace.” said Dan Mathers, Chairman and Co-Founder of eleven-x.

“CENGN is constantly looking for ways to facilitate Canadian SMEs’ ability to demonstrate their innovations,” says CENGN President and CEO, Ritch Dusome. “With the help of partners like eleven-x and the addition of their LoRaWAN Technology, CENGN will be able to provide better support to SMEs hoping to push their products to market on a global scale.”

“It’s because of these types of partnerships with CENGN that Canada can now aggressively move forward, taking advantage of the benefits of IoT. Private and Public sector organizations can immediately reduce costs and discover new revenue opportunities.” Said Ryan Hickey, CEO and Co-Founder of eleven-x.

“We’re all looking forward to the influx of projects that will be an outcome of eleven-x’s partnership and contributions to the CENGN Smart Infrastructure,” says Richard Waterhouse, VP marketing and Business Development. “It will be interesting to see which companies will be first to take advantage of the addition of this technology and how their success will shape our world today and in the future.”

About CENGN – Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks

Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN), an NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence) funded CECR (Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research), is a consortium of industry, academic and research leaders dedicated to accelerating the commercialization of next generation communications solutions. CENGN’s internationally recognized testing centre employs interoperability between multiple software and hardware products, providing a unique environment to commercialize advanced products, applications and services. Our fully operational data centre is running a production OpenStack environment with multiple connections to a real-world WAN including a dark fibre connection that enables connectivity speeds of more than 100Gbps. CENGN services include; Proof of Concept (PoC) validation and hosting, interoperability/performance/ certification testing, technical training (SDN, NFV, IPv6, ODL, OpenStack, Innovation for Hire and Commercialization Acceleration.

CENGN members include: Cisco, EXFO, GENBAND, Fujitsu, Invest Ottawa, Juniper, Nokia, Rogers, TELUS, VIAVI, Wind River, and Zayo Canada.

About eleven-x

eleven-x is a network operator enabling the Internet of Things. Our purpose-built low power wide area network is the first of its kind in Canada, providing connectivity for a wide variety of sensors and applications. Our network enables customers in the private and public sectors to efficiently and cost effectively manage assets, create connected cities, and realize environmental sustainability. For more information go to www.eleven-x.com.

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The Accelerator Centre Announces the Next Cohort of Startups in their Accelerator Program

May 9, 2017

We are pleased to announce the companies that will comprise the 3rd cohort of our redesigned Accelerator Program.

These 8 companies will enter Phase One of our world renowned incubation program. Startups in the program are selected through a competitive application process and represent the best-of-the-best in technology and entrepreneurship in the region and around the world.

The companies joining the 3rd cohort are:

Company Name Description Founders
Cassle Inc. Real Estate Technology Sunny Khangura
eDropBy Solution Inc. Package Transportation Platform Jeff (Tai) Zhao
Equi-App Equestrian Learning Platform Alex Reinfels
Foober Student Meal Delivery Service Brad McGill
Monarch Clothing Medical Garment System Pat Quinn
Overture Donor Forum Ltd Not-for-Profit Donor Engagement Platform Herb and Joanne Shoveller
Unnamed Internet Security Company Derek Wong and Kathryn Vandenberg
Unnamed  Service Provider Referral Platform for Homeowners Jake Gibson
Unnamed Ecommerce Mohammad Ghanbari

“We are pleased to announce the third cohort of startups into our Accelerator Program. We see great promise in this group and are happy to be supporting such a wide variety of technologies and industries. We are excited to see them build and scale successful, global businesses.”  – Paul Salvini, CEO, Accelerator Centre.

Phase One is the first of four phases within our recently restructured two-year incubation program. The program offers customized, milestone-based programming alongside our proven mentorship model. At the end of the Phase Four, our clients graduate with confidence, knowing all areas of their business are ready for long-term success.

For more information on our clients, our programming, or to learn how to apply for the next cohort visit www.acceleratorcentre.com.

Media Contact:

Tabatha Laverty
Community Manager
tlaverty@acceleratorcentre.com

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The Startup's Guide to the Galaxy: No BS Advice from Successful Entrepreneurs and Tech Leaders

Entrepreneurship is cool, it’s sexy, and if you live in an innovation district like Waterloo or Silicon Valley, it’s part of pop culture.

It seems everyone is a founder of something nowadays. Unicorns are no longer just for children and the lure of the “Be your own boss!” message is stronger than ever. But, just like the most pop culture phenomena, startup culture doesn’t show you the whole story.

The truth is starting a company, particularly a tech company, is harder than it seems. For every one winner there are nine losers. Entrepreneurship is a career choice that requires specific skill, instinct, resilience, and a passion for delivering value.

But, if you can pull it off, building a successful company is highly rewarding.

Through my experiences designing programming at a world-renowned startup incubator, I see the entrepreneur’s journey – successes and failures – every day. My goal is to give startup founders and intrapreneurs the truth about building out innovative products and services, and to provide them with answers to questions about entrepreneurship that are hard to ask and, sometimes, hard to get honest answers to. “The Startup’s Guide to the Galaxy” is a digital coffee date with dozens of high profile startup founders, intrapreneurs, and mentors, like Mike Litt from Vidyard, Loren Padelford from Shopify, and Jana Levene from Google.

The posts in this series are samples of the interviews from a publication currently in development. Over the next several months, we will share these leaders’ no BS stories of entrepreneurship and get their take on what it is really like to start a technology company. We hope that the series will inspire you to be smart, plan for your successes, learn from your failures, and be a successful, kick-ass entrepreneur.

—

About the Authors

Clinton Ball is the Director of Client Programs and Initiatives at the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo, Ontario.  As the co-founder of a small software company, Clinton can relate to those building out a technology company and is passionate about helping other entrepreneurs build and scale their companies. When he’s not designing or delivering Accelerator Centre Programming you can find Clinton reading up on the latest marketing, technology and entrepreneurship resources, exploring a new trail or coffee spot, or trying to get better at his swing on the golf course.

 

 

Tabatha Laverty is the Community Manager at the Accelerator Centre. As a passionate storyteller and digital marketer, she has worked with entrepreneurs, not-for-profits, and public service agencies for 5 years – helping them develop content, share their stories, and build their brands. When she isn’t writing or meeting new entrepreneurs, you can find her spending time with her husband and 2 young children.

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AceAge's "Karie" takes first steps as ‘connected health’ solution

Originally published by Innovation Guelph

May 3, 2017

Stacey Curry Gunn

Medication delivery device will make its debut in clinical trial at University of Toronto

Soon to be vying for countertop space in the “connected home” is an automated medication delivery device named Karie, designed to help patients take their medication correctly – a solution to a multi-billion-dollar healthcare problem.

Karie was born out of the personal experience of entrepreneur Spencer Waugh, who saw his grandfather repeatedly admitted to hospital after medication mix ups. Waugh discovered that his grandfather was not alone in his struggles: up to 90 per cent of patients make mistakes in taking medication, leading to 28 per cent of emergency room visits and 23 per cent of nursing home admissions. He founded AceAge in 2015, with Karie as its first product.


Karie is designed to make it simple to follow complex medication regimes, using standard multi-dose packaging to dispense the correct meds at the proper times. The device reads the information on each pouch to schedule doses, and goes off like an alarm clock when it’s time for each dose. Karie can also be set to automatically notify a caregiver if a dose is missed. In addition to supporting patient well-being, Waugh expects Karie to be a boon in clinical trial settings as a way to improve adherence rates.

At the end of March, Waugh and his team were busy assembling devices in preparation for Karie’s first big test: a  usability study at the University of Toronto.

The six-week study, set to start in May, will see 32 patients use the device in their homes, a step that Waugh expects will yield the validation necessary to turn a slew of interest from potential partners and customers into firm business relationships.

“It’s incredibly exciting to see something that I’ve been working on for so long become a reality. Karie is no longer a concept, this is our first chance to show how we will positively impact people’s lives. We are now scaling up to build and deploy thousands of devices. We want to make Karie the central fixture of the connected health home,” says Waugh.
Along the way, AceAge has tapped the ONE Network for assistance, including Innovation Guelph where Waugh has worked closely with mentor Don Thompson on product development.

“Don has been phenomenal, covering all the challenges of going from building a handful of beta units, to thousands of devices every month.”

AceAge has also benefitted from $30,000 in matching funds from Innovation Guelph’s Fuel Injection program. “It funded the build of our on-board user experience and application interface, and created the brand for our product Karie,” Waugh said. “Without the Fuel Injection award, we would not be able to go to market right now. The funding and advice that Innovation Guelph gave us was crucial for us to get to the stage we are at today.”

Fuel Injection funds also made it possible for Waugh to travel to Edmonton, Hong Kong and Paris to introduce Karie to potential partners and investors.

“It’s been extremely rewarding to help Spencer navigate the many aspects of bringing this important medical device to market,” Thompson says. “Karie solves a real problem for patients and the healthcare system as a whole, and we anticipate exciting things to come.”

AceAge will also be making the rounds at Toronto Health Innovation Week (April 3-7, 2017): Waugh will be competing at the 3rd annual MaRS HealthKick Challenge April 5, as well as pitching at the Aging2.0 Toronto Global StartUp search on April 7. He is also scheduled to speak at the Apps for Health conference at Mohawk College on April 27 and will be at OCE Discovery May 15-16. Follow the company’s progress on Twitter @AceAgeKarie and LinkedIn.

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Soaring startup GainX gears for launch of U.K. office

Originally Published by Communitech News

Craig Daniels

May 3, 2017

A five-year anniversary celebration, a grand opening of an office in the U.K., soaring year-over-year revenue growth, a hiring spree, a soon-to-be consummated partnership with Microsoft and a hefty financing round. That’s all Waterloo Region-based GainX has lined up on the immediate horizon.

“We are a rocketship,” says Angelique Mohring, CEO and co-founder of GainX.

A rocketship, yes, with the irony being that Mohring is trained in more earthly pursuits like archeology and anthropology, and that’s only fitting: Her firm’s software gives executives of large companies the tools they need to launch what amounts to a forensic dig on the makeup of their own operation, excavating the places where opportunity and risk reside. The result is a better return on their innovation spend.

“We can actually map how information flows inside of your organization,” says Mohring.

Specifically, GainX software helps organizations identify where untapped pockets of talent exist within their companies, eliminating the need for new hires. It also helps companies pin down what Mohring calls their “clay layer,” the place in every company where good ideas “go to die.”

Data is obtained through a mobile app used by a client company’s employees.

“Let’s say you want to be a digital bank by 2020,” explains Mohring. “We can show you where that idea is going to get stuck, [down to] to the region, the country, the individuals, the teams, the department. Whatever layer of granularity you want, before you spend a dollar.

“We’re able to help you identify where the risks are going to be and then manage the real-time risks. Here’s the portfolio [that the software] can see. Here are the movements in the market. Here is your inherent risk on your multi-billion spend.”

GainX customers in Canada include, among others, CIBC and the Royal Bank, as well as major financial institutions in the U.K. and U.S.

Mohring has been part of the Waterloo Region tech scene for 10 years. She and her husband, Lance, one of three co-founders of the Waterloo Region startup Plasticity Labs, moved here from Seattle when they decided they’d had enough of George W. Bush’s America. She quickly found a post at OpenText, deciding after five years there to bootstrap her own company.

GainX has 15 employees, and plans to open an office in London on May 24 that will house sales and marketing operations. The May 24 event will be attended by Ontario’s Minister of International Trade, Michael Chan, and will include a round-table discussion at Canada House.

Opening an office overseas is part of a deliberate play to expand into global markets. For Mohring, going international is a natural fit. Her father was in the Canadian Forces and was often posted abroad, family in tow. “I have lived in 25 cities and six countries,” says Mohring. “I’ve not had any other perspective in my life except an international perspective.”

And why focus on London, specifically?

“One of the reasons we [plan to] launch [in London] was that I was invited onto the innovation board at the Royal Bank of Scotland. That bought me some credibility to then start working with some other U.K. companies.

“My experience working in the U.S. is it is a phenomenal economy. It is a strong trade partner with Canada. But my experience is, the U.S. talks about the U.S., thinks about the U.S., focuses on the U.S.”

The company’s research and development will remain in Waterloo, housed at the Accelerator Centre.

“Canada brings huge benefits for a company like mine because it has strong international partnerships already. I don’t think you can beat the Canadian dollar against the quality of talent you get here. I am a huge fan of [Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau and his perspective on innovation. I love what I’ve seen so far.”

Her Canada love cools somewhat, however, when the discussion turns to capital. Thus far bootstrapped, GainX in now looking for money. Mohring expects the round will come from the U.S. or U.K. rather than Canada.

“Most of the investors in Canada come to me with checklists,” she says. “When they do, I’m not even willing to have the conversation.

“We have grown anywhere from three to four times our revenue year over year. This year it will be closer to five to 10.

“[Financing outside of Canada] means most of my growth will happen outside of Canada. Yes, I’ll keep my IP here. Yes, I’ll keep my development here. But most of that growth and funding will come from somewhere else.

“Fitting everything into a box is why we have a D on our international report card.”

Still, financing aside, it’s clear Waterloo Region and its tech ecosystem matter to her. She and her husband moved specifically because they liked what they saw emerging in the region.

“We picked this area with eyes wide open,” said Mohring. “We did a lot of research on Kitchener-Waterloo region before we decided to come back to this part of Ontario.

“This was 10 years ago. It had a up-and-coming tech hub. It had some pretty big tech companies that were starting to take shape. It was close to Toronto. It was easy to get on an airplane. It’s a great place to raise a family. To me, I don’t think I’ll move again.

“I see innovation across the whole world. Waterloo is doing great, but it’s not excellent yet. I wouldn’t give it A-plus on a report card. I think it has a lot of room to grow and we still need to mature.

“[But] the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor is generating some pretty rich dialogue. I hope [we] can [take it] to the next level.”