A Frog in the Valley

I always find it fascinating when I have an idea and that boiling on the backburner and then serendipity does it’s magic. I started to discuss with a few local entrepreneurs and startup related folks about doing some cocktails or breakfast just to get things going. Thru some blogosphere echo, I stumbled on Ben Yoskovitz’ post “Entrepreneurs Unite! Let’s Do Breakfast in Montreal“…

As I shifted my interest back to internet startups last summer, after a 3 years stint at tech consulting (now I am in mixed-mode doing both), I figured that the constant signals I was receiving from the markets where quite strong. Uptake in tech job posting for architects job on online local jobs and freelancing markets, number of requests from my network for project managers (now it’s for product managers), headhunters calling me directly… The other strong factor that helped a lot was confidence. I am pumped. I have a solid startup history.

My first company as a minority partner was 10 years ago. It was a web development company, founded as a sister company alongside an early ISP and networking consultancy called Lancité. I learned great lessons there from the other two partners, two no-nonsense guys, a “sales and client” guy and a great technical architect, that understood in the early ‘90 the power of IP networking and how it would change software development.

After that I worked with one of Montreal’s dot com success (and bust, but they are still going on!), My Virtual Model. Working with Louise Guay and Jean-François St-Arnaud, I learned the ropes of growing a business, fast, and re-inventing the company and the business model as opportunities emerged… Went to Silicon Valley in the height of the boom, to work with a consulting company that was basically offering “CTO for hire” to dot com startups and the area manufacturing business doing the transition to ebusiness (they are out of business now, here’s an internet archive link).

Came back as a full-time CTO for Messagia right before the bust, where I was in charge of infrastructure, software development and application architecture. Got some VC money there, my first experience as a partner going thru the process. Sold my shares a few years later to go back to consulting to survive the bottom of the barrel on the local technological market. Merged my consulting company within LVL Studio in the fall of 2005 (I was tired of doing the books and have 50% of my attention somewhere else than technology). After the transition of the staff, projects and code base (some open source, some closed) I decided to get back in the startup game.

I now have two startups that are financed from personnal money (one with another partner another one with two). They are early stage startups with imminent prototype releases. Both are looking for angel money to finance the next 6-9 month, both will probably be looking for VC money somewhere in the next year. I am also consulting on a new project, doing the techology audit for a potential acquisition. That’s going to be really interesting. But it’s a topic for another post!

I am pretty excited about the prospects in Montreal to build a strong community of tech startups. The economical and social conditions are really good. The universities and colleges here are bringing great minds in the game. I think the last battle is cultural. Several organizations exists around entrepreneurship, but none specifically for technology startups (as far as I know). We need to bridge the fragmented local communities, to reach the previous generation entrepreneurs and share experiences, hard gained insights, whatever the market. Bring a new flow of ideas, money and guts in this place. I really believe that it’s happening, now!

Tags: canada, montreal, quebec, vc, web2