Consultants to leaders
Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category.
We’ve been following the growth of post Web 2.0 applications. They are web based applications that allow end users to highly customize the interaction with a third party. They’re neat, easy and extremely powerful. Most recently one of these application has received some significant funding.
Continue reading ‘Who Ya Gonna Call?’ »
It seems that, according to the CVCA, 2008 was the worst year for venture activity in Canada since 1996. This comes as no surprise to anyone involved with small business and startups in the GWN.
Continue reading ‘2008—A Venture Drought’ »
We are huge fans of objectives being front and center. Many firms we have worked with (initially) believe they have objectives, but when asked to show them, they are often rummaging around in email or desk drawers. Objectives need to be up front.
Continue reading ‘Visible Objectives’ »
Prior to some recent business travel, we had amassed a collection of documents to read and analyze on the road. One of those documents was a recent report issued by the CVCA who have delivered some startling news about the status of VC activity in Canada;
- Venture capital investment in the US has increased by 17%, from 0.18% to 0.21% of GDP
- Venture capital investment in Canada has decreased by 35%, from 0.13% to 0.085% of GDP
- And investment by Canadian funds in Canada has decreased from 0.10% to 0.060% of GDP, a 40% drop.
Continue reading ‘Whither Goest Venture Money?’ »
It was with some happiness that we saw that BlackBerry Partners Fund has joined BDC Venture Capital and Vertex Venture Capital in adding a $3M top up to what will be a &10M Round B investment in Neuralitic Systems Inc. This is great news for OSS and BSS in OHANL.
Continue reading ‘Finally The Pursestrings Open’ »
There are many reasons that SOHO and home networks are lagging so far behind the technological capabilities of the underlying hardware. Significantly that industry has been over burdened with a lack of commitment to standards (or most likely a proliferation of differing, partially implemented draft standards), complex installation processes, poorly implemented interoperability and a general lack of support for the ongoing operation of a SOHO network.
Continue reading ‘Mamma Don’t Want No Network Manager’ »
In our work we often get involved with budget review and preparation for small businesses. In many engagements we have been asked to review specific budgets and comment or provide advice and improvements. While there is no absolute formula to creating budgets there are some areas that seem to continuously creep into planning that can be avoided to ensure you get the best budget for your effort. Here are five areas that many budgets fail;
Continue reading ‘Top Five Budget Pratfalls’ »
Finally some good news in the the world of OSS in our home and native land. Seems upstart Conceptwave, who invented the market for order care, has been recognized for their contribution within HP’s portfolio of telecoms products. They were awarded the HP CMS Business Partner of the Year.
We had written about the company before and it’s not surprising to find them getting some well deserved press again. Rich Karpinski over at TelephonyOnline interviewed Chun-Ling Woon is VP of marketing and business development at ConceptWave. They discuss service composition and catalogs. Listen here.
The Shulist Group has worked with Conceptwave in the past.
Way back in 2000 Telnic proposed an interesting new Top Level Domain (TLD) .tel to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It took them six years of fooling around with the idea and in 2006 they finally approved the proposal. Its taken another two years to get the idea to the market. Boy, the internet moves at such a rapid pace!
Continue reading ‘Another TLD Landrush’ »
A recent story by The Alternative Assets Network highlighted just how bad it is for both VC’s and their potential investments. Canadian venture investment in companies is falling to very low levels. With a 26% year over year drop in Q3 as measured against 2007 (a very low investment year also) it has to be concerning to fund managers and start ups in general. With about $1B raised to date this year it is off last year by 33%.
Bert Hill over at the Ottawa Citizen reiterated the bleakness of the situation in an article he wrote.
Continue reading ‘No VC $ For You’ »
