New opportunities in marketplaces for creative services
While the past 10 years have seen a big focus on marketplaces for physical goods (eBay, AbeBooks, etsy, et al.), there have been a few success stories of marketplaces for creative services in the past couple of years and it feels that this sector is poised to really take off. The most important success factor […]
The challenge for Canadian VC’s
VC funds go through challenging times world-wide but the situation in Canada is probably worse than in many other places. Most VC’s in this country have been focused on the domestic market, both for raising funds as well as investing their money. Turns out that this created returns that were about 10% below the returns […]
How the government can help build the tech sector
I often get asked what governments can do to help build a tech sector so I wanted to put together a few thoughts on this blog what I think works and what doesn’t: Have a vision and speak with one voice: one of the largest problems I have seen in the past is that governments […]
The new focus on content production at scale: quantity versus quality
The past week has been an interesting one for the online content space. First, Wired published a detailed profile on Demand Media and their “answer factory”. Then, Techcrunch reported that AOL is following suit trying to turn AOL into a low cost content production machine. Other existing players in this space consist of About.com, AccociatedContent […]
How to take your company international
Our portfolio company Suite101.com announced today that it has launched French and Spanish versions of their site after successfully expanding to Germany a year ago. Expanding an Internet company to international markets should be part of every business plan but is often easier said than done. At AbeBooks (which has localized sites for Germany, the […]