Go for passionate users, not a large sales force

One of the key questions for every start-up in the B2B space is the go-to-market strategy and the natural initial focus is always on creating a scalable sales and marketing process. How do I create qualified leads at the right costs? How do I move these leads to opportunities and then paying customers? Can I […]

How to hire for your start-up

I recently read a great article about Google’s recruiting machine that described in some detail how Google’s hiring success is based on 4 elements: “data, money (lots of it), sophisticated programming, and an army of young, eager recruiters.” And while Google plays in a league by itself (and can throw tons of money at the problem), every […]

Urgency and confidence

We have all seen numerous times how a good call to action can increase the conversion rate of a website. And we have also learned that trust elements (like a clear return policy) are equally important for conversions. Both work because consumers react best to the two underlying concepts: urgency and confidence. Interestingly enough most […]

Canada – land of SaaS?

When Bessemer Venture Partners recently published their map of major cloud players, I was surprised to see so many Canadian companies on there. Shopify, TribeHR, Unbounce, Clio, Hootsuite, Radian6 and Freshbooks made the list and a few others (like Wave Accounting) probably should have been on there as well. So why are Canadian companies so […]

Demo Day

Today is GrowLab‘s first demo day with the 5 companies from the first cohort showing to over 50 investors what they have worked on since mid August. I am incredibly proud of all of the teams – they worked very, very hard for this moment and I have no doubt that all of them will […]