The Road Less Travelled

Lavablast our trusted operational software provider

Ian — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:07:36 +0000

This is a guest post by Jason Kealey of LavaBlast Software. I have gotten to know Jason quite well over the past two years and he is a person I always have time for. Jason is the sort of person that washes his own dishes and often brings milk or cream for the coffee to share with everyone. Little things say a lot about a person and Jason is one of the best entrepreneurs I know to have come out of the University of Ottawa. I am very proud that TheCodeFactory has such a great partner as LavaBlast.
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What follows are Jason’s own words;
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Back in mid-2008, I was contacted by Ian Graham after he saw a post on Startup Ottawa about my software startup. Before the end of the week, we had agreed that LavaBlast Software would become The Code Factory’s operational software provider. I had never visited a co-working location before but I instantly knew it was a great idea in today’s business market. Having launched a distributed software startup some 18 months earlier, the value proposition was clear to me.
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Today, I feel The Code Factory is a great place for completely different reasons; I’d like to share this realisation with you. When The Code Factory launched, I thought a co-working location was a great way to keep costs down in a lean software startup because small businesses avoid paying a huge amount of rent by sharing the facilities. However, it turns out that co-working locations are much more than an extra rung in the garage to office building ladder.
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First realization: co-working locations are not only for businesses
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Because of its shared co-working space and individual tables, The Code Factory allows individuals to share the space. This means consultants and professionals share the space with businesses. Some are just starting up but others have decades of experience under their belts. They don’t aim to run a 50 person team one day, they’re happy as things are and are simply looking for a nice place to meet with clients and avoid working alone all day. Additionally, individuals provide stability to the space because they won’t outgrow it as other start-ups do.
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Second realization: co-working locations are ideal places to make new contacts
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Thanks to The Code Factory, I have met hundreds of people. Some run businesses like mine, others are professionals and some are simply looking for a cool place to have lunch. I was not expecting such a diverse clientele from a software co-working location. I’ve talked about business, strategy, marketing, currency exchanges, software engineering, law, accounting, government lobbying and many other subjects with other members. I’ve built bidirectional relationships with tons of people in the Ottawa-area just by dropping by The Code Factory.
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Today, I understand that the true essence of co-working locations is not about being “a place to work”. It’s about meeting other people.
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If you haven’t met Ian Graham yet, drop by for a coffee.
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Thank you very much Jason.
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Ian Graham

Entrepreneurship Series – the GREAT!

Ian — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:04:48 +0000

What really drives entrepreneurs … passion … persistence … these are perhaps primal motivators and basic drivers of the entrepreneur’s personality. At a higher level I think there is a greater purpose and that is the desire to create something. Without a doubt entrepreneurs are builders, doers, and those that gitter done.
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The truly great part about being an entrepreneur is the ability to create something new and turn an idea into a tangible entity. The even greater part is the ability through this innovation to change the world in some small way and affect change in a positive direction. To paraphrase Steve Job’s “Those who think they can change the world … are often the ones who do.”
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The next two posts are all about the “GREAT” stuff of being an entrepreneur; loving what you do and the awesome people you get to work with.
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Next post; “I love what I do!”
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Ian Graham

Tech Students WANTED – Apply within!

Ian — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:34:35 +0000

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We have five start-ups signed up for Students and Start-ups 5; YOUi Labs, Zeebu Mobile, Blindside Networks, Exocortex and Infonium. All of these companies are hiring NOW or within the next 3 months.
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This is for Technical Students 8 spots left for students.

Note: If you are a biz student expect an announcment next week … Stay Tuned.

Sign up here: http://studentsandstartups5.eventbrite.com/
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Students and start-ups is fun, friendly, informal and a great opportunity for a warm introduction into some great companies that are hiring. We measure success in two ways; hires and smiles and every event thus far has been a success.
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This edition of students and start-ups is for computer science, engineering and technical graduates. If you are a business student fear not and expect an announcement regarding students and start-ups 6 Business edition within the next week. STAY Tuned!
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Ian Graham

Entrepreneurship Series – the Good – Small Victories

Ian — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:22:04 +0000

Small victories are a great thing. They are time to relax, celebrate and reflect on what you have accomplished. That what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and that what we accomplish makes us greater. Every small victory is a milestone on the road to success.
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One of my favourite events here at TheCodeFactory was when we were doing The Ottawa Network series of events on Entrepreneurship. Jay Lawrence (Infonium), Mike Ball (Loyalty Match) and Nikhil Adnani (thinkRF) were doing a panel on starting up. It was a bit of a misery loves company kind of session, but in a way that everyone bonded with them, where the founders where showing their wounds. Mike Ball said something that really struck a chord with me and is the inspiration for this post. “Remember to celebrate your victories large and small”. Sage words.
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Small victories are part of the good of entrepreneurship. The harder you work for them the sweeter the victory.
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Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.”
- Louis L’Amour
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Ian Graham

Are you a student? Please read on …

Ian — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:21:53 +0000

Looking for an amazing opportunity to work with great people and cool technology then check out Students and Start-ups 5.
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Sign up here.
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The Huston effect prevents us from naming this event after any Start Wars episodes. However, we thought lets have an “Own the start-up podium” event. This is your chance to meet up close and personal with some amazing Ottawa start-up talent. The really great part about is that they are looking to hire in the next 3 months. So the outcome is even better than a gold medal you could get a job with some award winning companies.
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These are great companies with awesome founders and TONS of potential. Here is the skinny on them;
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YOUi Labs – these guys ROCK!
Voted one of CIX top 20 most Innovative companies in Canada
2009 Start-up to Watch by the Ottawa business Journal.
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Infonium – Excellence – meets healthcare – meets Ruby on rails
Jay Lawrence OBJ top 40 under 40
Industry Canada recognizes Infonium as a Canadian Innovation leader
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Zeebu Mobile – Awesomeness for kids and cool technology
Future – theCodeFactory 2010 start-up to watch
Written up in OBJ.
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Exocortex – Gaming Excellence and bleeding edge tehcnology
2008 – TheCodeFactory Start-up to Watch
tetrahedral-based fluid simulator WOW it even sounds cool.
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Blindside Networks – Education meets open source – from Carleton
2009 – TheCodeFactory Start-up to Watch
Open Source voice, video and awesomeness!
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One more start-up spot available.
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Ian Graham

Interview with Philippe Casgrain co-creator of Tweety10 App

Ian — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:19:33 +0000

Philippe Casgrain is leader of the CocoaHeads of Ottawa/Gatineau one of the very first groups to make TheCodeFactory their meeting place. The CocoaHeads are a great group and have grown steadily since coming on board. They recently had a hackathon at TheCodeFactory one weekend to develop a web app for the Olympics. The following is my interview with Philippe with respect to Tweety10 development.

Where did you get the idea for Tweety10?
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Mark Thistle got the idea. He already had HockeyTweet on the app store, and thought we could re-use some of the basic functionality. He sent us an email in the first days of 2010 and we all agreed it was a great idea.
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Who contributed?
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There were seven, then eight of us. In no particular order: Philippe Guitard, Mark Thistle, Josh Svatek, Brad Goss, Rod Cater, Jason Brennan, Brian Pirie and myself.
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What was your greatest triumph?
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Definitely to get seven independent developers with all sorts of constraints in the same room for eight hours, on a Sunday no less, so we could hammer out the first 80% of the app.
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What was the biggest obstacle your team had to conquer? How did you do it?
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Once the initial coding sprint was done, we knew we had the “other 80%” to do. The biggest problem became one of collaboration, and I suggested using BitBucket.org for doing it. It performed flawlessly, holding our wiki, issue tracker and code repository in a secure, safe and fast manner.
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How does it feel to see your app in the iTunes store?
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Really good! I am delighted to see it in use. We have more analytics coming in, so we’ll have final numbers soon since the Olympics are now over…
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Tell me a bit about the technology you used?
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The core was very much HockeyTweet, with its twitter client and lists of places. But aside from that, it’s a pretty simple list-displaying app. The cool thing is that all the data is live, pulled down from our server running on Google App Engine. We all learned how to do that from Mark, and that was pretty awesome.
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Anything else you can think of that I should know.
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Literally as we were submitting to the App Store, Twitter tweaked their OAuth mechanism’s identification from “oauth_pin” to “oauth-pin”. Needless to say, we scrambled quickly to fix that issue before submitting!
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Finally, this would not have been possible without the weekend hacking rate @ The Code Factory. Can’t thank you enough for this amazing space!
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Thank you Philippe

Introducing Collaboration Corner

Ian — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:11:15 +0000

We are going to have a new segment on this blog with guest posts and interviews of the good folks using TheCodeFactory. These are stories about some of the really good things that are being produced by “The Factory”. The articles are guest posts in the author’s own words and they have total freedom to say whatever they like.
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One of the outcomes of TheCodeFactory I am most proud of is the organic collaboration that is happening on a daily basis. Not only are members playing together but they are also working together and collaborating on projects. This is very exciting to watch unfold and an expected by product of creative individuals working together.
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Our first entry which we will be posting tomorrow is an interview with Philippe Casgrain, leader of the CocoaHeads Ottawa/Gatineau, co-creator of Tweety10 (iphone app for the Olympics) developed right here at TheCodeFactory in large part at a weekend hackathon and founding member of Cocoaminded.
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Upcoming posts will include contributions and collaboration tales from;
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- Fred of Blindside Networks with Pascal of Citadel Online Communities
- David (Megginson Technologies) with Michael and Dominique from Groupsia
- Chris and the amazing story of Team Camp and the awesomeness of Twegather
- Andrew Patrick on CapCHI Ottawa and our almost 2 year relationship
- Andrew Ross of FOSSLC and TheCodeFactory
- Many other tales in the works and always new stories being written every day.
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I sincerely hope you enjoy this ongoing series.
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Ian Graham

Open Source Economic Development

Ian — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:16:34 +0000

I would like to start by commending the city for working hard to provide Opinion Ottawa as a forum on economic development. This is a good initiative and anyone in Ottawa that has any comments, concerns or suggestions on economic development should take the opportunity to offer their thoughts.
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If Ottawa is to remain a going concern in the creative economy we as a city need assess our economic development efforts based on the OAR equation. OAR stands for Open Accountable Results. It is extremely important that all of the economic development OARs are rowing in the same direction.
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First and foremost the city needs to adopt an OPEN as in open source economic development model (the term open source economic development was coined by TheCodeFactory). The model should be open and accommodating to organizations capable of efficiently delivering on the city’s economic development agenda. Based on my personal experiences the current economic development system is sole sourced and closed.
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ACCOUNTABLITY is another important aspect. Economic Development organizations that receive the majority of their funding through public sources should be obligated and held accountable to the public. Public accountability would include full disclosure of;
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- financial statements,
- procurement policy/procedure and
- salaries greater than $100k.
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This is the same standard as the rest of the city of Ottawa. I have searched for but never been able to find any of this information with respect to OCRI.
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Economic development for the city of Ottawa should be RESULTS oriented. I have often questioned the value of large expensive events like the Ottawa Venture Technology Summit, The Eastern Ontario Economic Development forum (with Donald Trump speaking) and other large and expensive initiatives like 82000reasons.
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Some open and transparent discussion around a cost benefit analysis of these types of expenditures versus alernatives is in my opinion a worthy discussion. We need to focus on continuous improvement in our economic development.
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“However beautiful the strategy … you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill
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Ian Graham

Entrepreneurship Series – The Good – Hard work

Ian — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:39:11 +0000

If you are thinking … hard work how the heck is that a good thing. My guess is you would probably fail the marshmallow test too … in which case move along there is nothing to see here. If you like hard work please continue reading.

Those who get it will understand the value of hard work. This is especially true in a web x.0 world. One of my favourite entrepreneurial quotes is from local Ottawa Entrepreneur Aydin Mirzaee of Chide.it and it goes something like this “if it was too easy then anyone could do it.” There is a lot of wisdom in that statement and it highlights the key value underpinning hard work. Lots of people have ideas far fewer the passion and persistence to make them happen.
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Both idea and easy are aptly four letter words. The difference between an idea and a successful business is a whole lot of well … you guessed it … hard work or execution. The only way to turn an idea into reality is to make it happen.
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Hard work is the new competitive advantage. However much hard work you have had to put into something to make it work anyone with the same idea afterwards is going to have to follow in your footsteps. The harder you work and the more distance you put between yourself and the competition the greater the barrier to entry you have created.
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There are two other awesome by products of hard work; serendipity and small victories. If you persist keep at it and continue to make progress I can pretty much guarantee that plenty of both will come your way. I love that Canadian Olympic commercial where the athletes say we create our own destiny and destiny didn’t get up for that 6am practice I did. The entrepreneur and hard work is the same thing. You create your own success and inevitably victories small and large.
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Personally I find tremendous comfort in the phrase “if it were too easy anyone could do it.” Bring on the hard work baby.
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Next post in the series – Small Victories.
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Ian Graham

Students and Start-ups 5 – Looking for …

Ian — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:37:11 +0000

Students, start-ups and supporters.
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Student: If you are a student; SIGN UP HERE
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If you are a Start-up or supporter: contact ian@thecodefactory.ca for dets.
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One of our favourite games at TheCodeFactory (yes we like to play) is students and start-ups a fun filled activity packed rollicking romp on the wild side.
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If you thought; WOW! It sounds even better than Avatar and more interactive. You would be right and guess what it is also in organic 3D … ooohh awwww. Here are some pictures of past Glory:

We measure success in two ways for the event; hires and smiles. We had one confirmed hire Students and Start-ups 4 and are hoping for more this time. NEW Games, NEW start-ups and we are looking for plenty of students.
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There are lots of ways to get involved. We have 3 start-ups on board so far but there is room for a few more … if you are a start-up contact Ian. If you think that helping start-ups and students is an awesome idea and how can our organization help … if you are a supporter contact Ian.
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On that note I’ll (Ian here) be at the University of Ottawa on Tuesday February 24th SITE building room 5084 (thank you Cate) for any U of O students interested in connecting. I will also be at Carleton University on Thursday February 25th in the evening. Tweet or DM me @thecodefactory if you would like to meet.
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Ian Graham