Disqus - Latest Comments for garywill

Re: Gary Will: FedDev formally announces new regional loan fund for small "knowledge-based" businesses

Gary Will — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 11:09:12 -0000

Good point! I had intended to give an update with that info but never did.

Re: Gary Will: Income and housing expenses in Southwestern Ontario

Gary Will — Wed, 23 May 2012 23:25:44 -0000

They would be counted where they live.

Re: Toby Barrett, MPP's Report | Opinion | Tillsonburg News

Gary Will — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:40:56 -0000

This story: "Drummond does not call it a subsidy!"

Drummond Report: "Slot machines are directed to racetracks, where subsidies are provided to the horse racing and breeding industry and municipalities"

You could easily take that line out of this story and the rest would be fine. Why make up a silly claim that is so easily checked?

Re: Gary Will: New program provides up to $1M to startups receiving angel or VC funding

Gary Will — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:59:22 -0000

It seems like SAN is doing some good things in Windsor ... I have to catch up now

Re: Gary Will: Waterloo Tech Digest - February 3, 2009

Gary Will — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:14:07 -0000

He had his big WSOP win before he became Arise CEO.

Re: I think the "People You May Know" feature on Facebook should be renamed "People From High School You Will Never Friend"

Gary Will — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:55:32 -0000

I was just thinking yesterday that it should be called "People you know who apparently have no interest in friending you."

Re: Where are the RIM alumni?

Gary Will — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:51:45 -0000

(And I think in Miovision's case it was just a co-op work term, so that's probably stretching things!)

Re: Where are the RIM alumni?

Gary Will — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 13:48:40 -0000

There are a few others -- Well.ca, Miovision, and Greystone Compression come to mind in Waterloo and YOU i Labs in Ottawa -- but I think your general point is correct: there aren't a lot of startups being created by RIM alumni.

Re: Alex says...

Gary Will — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:13:45 -0000

So, it's only the coffee that can't be crappy?

Re: OCRI is sour, grapes

Gary Will — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:44:43 -0000

I agree that Toronto's key strength is it's size-lots of people, lots of companies, lots of expertise, much easier to reach the mass you need for community interaction. At the same time, in Waterloo, although our lack of size is a big disadvantage in some dimensions (Waterloo Region is one-twelfth the size of the GTA), I think we've at least been able to make use of its silver lining. 
 
Because we're small, the level of resources we need to provide one-on-one mentoring and feedback for all tech startups is something manageable. We can do it, and we do. We're small enough that the entrepreneur services group at Communitech can work with most startups in the region, and at a pretty substantial depth in many cases. In 2007, Waterloo Region had six companies close seven-figure seed or early-stage rounds of funding (i.e. pre-A-round), and not only were all six of them Communitech clients, but I think we can say that members of our team played a significant role in helping two-thirds of them close their deals. It's very unlikely that anyone could duplicate that breadth of coverage in a big area like Toronto. 
 
And since I'm now apparently talking about Waterloo's secret sauce rather than Toronto's, I also think that our 'mainstream' support networks here (i.e. not StartupCamp-type grassroots initiatives) are more inclusive about what kinds of companies we help-probably because we CAN be, because we're smaller. Whether you're a 22-year-old university dropout working on a new website or a 45-year-old professor trying to commercialize some discovery you made, we're just as happy to see one as the other. In some other communities I get the feeling that the university prof would have a much easier time being taken seriously. 
 
Ottawa is caught in the middle. Not big enough for Toronto's approach, and probably too big for Waterloo's. We have three main high-tech hubs in the province, and each one is so different from the others that what works in one community may not work in the others, at least not without a lot of localization. It's a challenge I'm starting to see with the new provincial programs added over the last year or two. The government would prefer to see single programs rolled out province-wide, and that's looking more and more like the wrong approach. Because the government is Toronto-based, they've picked Toronto organizations to head many of these initiatives, and some of them don't get Waterloo at all-to what would be a laughable degree if we didn't have to rely on them for funding . then the laughter isn't so hearty.

Re: How GeoSign Blew $160 Million

Gary Will — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:28:14 -0000

No, it's not contradictory at all. Bets don't always pay off. If they did, they wouldn't really be bets. And when they don't, it doesn't mean the losing bettor was duped or didn't know what they were doing.

What may be "somewhat contradictory" is to say that there was a ton of public discussion about the risks of arbitrage in 2005 and 2006 while believing that somehow American Capital went ahead with a $160 million investment without being aware of this.

Public companies make investments in private firms all the time without disclosing the investee's financials, so, no, there's nothing problematic there at all. There are some things about American Capital's disclosure record that can be questioned, but that certainly isn't one of them.

And you're absolutely right that you have no idea how much of that cash was actually spent. It's never been disclosed. Anything that's been written about American Capital's losses on the deal are speculation.

Re: How GeoSign Blew $160 Million

Gary Will — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:36:21 -0000

Ann asked what Geosign's assets were. Well, for starters, how about the money invested by American Capital that was sitting on Geosign's balance sheet? This is the part that some people don't seem to understand. Geosign's business model suddenly became unviable. That doesn't mean all that cash just magically vanished.

And of course American Capital knew what it was getting into. For a deal of that size, they probably even had it reviewed by a third party. They just badly overestimated how long the gravy train would continue. Their total investment was less than Geosign's annual revenue at the time the deal closed.

Re: How GeoSign Blew $160 Million

Gary Will — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:57:10 -0000

It's not "semantics" -- jamboree got it right. You have no idea how much was lost. It's never been disclosed. At best, you could say that an opportunity perceived to be worthy of a $160 million investment was lost, but as to how much money was actually blown, you don't know, I don't know, and neither American Capital nor the remnants of Geosign (the correct spelling of the company's name) seem to have any plans to tell us. All that's been said is that American Capital got back a "substantial" amount of its investment. And what does "substantial" mean? Add it to the list of things that no one knows but insiders.

Re: Music Licensing?

Gary Will — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:41:48 -0000

The folks at SOCAN would be happy to help you out . you can go to their website and read about the 40 different tariffs they collect. But 'a licence is affordable'-says so right on their site. <a href="http://www.socan.ca/ " target="_blank"><a href="http://www.socan.ca/" target="_blank">http://www.socan.ca/</a> </a>

Re: Drinking the Web 2.0 kool-aid

Gary Will — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 18:51:48 -0000

I'm pretty sure that would be "eating the Web 2.0 dog food." Drinking the Web 2.0 Kool-aid is what you guys do in your blogs. :-)