Disqus - Latest Comments for Omar Ismail

Re: Talent deserves recognition

Omar Ismail — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:22:21 -0000

Thanks a lot for the shout out and heads up. I checked the contest rules and I'm not sure if we launched too early. I've sent them an e-mail asking for clarification, so here's hoping!

Re: Is money the root of our problems?

Omar Ismail — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:51:31 -0000

I didn't eveb know there was a problem. I mean the fact that we're talking about DemoCamp17, StartupCamps in both Toronto, Waterloo, etc etc, shows that there is an incredibly vibrant community here. It's really amazing how things have taken off over the past year.

Would a flood of money in the region help or hinder this gestation of ideas? Honestly, I think the harshness of the conditions makes for stronger companies in general. We have to be smarter, more flexible, and more innovative. And I actually think that is happening. And that's a Good thing.

Re: Founders & Funders – It’s a wrap

Omar Ismail — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:57:14 -0000

The whole ambassador thing is so friggin' true. We were at The Crunchies last week and there was definitely a struggle to meet people. Having someone to take me under their wing and make the necessary introductions to the RIGHT people would be invaluable. And really, it benefits both me, and the person I'm being introduced to.

Having a more organized system of ambassadors/connectors would really help out in these networking sessions.

Re: The Startup’s Guide to Mesh

Omar Ismail — Thu, 17 May 2007 11:33:42 -0000

I'll be at Mesh, and if you're holding a startup party, I'll be there too! Great blog by the way. I really look forward to reading your thoughts on the pitchers of Dragon's Den season 2.

Re: Is Dragon’s Den bad for innovation?

Omar Ismail — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:25:51 -0000

This post is kind of silly. You're not really lamenting the existence of Dragon's Den, but rather lamenting the NON-existence of some other show celebrating Canada's innovators.

I don't think any half-smart entrepreneur is going to be getting their VC lessons from Dragon's Den, there are far better resources than that including this blog right here and things like Sean Wise's blog/book (the book is actually really good).

You're also discounting the learning that comes from watching other people present. If you're paying attention you can learn a lot about how to properly present yourself, what things you should say and shouldn't say, etc. It's actually quite valuable in that regard.

I think you're also not recognizing that a lot of ideas that come across investor's desks are pretty horrible. Talk to any VC and they'll tell you the same thing. 90% of the stuff they hear about is crap. Just like in DD.

However, giving them the CHANCE to show their stuff and ask for money is far better than locking the door, because it's foolish to make judgments too early and potentially miss a great new thing. This kind of ultra-conservative thinking is precisely what is holding Canada back! The US is the source for both the most innovative, and stupidest ideas because they embrace them all.

Re: Is Dragon’s Den bad for innovation?

Omar Ismail — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:04:15 -0000

I agree with everything you're saying about a venue for showing inspiring stories. I was actually going to point to the Venture program myself to counter your post.

I guess I didn't really make my point too clear then. I see DD as a way for a certain group of people to tell there stories. The fact of the matter is that there really are Canadians doing some pretty crazy things, and pouring the heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears, marriages, friends, and lives into.

I'm interested in hearing their motivations and why they're taking such a crazy path, and DD is a very efficient mechanism for doing so. The whole investment side isn't a big part of the show to me at all. It's only when there is a decently good idea like the animated billboard, soap dispenser and JobLoft that the investment part gets interesting. And I guess that's why the show works well. It works for the really bad stuff, and the really good stuff.

Kind of going into a different direction now, but DD IS a hit show. So I think it would be useful to see if there is some way for "real" entrepreneurs to benefit from it. It's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the more good companies that present, the higher the prestige of the show, and the more good companies that will want to present. Is there someway to make the show more attractive for good companies?

Re: aideRSS.com - What’s next in RSS

Omar Ismail — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:41:11 -0000

Go Waterloo! :)

Re: » Blognation Canada is here | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:28:10 -0000

To be totally honest, I think Canada's tech/web industry has been kicking ass for a while now. It's the media that just hasn't given us the proper attention yet, and THAT is what is slowly changing. StumbleUpon, Plenty of Fish, NowPublic, Kevin Ham's domain empire, Getty Images (or whatever stock photo site was based in Calgary, I forget now), etc are all major players in the web.

Blogs such as StartupNorth are helping to spread the awareness, just wished you guys updated a little more :P

Re: » Break time is over. What are you planning for the fall? | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:50:15 -0000

There's supposed to be a break for the summer? Someone could've told me...

Re: » StartupCamp Waterloo - This is just getting started | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:31:42 -0000

I take "credit" for the Facebook fervor present in the audience. My argument boils down to: why reinvent the wheel? Facebook is already pulling in 200K new users a day and looking to reach new markets. While they might not be strong in the older segment yet, the chances of them gaining ground there are orders of magnitude higher than anybody else. By making community based Apps you combine forces with the giant beast and accelerate their expansion into those markets, which let you benefit as well.

If Simon wants to keep the Village Toolbox as a side project, then more power to him. It obviously works well for his community and he can keep on developing it in his spare time. But in its current incarnation, and even overall direction the likelihood of it becoming a serious livelihood are extremely slim. I'll never say it's impossible, but it'll definitely be a very signicant challenge. If he wants to make this thing a real business then the chances of success are greater on Facebook. It's still a very significant challenge, but I think it'd be easier.

Re: » Delusions of Facebook - Should you be a Facebook Startup? | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:16:13 -0000

You hit the nail on the head with your last two concluding paragraphs. Facebook is a tool that facilitates person-to-person communication. That's it. Almost every kind of service or product can leverage person-to-person communication, but many of them don't and shouldn't rely on it exclusively. Smart startups will exploit the opportunity we have right now to get as much out of it as we can.

Re: » Delusions of Facebook - Should you be a Facebook Startup? | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:31:38 -0000

You know, this whole concept that Facebook is a fad that will eventually die, just like all other social networks is pretty short sighted. I mean, in the 90s you could've looked at Google and said, "oh, there's just another search engine, it'll die just like Excite and AltaVista."

But they'd be wrong. Because there was something different about Google. Something that had staying power. The excitement around Facebook is that people are seeing that same kind of staying power. Applications will only improve the Facebook website. Just like AdSense has become a standard, Facebook's platform is becoming the standard for social software. You'll have your website, you'll monetize off of AdSense (hopefully not if you want to make anything respectable) and you'll use FB as your User system.

Facebook is continuing to open up the platform and making it more useful for developers. I mean, just look at them opening up the mobile platform, that's huge! People expecting them to open up EVERYTHING at the beginning are being naive. This is new ground for everyone, and it's all about taking baby steps and learning as we go along. But eventually, and you can see the goal in sight, the platform will be open, and they'll be the standard. The writing is on the wall.

So if you decide to write off Facebook because you consider it another fad, then be aware of the risks involved. The tone in this blog post I think is a bit too marginalizing of FB's impact on the web.

Re: » Delusions of Facebook - Should you be a Facebook Startup? | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:35:39 -0000

"You cannot build a business on someone else’s platform when they don’t see you as a partner" - the reasons why they don't let you call yourself a partner is because they don't want to officially endorse any 2-bit application. Think of Windows. OSX. Even Linux. All of those have applications developed for them, even though many of the same risks you outlined, and the whole "no partner" thing exist there as well. The fact of the matter is that yes, there are risks with developing for a platform, but there are huge benefits as well. People have seen huge success when developing for other platforms, and there's the potential for huge success for developing for Facebook.

"If they don't innovate you die" - true. But that's the genius of the apps. THEY don't have to innovate. They let YOU innovate for them, and as you said later on in your post, the better your apps are, the happier their users are. Well their users ARE your users. So if applications are coming at a pace that lets FB stay ahead of the game, then they'll always be ahead of the game. It's a win-win situation for devs, and for FB.

"Can't take customers with you" - StyleFeeder's app is one of the most popular on FB and it REQUIRES that you sign up for their site. They are getting 10s of thousands of users a day purely through FB. And these are real users with full contact info, etc. Smart companies will be able to leverage FB success into real success of their full business.

As for your comment Jevon, I don't know who said "put all your eggs in one basket". Actually, that's precisely what I'm trying to say! Facebook is another very exciting basket, and people should try as many baskets as possible. In terms of ROI, FB is one of the best places to experiment and open up an ADDITIONAL growth path.

Now maybe this is all coming back to Village Toolbox which I claimed should be a set of FB apps. The real answer is far more involved and complex than "just facebook". But essentially the best START to a Village Toolbox-like application is through FB. And then expanding to other social networks, and then creating a central site that connects everything. THAT would by my overall strategy.

Re: » Razzle Clones Woot | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:36:01 -0000

I friggin LOVE WOOT, and since they don't ship to Canada, this is an AWESOME new site. Will be checking it everyday to see if Canada will have any $90 Zune deals of our own :)

Re: » Your Facebook app is a disaster, and I was right. | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:12:08 -0000

A personal call out, sweet!

The PROMISE and POTENTIAL of Facebook as an app platform and leveraging the social graph remains. However, the bar was set too low. Any user goodwill that us independents could ever leverage has been totally stripmined and laid to waste by the hundreds and thousands of useless spam applications.

Unfortunately "app fatigue" has caused legitimately useful applications to fall by the wayside as the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. This is really a microcosm of "Web 2.0" in general as so many new sites were created at such a rapid pace, people became cynical pretty quickly. Whereas that process took a couple of years, the hyperactivity of Facebook accelerated the hype->hangover phase to a few months.

As with all new markets we'll go from the hangover->settling phase where the spam gets eliminated, the good gets better, and people are willing to try again. At that point the companies that use Facebook in an intelligent way will gain traction.

To reiterate a little bit about the overall point. You can point to ten thousand failed Facebook apps and say the whole thing stinks. I can point you to cases such as iLike and StyleFeeder which leveraged Facebook into powerful brands and websites. Same with the web in general. I can point you to fifty thousand failed websites and say Web20 doesn't work. And you'll just point me to successful sites like YouTube, Flickr and ProductWiki :)

Re: » Will you bet on VenCorps? | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:54:01 -0000

No, I won't.

And I highly doubt anyone worth their salt will. This is a solution that's looking for a problem. I'm sorry to sound excessively harsh here, but anybody that is seriously looking for Venture Capital can find it. Or at least get the opportunity to present to VCs.

The only utility I can see in this application is for VCs to weed out crappy pitches not find good ones. So if you're a startup you can ONLY hurt yourself by presenting on VenCorps. Smart businesses will realize that and avoid the service, while the stupid ones that would/should never get funding will try it out as a last ditch attempt.

MAYBE there will be a diamond in the rough, but I'm skeptical the service will last long enough to ever find one.

Re: » Stop waiting for your big idea, learn to get shit done | StartupNorth

Omar Ismail — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:46:52 -0000

If you don't have money to make a startup, or you don't have an idea on how to make money with a startup, then don't DO a startup. Just make a service that you find useful yourself, put it on Google App Engine so your costs are ZERO, and be done with it. If it gets popular, then great, if not at least you've learned a lot with very little cost/time-sink.

Man, I love the promise/potential that something like Google App Engine indicates for the future. In 2 years buying your own servers will be totally antiquated and obsolete.

Hardware is going digital and it's sweet.

Re: What’s in a name? In Web 2.0, confusion

Omar Ismail — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:47:34 -0000

The inanity of the name is inversley proportional to the chances of success. xobni? faroo? argoo? Come on...

Though Xobni did get called out by Kawasaki so that was good to see.

Re: Why Comcast is right to jam BitTorrent

Omar Ismail — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:46:20 -0000

Agreed that throttling isn't the ultimate evil that some people make it out to be. I mean, practically speaking my Skype/Vonage call, or email, or telnet session is going to be a lot more important than someone getting Hot Fuzz a few minutes faster. Limits are all over society, they keep us in line so the abusers don't have too much damage.

Compare bandwidth to driving. Bittorrent is like a fleet of hummers and transport trucks with no speed/weight limits. For the guy in the Miata he's going to wait along the side of the street so he doesn't get crushed. But if you limit the places these vehicles can go, then the normal traffic is free to move without worry.

Now if people want to pay more for a specialized service (Highway 407) more power to them. But don't make other people suffer because of your need for porn and the latest episode of Lost.

There is a balancing act here though. How much are ISPs gouging customers? Rogers... probably a lot! Without getting details it's easy for ISPs to cry foul, when they really COULD support the extra bandwidth without charging extra, but nobody knows except them. That's why increased competition would weed out these inefficiencies without the need for explicit information to be released.

Re: The Startup’s Guide to Mesh

Omar Ismail — Thu, 17 May 2007 11:33:42 -0000

I'll be at Mesh, and if you're holding a startup party, I'll be there too! Great blog by the way. I really look forward to reading your thoughts on the pitchers of Dragon's Den season 2.

Re: Is Dragon’s Den bad for innovation?

Omar Ismail — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:25:51 -0000

Re: Is Dragon’s Den bad for innovation?

Omar Ismail — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:04:15 -0000

Re: aideRSS.com - What’s next in RSS

Omar Ismail — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:41:11 -0000

Go Waterloo! :)

Re: Blognation Canada is here

Omar Ismail — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:28:10 -0000

Re: Break time is over. What are you planning for the fall?

Omar Ismail — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:50:15 -0000

There's supposed to be a break for the summer? Someone could've told me...

Re: StartupCamp Waterloo - This is just getting started

Omar Ismail — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:31:42 -0000

Re: Delusions of Facebook - Should you be a Facebook Startup?

Omar Ismail — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:16:13 -0000

Re: Delusions of Facebook - Should you be a Facebook Startup?

Omar Ismail — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:31:38 -0000

Re: Delusions of Facebook - Should you be a Facebook Startup?

Omar Ismail — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:35:39 -0000

Re: Razzle Clones Woot

Omar Ismail — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:36:01 -0000

I friggin LOVE WOOT, and since they don't ship to Canada, this is an AWESOME new site. Will be checking it everyday to see if Canada will have any $90 Zune deals of our own :)

Re: Your Facebook app is a disaster, and I was right.

Omar Ismail — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:12:08 -0000

Re: Will you bet on VenCorps?

Omar Ismail — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:54:01 -0000

Re: Stop waiting for your big idea, learn to get shit done

Omar Ismail — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:46:52 -0000

Re: 2007/03/26/productwiki/

Omar Ismail — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 09:44:24 -0000

Hi Kristen, thanks for the review. Just wanted to throw you a note that we're now launched and live.

Re: 2007/11/28/open-web-awards-photo-sharing-2/

Omar Ismail — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:17:59 -0000

www.madwhips.com

A car-spotting and photo sharing site for exotic and modifed cars from around the world.

Re: Amazon’s Affiliate Program Ends PPC Arbitrage

Omar Ismail — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:48:12 -0000

Still trying to figure out why they would do this since the simple numbers don't add up (i.e. some money is better than no money). It's possible that there are long-term brand issues that have come up? As in, SEM ads that go to Amazon are considered by the general public to BE Amazon Ads. Therefore, by allowing Affiliate SEM Amazon loses some control over its brand which it may value over the extra revenue brought in by these affiliates.

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