30 local Vancouver startups went head to head this week at Vancouver’s Demo Day to win 2 spots to Techstars and pitch to the Alliance of Angels in Seattle. netlek was one of them.

An audience of over 200 watched each company give a 60 second pitch, then voted the 30 down to 5.  We made the cut.

The other 4 finalists and us gave a 5 minute presentation and a panel of judges that included Mike Edwards (GrowLab Executive Director); Boris Wertz (2011 Angel Investor of the Year); Leonard Brody (GrowLab Founder & Principal); Kimberley Kaplan (CEO; Offeron); and Kristina Simmons (Emerging Products  [Read more…]

The fine folk at StudioPress have this to say about Genesis:

And we concur.

Genesis Themes provide you with high quality designs, already lightweight, SEO optimized and secure. We looked long and hard before we chose Genesis, and we’re confident that we made the right choice. [Read more…]

This landed in my inbox yesterday.

I think it’s a great commentary in how we (me!) live our lives. I’m going to take one (just one) thing from this map every month and try to implement it. It’s all about incremental improvement.

Note – I could not find the original artist/site for credit – if you know who actually created this, please post in the comments below and I’ll update with a credit/link.

This is step 2 in your online marketing strategy. If you haven’t already read step 1, you can see how to start your online marketing strategy here.

Make it easy to buy. Millions are spent each year in focus groups, consumer research and user testing to optimize selling systems.  Which is really good news for you and I because it means we don’t have to figure it all out for ourselves.  Amazon, for example, is an excellent model to try to emulate when it comes to product sales online.

Straight up. This is important. Really important. But not quite as important as it might seem. [Read more…]

It’s a question many small business owners ask themselves – and the formula is pretty simple.

There are people out there looking for someone who does what you do. Your job is to make it as easy as possible for them to find you. Then to make it as easy as possible for them to get to know you, like you and trust you. People prefer to buy from people they like and trust.

The Problem

There’s a universe of noise out there. A seemingly endless barrage of marketing messages and sales pitches. You are not the only person trying to market online. When you get right down to it… [Read more…]