F I N A N C I A L P O S T
F P E N T R E P R E N E U R : S P R O U T E R
Expert answers to startup
questions. Connecting
entrepreneurs with the advice
they need on Sprouter.com
T O O L O F T H E W E E K :
Company Name GrasshopperWebsite grasshopper.comDescription Grasshopper lets yourun your business using cellphones.Register a toll-free or local number,and then assign extensions to your
employees’ cellphones. Users cancall in, select an extension, and beimmediately connected to your staff.Grasshopper features an online dash-board to manage numbers, call for-warding and voicemail.
Hopping fromplace to place?
Run your businessvia cellphones
ClearFit founder Ben Baldwinalways knew entrepreneur-ship was the right fit for him.“I’ve never really fit into theway other people think/actand I have a real problem withauthority,” he said.
Baldwin created ClearFit, asoftware product that enablesbusinesses to hire based oncultural fit and experience,from a passion to help entre-preneurs tackle the hiringprocess. “My background isin building software for For-
tune 500 companies, to helpthem predict hiring success.I worked with companiessuch as GlaxoSmithKline allacross the U.S., Brazil, Russia,”he said. “But my true passionwas in helping other entre-preneurs — and their biggestchallenge [aside from cash-flow] is hiring.
“Small businesses in NorthAmerica spend $60-billionevery year on job postings,recruiters, employee refer-ral strategies and recruitingsoftware — but hiring is stillbroken: turnover and reten-tion haven’t improved in morethan 30 years.”
Baldwin said figuring outhow to surround himself withthe right people was his big-gest lesson as an entrepreneur.“At first, it may feel like lettinggo, but then you realize that ifyou’ve done a good enough jobhiring, you’re actually in farmore control because they’rebetter than you at what they’redoing. They are the ultimatebusiness driver and they’realso what frees you to focuson the stuff you’re best at, andthey’re best at.”
Hiring the right peopleseems to have paid off for To-ronto-based ClearFit, whichhas hit a milestone with 4,000businesses using its product.“It shows how our messageis resonating … especially inverticals like construction,franchise, retail, restaurants,financial services and tech/startups.”
There is no shortage of soft-ware products to help withhiring — RoundPegg and Taleoinclude applicant screening —but Baldwin said his solution,unlike theirs, is not designedfor the HR community.
“ClearFit was built forbusiness owners and hiringmanagers. These are typicallypeople who would prefer todelegate hiring because it’s atask that’s such a pain — butit’s absolutely mission-critical.We’re empowering our usersto take back hiring.”
Another strategy used byClearFit is to partner with largecompanies in the small busi-ness space, including Intuitand Staples. The key to build-ing and maintaining strongpartnerships, Baldwin said, ispicking partners carefully andmaking sure they get your fullattention.
“Once you know you’re onthe same page, help partnerssell their product, not yours.You’ll be invaluable to them.Pay them more than what theydeserve — cannibalize theirattention by becoming indis-pensable to them.”
Baldwin’s biggest piece ofadvice is not to do it alone.“Get a co-founder, so you don’tgo crazy. Otherwise, you’ llgrow a beard and end up likeTom Hanks in Castaway.”
Recently, ClearFit landedits first Fortune 500 customer,andBaldwinsaidcommitmentto its product likely helped.“We did one thing really well— better than the competition.We demonstrated this in a pi-lot and they just kept buyingmore and more from us. We’rereally good at making good onour promises.”
Which may be the reasonfor Baldwin’s optimism aboutthe future: “We’re on our wayto building a billion-dollarbusiness. The $60-billionNorth American SMB hiringmarket is massive, so we’refocusing hard on our verti-cals,” he said.
Sprouter.com
Good hires aregood business,founder finds
IN MORE CONTROL
A skanyearly-stagestart-up who its competi-tors are and it should
have several names at hand,with at least one well-knownbrand among them. It’s com-mon for the media, investors,and even users to comparestartups to these householdnames, leading to the “it’s thisfor that” elevator pitch. Thereare countless examples: Bran-chOut is LinkedIn for Face-book users; Zappos is Amazonfor shoes; and the list goes on.
Being compared to an in-dustry leader isn’t a bad thingif it gives people context forwhat a business does. Sincestartups are often explor-ing new territory, compar-ing themselves to companiesconsumers know and trustcan provide instant recogni-tion — as long as it’s a posi-tive association.
Take the “Craigslist forweddings,” Toronto-basedcompany SmartBrideBou-tique.com. Andrea Lown real-ized after planning her ownwedding just how expensivethey could be. She was onlyengaged for five months,which made it difficult tofind a wedding dress, whichoften need to be ordered upto a year in advance to allowfor custom orders, shippingand alterations.
“Shops were literally turn-ing away my money as I triedto jam it in their hands in re-turn for a dress off the rack,”Lown said in an interview.“Eventually I turned to eBayand Craigslist.” A friend ofhers had just purchased adress from a Toronto bride forher wedding using Craigslistand saved more than $2,000,and didn’t have to worryabout short time lines.
It was after searchingCraigslist that she realized thelimitations to finding a useddress online. There was ofteninformation missing in post-ings, pictures weren’t alwaysavailable, or when they werethey weren’t high quality.That’s when she decided tobuild a destination for bridesbuying and selling used wed-ding gowns. She launched thecompany in 2008, right whenbrides affected by the reces-sion were looking for wallet-friendly alternatives.
Lown said describingSmartBride as ‘Craigslist forweddings’ was her “short and
snappy” elevator pitch rightout of the gate. “It told peopleexactly what we did in underthree seconds, leaving ustime to explain how we weredifferent and better,” she said.She said it helped peopleunderstand the concept im-mediately, with allowed themto answer their other ques-tions.
One of those questions iswhether people actually buyand sell wedding dressesonline, and the companyfound that 75% of Canadianwomen surveyed were inter-ested in buying a once-wornwedding dress for variousreasons.
While comparisons of-fer immediate recognition,sometimes they carry nega-tive connotations associatedwith the larger brand. Lownsaid that when people as-sociated SmartBride withCraigslist, they often associ-ated buying a used weddingdress with the typical experi-ence of Craigslist (which shecalls “poor”), which is exactlywhat they set out to improve.
With over 60,000 bridesvisiting the SmartBride everymonth, Lown is increasinglylooking to serve both privatesellers and boutiques whosell discounted and sampleitems. The company might beimmediately recognizable asthe “Craigslist for weddings,”but it’s creating a brand that’suniquely its own.
Financial Post
Erin Bury is managing editorat BetaKit, an emerging tech
publication launched bySprouter.com. If you have
emerging tech news get in touchat [email protected].
Search for ‘the dress’led to online niche
SmartBrideis ‘Craigslist
for weddings’
E R I N B U R YStartup Spotlight
MATTHEW SHERWOOD FOR NATIONAL POST
From left, StartupNorth’s Jonas Brandon chats with Ben Baldwin, of Clearfit, Chris Eben, of The Working Group, andKirk Simpson, co-founder and CEO of Wave Accounting, during the Sprout Up event on Tuesday, May 22.
Last Tuesday, more than 300entrepreneurs gathered atThe Courthouse in Torontofor Sprout Up, an event or-ganized by Sprouter to bringtogether the local startupcommunity. The event serieshas gained notoriety in thetech world for featuring star-tup demos from up-and-com-ing local companies, as wellas bringing in speakers fromaround the world. Past startupdemos have included Tiny-Hippos, which was acquiredby RIM, and Backtype, whichwas bought by Twitter. Thismonth’s demos were Cream.hr, mi Lifemap and Uberflip.
The event was attended bya diverse group of new entre-preneurs, successful businessleaders, investors and media.Up and coming startup found-ers such as Flixel’s Phil Le-blanc and 500px founder OlegGutsol could be seen sharingideas with veteran entrepre-neurs, including Idee founderLeila Boujnane and Home-stars’ Brian Sharwood.
Canada’s investment com-munity was also well repre-sented, with members fromMantella Ventures, KlassCapital and Loewen & Part-ners sharing business storiesalongside previous Sprout Uppresenters such as Tradyo’sGideon Hayden, and Second-Menu’s Ben Roberts.
The most talked about as-pect of Sprout Up events arethe guest speakers, and pasteditions have included entre-preneur Gary Vaynerchukand sought-after investorslike Tony Conrad and CharlieO’Donnell . This month’sspeaker was entrepreneurand celebrated marketingguru Sean Ellis, who is cred-ited with bringing success-ful companies like Dropboxand LogMeIn to market. Ellisshared his advice on achievingproduct / market fit and wasapplauded for giving candid,actionable ideas to the crowd.
The three startups that pre-sented on Tuesday are all in-novators in their space. Cream.hr provides applicant screen-ing through advanced person-ality testing; mi Lifemap helpsfamilies build timelines oftheir personal milestones; andUberflip turns PDF files intointeractive, online experiences.
For more informationon future events, follow theSprout Up Meetup page at
meetup.com/sproutupto
STARTUPSMINGLE ATMONTHLYMEETING
ROBERT VOS / AFP / GETTY IMAGES FILES
Women wearing their wedding dresses enjoy a dip in the ocean at Scheveningen,Netherlands, copying a U.S. phenomenon called “Trash the Dress.” Many women
are choosing, instead, to sell their dresses on sites such as SmartBride.
H O TS T A R T U P S
Name Infogr.amWebsite infogr.am/Location Riga, LatviaFounders Uldis Leiterts,Raimonds Ka�eDescription Infogr.am letsyou create colourful, inter-active infographics quickly &easily. Choose a design fromtheir pre-built templates, addyour data via several importoptions, and share your info-graphic through social media,or embed it into your site.
Name ZimrideWebsite zimride.com/Location San FranciscoFounders Logan Green, JohnZimmerDescription Zimride helpsyou find rideshare and carpoolopportunities within yourcommunity. Focusing on col-lege, university, and corpor-ate communities, Zimride isbuilding a network of usersto help you find friends, class-mates, and coworkers goingthe same way you are.
Name CircleWebsite discovercircle.com/Location Palo Alto, Calif.Founders Evan ReasDescription Circle helps youfind who’s around you. Usingthe location of your mobiledevice, Circle alerts you whenfriends are nearby, and helpsyou discover new networksbased on where you are. Avail-able for iPhone and Androiddevices, Circle also featuresprivacy controls to limit whocan contact you.
Name HachiWebsite gohachi.comLocation San Ramon, Calif.Founders Rachna SinghDescription Hachi helps youconnect with people via thesmartest route possible. Mak-ing use of your social networkand email connections, Hachifinds the best path to connectwith someone outside of yournetwork using the people andconnections you already knowand trust.
FP6 financialpost.com � NATIONAL POST, MONDAY, MAY 28, 2012
