hessiej's posterous

I was recently introduced to an interesting start-up company, HeroBox, a fledgling no more than 5 days old. What makes them special? Its participants were introduced at Startup Weekend Toronto, and won the most competitive start-up competition in North America.

The Premise of Startup Weekend Toronto: "All Talk, No Action. Launch a Start-up in 54 Hours". How does it work? People submit ideas, which are voted upon. Top ideas will bring together participants: in marketing and developer community to collaborate, build the product and launch the start-up. Participants need to do this in 54 hours.

What's more exciting? HeroBox. managed to raise of 25,000 in commitments following the event. Among its clients: AppSumo, PostageApp, EventMobi, DentistFind and Garrison Bespoke plus agencies like Playground, Bizmedia, and TeamBuy eager to use with their clients. Even an endorsement came from Chief Sumo himself, Noah Kagan from AppSumo to further validate demand for his idea. David Tran is the genius behind HeroBox, and he and his team mates, Chris Nguyenis and Timothy Leung along with 12 other rock stars, walked away with $60,000 in prizes to launch the company.

What was the winning idea? HeroBox is an online marketing tool that takes analytics to drive conversion based on consumer behaviour. David explained, HeroBox replicates the online sales rep. Utilizing Google Analytics, the technology helps identify specific user behaviour on a website to determine drop-off, but most importantly, the moment of motivation. Ultimately, this will help businesses (small and large) implement strategies to drive visits into conversions. This goes beyond home page chat and utilizes data intelligence and learning to optimize campaign results.

As David states, "Our company is in its early stages. We are pursuing patents on our product and a team of 15 enthusiastic developers, designers and marketers are working around the clock to further our business."

Herobox wants to draw international attention to the start-up/entrepreneurial scene in Toronto. This video will be disseminated internationally to venture capitalists. As a result of it's Startup Weekend Toronto win, HeroBox is now entered in the Global Start-up Battle Competition, and collecting votes based on its 90-second pitch video in the second phase of the contest, which ends Nov. 28. Judges will then size up the entries and announce an overall winner Nov. 29.

I encourage you to go to Global Start-up Battle Competition and view the their video and vote. If you're a small business, perhaps this is a solution for you. It definitely is challenging the landscape of ideas-turned-to-product. And best of all..... it's right in our back yard!

Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/blog/14083#ixzz1ex9fh9R2

Lately, the news about how social media is creating a haven for cruelty especially among kids prompted me to write a post. I was fortunate enough to get a writing gig on Huffington Post! Thanks Rashida! So I decided that my first article would be about Cyberbullying Hits Home.

This is a personal story and one that had (thankfully) a positive ending. There was no emotional turmoil and the bullying ended as quickly as it began. But other kids have not been so lucky. As a mother, I would hope that I could always protect my children from anything or anyone that would dare to harm them. These days, their own home cannot shield the hurtful words, picture or videos that penetrate our walls via this world wide web. As much as good has come out of social networking, an equal and more harmful poison has threatened  the emotional livelihoods of our own children. The net allows bullies to hide behind its veil of anonymity and torture others without consequence.  They now come in droves, not in groups.

I digress…. Please read this article if you are a parent.

Next week November 14-18 is Anti-Bullying Awareness Week.  I’ll be posting another article on What’s Your Tech.  Please look out for it! Cheers!

Great stats from @dancall1 Check it out! Social and Mobile are dominating!

I promised my dear friend Sonya that I'd dedicate this blog post to helping her spread the word about her mission.

Here's her story:

As I mentioned, late last week I signed up for the Nabs Edge walk (Dare4Nabs.com) on the CN Tower taking place on August 2^nd.  Still can’t believe it’s less than a week away…  Needless to say, besides being scared out of my mind, I’m a tad bit behind in fundraising (to put it mildly.)  Chris and Noah think it’s pretty cool though so I can’t chicken out!

What is Nabs Edge Walk?

OK.... so just so you haven't figure out how scary this really is, check this out!:

"Edge Walk is where thrill-seeking adventurers will be taking a walk...outside and around the circumference of the CN Tower's roof. Not quite your average stroll in the park......EdgeWalk is the first attraction of its kind in North America and the world's highest full circle hands-free walk on a 5 ft wide ledge. Don't worry though, it's only 116 stories above the ground."

OK, so Sonya you are truly brave for doing this.

Nabs supports Canadian professionals in the communications industry facing personal, career and family challenges due to illness, injury, unemployment or financial difficulties by helping those with job searches and short term financial aid. 

Here are some stories that I grabbed from the site:

Finding inner strength through NABS

A 50-year old divorced woman who had spent her whole career in the advertising industry was diagnosed with an illness that required long periods of time in the hospital. She had to resign from her position and was only left with government funding, which wasn’t enough to cover her expenses.

NABS began providing this woman with financial assistance to help her with rent, utilities and other necessities. Relieved from financial worries, this strong, resilient woman, managed to find freelance work, and when that wasn’t enough to cover expenses, NABS was there. Recently, she found a full-time job and continues to express her gratitude to NABS—not only for paying her bills, but also for helping her draw on her inner strength and talent to secure freelance work and, ultimately, full-time employment

Solving problems with a different approach

With four children, it was very difficult for this 35-year-old man when both he and his wife filed for personal bankruptcy, on which they were still paying penalties. With his wife unemployed, his salary wasn’t enough to cover the young family’s needs.

NABS not only provided financial assistance, but we also offered the family financial, career and personal counseling. NABS Personal and Career Counseling was a great help to his wife and enabled her to find work. In the meantime, the man found a second job to help supplement their income, while our career counsellor helped him outline an alternate career path, which ultimately led to a better paying job.

Sonys'a request:

I need all the help I can get with raising donations.  Anyone can donate here,  I realize it’s a last minute request but any help you can give me would be so appreciated!

Please donate!  And don't miss this amazing event.. from your comfy seats down....down....down below!

Good luck Sonya!