The Post Money Value

An “Extreme” Ecosystem Example

In the development world, there are two critical ingredients you need to have in order to be successful within a potential system/product ecosystem.  First, you need access to hooks (APIs) and second, you need something complex enough where the originators aren’t getting around to everything (yet).  There are, of course, other things like market size to consider, but out of the gate making sure you have an ‘open’ environment sitting on top of a rich opportunity is very important.

The RIM devices do a good job of checking off the those first two boxes.  You can hook into the BlackBerry devices reasonably easy enough and the designers have a continuing list of things they need/should get done for the devices.

Extreme Venture Partners (they have a very complex web site, use care) lead by Amar Varma, spends lots of time doing seed stage start ups.  Armed with a fairly powerful group of developers, they spin out companies with a bunch of interesting applications.

One such is a little application called “Forward with Edit.”  It is designed to fix the annoying problem of not being able to edit a message you wish to forward on your BlackBerry.

The folks at BerryReview did a good review here.  You can find this on the BlackBerry application store.

I point this out for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, there are tons of opportunities out there to add/extend platforms.  The BlackBerry devices, like others, are great platforms with lots of room for developers to play.

The second is another plug for Canada, Toronto in particular, and the deep well of talent we have here.

As I’ve said before: Go code something.

What 50,000 Microsoft Employees Should be Talking About

When the news started up about Microsoft’s thinking regarding the next release of Windows, ala, let’s have a crippled/junior/entry version, I started to write a blog post with a fairly strong reaction to this thinking.  But in an nod to mini-Microsoft (and inspired by my good friend Randy) here’s the question every employee at my former employer should be discussing with each other:

How can Microsoft give away Windows and generate revenue from every other source they have today, tomorrow and in the future?

Start your heats up, stop your laughing, and think about the exercise. Some people will scoff and say the company will never give up that revenue. Others will insist that the Net book running a “free” entry level of Windows without some whatever would lock up that market and give Microsoft a huge opportunity to sell services, product, features, etc.  Lots of other opinions/ideas, for sure.

My opinion:

Microsoft should have this debate/discussion and see what flushes out if for no other reason then to shock the mindset of the company into some seriously new thinking.

Canada Next Up: Dan Debow & Rypple

In that continuing to quest to keep the Canadian love happening, I present to you Dan Debow, serial entrepreneur, really smart guy, Canadian, and founder of Rypple.  Rypple takes a page out of ‘social media’ (yeah, I know, the term is being destroyed, sorry) and combines Dan’s WorkBrain knowledge to give us a system that allows people to get honest feedback via their circle of friends in a systematic and anonymous way.

BusinessWeek has a great write up here  which talks about this Facebook-like performance review system:

“Even more immediate: new software from a Toronto startup called Rypple that lets people post Twitter-length questions about their performance in exchange for anonymous feedback. Companies ranging from sandwich chain Great Harvest Bread Co. to Firefox developer Mozilla have signed on as clients.”

The Harvard Business Review speaks about Feedback:

“I admit I caught myself falling into this Boomer mindset trap just last week. I was attending a conference that included a discussion of a new web service called Rypple. It's in the beta stage, but you can try it out. It's designed to allow you to receive short, quick "feedback" anonymously from people you select to ask (you need to designate a number of people so the anonymity of any one respondent can be protected). So, for example, after a meeting, you could send a quick question - "How could I make my recommendations stronger?" -- and receive a variety of suggestions back.

My first reaction, I admit, was a little skeptical (okay, maybe even negative) -- as you know, I'm a Boomer. My gut was saying "Ugh -- why would I want to subject myself to that?" (Interpretation - to being "judged" multiple times a day). And the anonymous part felt really threatening. The only thing worse than being continually judged is being continually judged anonymously.”

There are other stories out there on Dan’s new service. When you hit the website you’ll see his customer Logo Salad which is pretty impressive for a start-up.  He’s had some angels toss in coin and Michael Hollend from Edgestone Capital Partners did the Series A.

All Canada. Well done, Dan.

Tracking the signals: From Bad Suits to Great Wine

Mark McQueen, my go to guy for all things debentures, has a blog post up on what he calls Recessionary crosscurrents. He’s starting a list tracking the good/not so good points about our current economic climate.

To wit:

3. LCBO is selling 2005 Latour for $1,895 a bottle, well up from the price they wanted for the Futures. Positive.

4. Best Buy has sales some days and doesn’t even put the signs up in the store. You find out at the cash that the item you were going to buy is cheaper than you had thought. Negative

There’s more at the blog and he is inviting you to post your signals.  Go post one, it might make for a great list/book/movie!

Working on Your Personal Brand

I needed a few good examples of people who are doing some amazing things on building a personal brand.  I came across Dr. Berebichez’s site via a conference participants list where I’m attending.

Just go look and, for sure, watch the video on the home page.  The class got my point about just how powerful a personal brand can be.

Memo to Marriott: Uh, no

I had to call the Marriott hotel chain’s worldwide reservation number. First up, welcome! Second, press 1 if you are one of our members, but press two if you’re not because we didn’t design the tree to say please enter your rewards number or if you don’t have one, press the pound key.

Okay, that’s just lazy IT people.  But then we get:

Please enter your home phone.

Huh?  I just waited and, presto, the nice perky person on the other end gladly cancels my reservation, email pops up in the Inbox, and we’re all done.

While we all lament the loss of privacy, allowing this type ‘data collection’ without yelling foul seems wrong.  So, FOUL! It’s foul because lots of people are simply going to start pounding on the phone keypad without actually asking WTF?

They look up things by confirmation number, in case you were thinking that might be the reason.

When I asked perky person why, he said, “oh, that’s for us in case we want to contact you with some specials in the future.”

Uh, no.

VC Quote of the Day

“Doing the VC thing right is like dim sum: it doesn't work if you go alone ... but go with too many people and you may not get to eat what you want.”

From my friend Michael as we stare at a massive pile of documents with endless required signatures.

You have to be here to really get this. <sigh>

4 Out of 5 Bloggers Recommend it (and Might Get Sued)

I usually see these kinds of things being written up by the folks over at TechDirt, in particular one of my favorite writers, Mike Masnick.  They are busy so I’ll offer this one up.

It seems the Federal Trade Commission is starting to take a look at blogger recommendations, dealing with (and possibly changing) liability rules.  In other words, if you get a product from a company and pimp it, you might be open to a lawsuit. So if that nose nostril cleaning gizzmo you recommended goes weird and digs in too deep, call Rob.

From the story:

A regulatory review process is underway to determine whether reviews by bloggers like Padilla may be in violation of good business practices, said Richard Cleland, a spokesman for the Federal Trade Commission.

"The proposed revisions signal that the commission will apply existing principles of advertising law to new forms of media, like blogs," Cleland said, adding that a decision on the proposal is expected sometime this summer.

"These types of communications that appear to be just one mom to another mom are pretty effective," he said. "Consumer endorsements and testimonials have always been viewed as extremely effective types of marketing.

"But the concern is about those instances when [testimonials] are delivered and it is not made obvious that it's an advertisement for a company."

Full story here.

Hat tip: RAS!

Dayforce – New, Cool, Hiring

If you are a kick butt C#/Silverlight programmer and you are looking for a full time gig, CEO of Dayforce, David Ossip, let me know he is hiring.  David was the founder of WorkBrain and is a returning entrepreneur here in Canada.  The team over at Dayforce is top draw so you’d be joining the A Team.

You can hit the careers page or contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the man himself.

As a side note, Suzi had a post in March about Dayforce and our returning entrepreneur heroes the team which you can read here.

Mobile "Good Enough”

My 14 year old cousin is up from the U.S. visiting.  He went to Niagara Falls yesterday.  Just prior to him leaving, I asked him if he wanted to take one of my Nikon SLR digital cameras. He responded with a shoulder shrug and this:

“Well thanks but I have a camera in my phone and it’s good enough. I don’t want to carry anything else.”

I point this out not to sound the alarm regarding the death of Digital SLR Cameras rather to continue to remind you that sometimes “good enough” cuts it. Sometimes there can be a serious hill to climb when attracting customers to change habits, try new things, or add things to the existing comfort zone.

OCE Discovery and your Secret De-coder Ring

On May 11th – 12th, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, OCE’s Discovery 09 takes place. OCE stands for Ontario Centres of Excellence and is a ‘must know’ organization if you are in the start-up, commercialization or research world.

As you’ll see on the Discovery web site, there are lots of sessions, booths, talks on technology, business, etc.  All excellent and all worth the price of entry in my opinion.

Here’s one of those likely overlooked items that Canada (yeah, I’m still on the go Canada soap box) kicks butt.   On the agenda, there is this blurb:

International Café

Visit this networking hub for innovators and entrepreneurs who are interested in pursuing international opportunities for collaborating, partnering or commercial expansion. At the International Café, you will have the opportunity to gather and exchange information through pre-arranged one-on-one meetings with international Trade Commissioners from Canadian Embassies Abroad, as well as network with international organizations.

Yawn, right? Wrong. What this translates into is your shot to meet with 80 Canadian trade ministers representing 26 Canadian trade countries from around the world.  Here’s the scoop on these 80 folks. They are real, non-suit/stiff types that have only one mission in life: You and your business in the country they represent. They have real/actual email addresses, phone numbers, and a true desire to help you.  This is a massive competitive advantage for any business wanting to do business overseas.  And least you think, doesn’t apply to my web start up/service, think again. Understanding local customs, people, getting some local coverage on a launch, partners to help etc; are just some of the things the Trade Commissioners can help with.  They are, in summary, a gold mine of assistance for you.

I have personally dealt with folks in 14 countries and in every single case, the help, responsiveness, and enthusiasm was way above expectations.

See you at OCE Discovery.

BumpTop – All Canada All the Time

You’ve probably seen and heard about BumpTop, that really cool app that makes the desktop function like your actual desktop.  VentureBeat has a story up where they said something about unnamed source for funding. 

Let me help:

• Canadian Company
• University of Toronto Brains
• Growthworks, your friendly Canadian VC firm provided the funding.

Canada:  high fives all around!

From the Front Lines: Focus Focus Focus

In response to my farm team blog post, Ali Asaria (CEO, well.ca) sent me an email to discuss the comings and going of his baby, well.ca.  With his permission, I’ve lifted a chunk of that email which I believe every start-up entrepreneur should probably tape above their bathroom sink so it is seen every morning:

“The lack of access to capital has forced us to build an extremely lean and efficient operation. It is insanely stressful -- we have to synchronize our paying distributors and paying payroll and I literally look at the bank account every single day. But this constraint has also forced us to scrap R&D early if it doesn't seem like it will bring revenue, it has forced us to make the most accurate financial reporting possible (because every percentage point counts), and it has honed within the entire team a culture of "do more with less". That's why becoming profitable was so important to us as a team. Lack of capital made us a better company -- it created features of our company that are now key assets. I think we would still have been a good company if we had access to lots of money -- but I think that's what good CEO's do -- they turn all situations into opportunities.”

Amen.  Here’s to one of Canada’s shining stars.

Getting, Taking, or Doing the Boot

Alexander Muse, co-founder of Springstage, spoke at an MIT get together on bootstrapping a business.  The slide deck/presentation is here and worth checking out.  It’s a Seth Godin quality presentation. Pictures, not a ton of words, and it’s really good.  Go look.

The Farm Team Problem

[Note: If you aren’t from Canada or dealing with the Canadian VC/Entrepreneurial world, you might want to skip this.]

Mark Skapinker has a blog response up which reflects his clarifications and corrections regarding the WSJ blog story I blogged about.  Mark makes some good points and I believe it is worth your time to read it.  (Thanks for the kind words, Mark)

In Mark’s post, he maintains the use of the word broken with respect to the software/internet component of venture capital and goes on to give an explanation that pretty much says if you attempt to play by established rules/metrics of VC land (10x returns, lots of capital out the door), the world has change and that dog don’t hunt.  Narrowing our collective focus, he has a point.  While I believe there is much that works, much that isn’t ‘broken’, there are some new realities which need to be addressed.

I believe there is a central problem which leads to many of the issues Mark attempted to talk about.

Where we are broken

In my opinion we are screwing our collective selves if we don’t invest in a Canadian farm team.  Consider Jevon MacDonald, Ali Asari, and Marc Gingras.  I know all three and we (JLA) have invested in one (Marc).  Jevon has a company called Firestoker; Ali has Well.ca, and Marc’s up with Tungle.

Let’s start with Jevon. I love this guy.  He works 24x7, has co-produced a must read blog for the Canadian Start Up scene, developed camps, conferences, meet-ups, and is trying to get a company off the ground.  What do we (the suits, aka VCs) do with this guy?

Then we have Ali, the founder of Well.ca, Canada’s largest online health and beauty store. They stock more stuff than most pharmacies, give you free shipping, and is made up of truly nice people.  Company is text book. First, it is out of Dad’s pharmacy, then we move out, and then move up, and now it’s the player in Canada.  Ali is a serious success on all the measures you’d expect in business.  We (those suits again) haven’t put a dime into the company. A problem here?

Finally, we have Marc Gingras, the founder of Tungle. Tungle kicks serious ass when you have endless rounds of meetings to deal and are sick of the mindless back and forth of how about this date or that date but not that hour, etc, etc.   Marc got some coin from JLA, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, and Desjardins Venture Capital.  Marc has been previously successful at founding and selling a company, has been in the no business (a VC), and has lived through the RIS customer nightmare.  The guy rocks.

Jevon needs a little seed capital to flush out the idea(s) and see if there is a pony in there. He’s not going to get millions out of the gate nor should he.  He is a classic take a shot, see what pops and if it fails, okay, let’s see if we get ourselves an experienced guy we can have ride a winner.

[Memo to everybody: Let’s take some risk, embrace a little failure, and use it as it should be used; as experience.]

Ali needs expansion capital to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities he has before him. He’s proven the model, is making money, has rabid customer loyalty, and a very smart team. He needs to explore, think big, and take this puppy to the next level.

Marc needs the suits to kick his butt up one side and down the other for success. And I mean this in a good way.  We already know he has an amazing idea, we already know customers love it and would chew off their left leg before going back to email hell trying to schedule a meeting.  So we need to properly bet on the guy, make sure he gets top talent into the company and goes for it now. He needs a flying wedge of support, trust, and rolodexes not CEO 101 training.  Marc, as a CEO, is in the fit –n- polish stage. Tungle will be successful and at the end of that rainbow we (Canada) will have a tier one, multi-time successful CEO who can take an amazing idea over the finish line.  High fives all around.

You can take all the founders (talent) in this country and put each into one of my Jevon/Ali/Marc buckets.  Each of those buckets has different needs over time and we collectively suck at a) not recognizing this problem and b) programmatically fixing it. 

Farm Team Fund (FTF)

Right now, Ontario, Quebec and likely all the Provincial Governments are coming up with various plans to toss money into the VC system.  What we need to do is intelligently grow the farm team and bulk up the VC community so the A players from the farm team can get mainstream VC funding and be off to the races.  This is not the same as giving the VC community money/matching funds/whatever and let business press on as usual. Yes, bulk em up for Series B, C, Mezz, etc, but start at the beginning with the farm team.

To make this work, we get VC firms to cough up people, LPs to accept this is an important issue, and the Government to match monetary commitment; then get out of the way.

On people we recruit from, among others, these folks:

From JLA: yours truly, I volunteer.  I love the smell of burning code in the morning.  I’ll spend hours with the Jevon’s, Ali’s and Marc’s of this country. Give me an Air Pass and I’ll be right over. In addition, my partners John, Tawfiq, Pierre, and Marc all have forgotten more then I know, so grab anybody, you’ve got A-team material.

From Edgestone: Michael Hollend/Derek Smith.  Brilliant, successful, hard working, professionals.

From Growthworks: Scott Pelton/Roger Chabra. Geeks, hard core business types, smart, professionals.

From RBC Venture Partners: Robert Antoniades/David Unsworth. These guys are not stiffs from a bank; far from it. They are successful, smart, hands on, get it, kinda guys.

From RHO Canada: Jeff Grammer. A successful CEO, smart, connected, hard working, off the charts class act.

From Vengrowth:  Peter Carrescia.  9 years of VC Voodoo, Microsoft AND IBM veteran; adds up to serious brain matter around the table.

From Tech Capital Partners: The whole team. They live for this stuff, go to this page and this one; then memorize both.

[There are many others no slight(s) intended this is immediate top of mind.]

Next, each firm from above cough up/carve out 2 million bucks and ‘the Government’ matches it.  Presto, you have a 28 million dollar fund.  Or 1 each for 14.

We assume ZERO IRR.  Start your hearts back up, I’m kidding.  We need to address Mark Skapinker’s point about expectations and the existing/traditional rules.  With this fund you design for lower dollars in, smaller exits, but a rinse –n- repeat mentality of growing serial entrepreneurs.  While the mainstream Canadian VC team focuses on the core, there are some of us working the farm team development.

We take the best ideas from Y-Combinator, Tech Stars, and every other successful program and get them going in Canada.  This isn’t charity, it’s a fund so let’s get the ideas that work and apply them.

We dip into our A-Team resources to assemble an advisory board/investment assistance team made up of our best. We get from the likes of: Austin Hill, Osama Arafat, Peter Schwartz, Stuart Lombard, Alan Lysne, Ken Nickerson, Matt Golden, Albert Lai, Randy Busch, Elliot Noss, Heather Reisman, and Jonathan Erhlich to name just the ones that immediately pop into my head.

The devil is in the details, I know, but I think my point has been made. If we’re going to talk broken, okay, let’s fix what we can fix. My first two boys can benefit from this type of program while Marc already has graduated into main stream.

To sum it up, we need a farm team or we will never, ever, really maximize the possibilities of our entrepreneurs, our Venture Capital industry or the country’s true potential. 

Let’s do it.

Call, write, or twitter your Congress.. sorry, your MP today.

The Twitter Experiment

For a reasonably long period of time I’ve had jlaventures as my Twitter account. I never told anyone. Zero. The experiment was tied to this raging debate I was having with a few people about search engines, searching in general, and natural people behavior when these viral products come on the scene.  I also had maintained that nobody (including my mother, kids, and best friend) would care if I was ‘off for coffee’, ‘going potty’, or anything even close. Naturally, I expected Twitter to evolve and I assumed one of these days it might actually become useful for my needs at the time.

With no mention of Twitter to anyone, around 100 people trickled in as followers.

Along comes the MacHeist

For non-Mac users, this is a group of people that gets a whole bunch of Mac software together for one good low price.  I’ve bought before and I have been very satisfied.  A couple of days ago, these folks send me an email which effectively said if you want a couple of really REALLY cool pieces of software, tweet about the purchase you just made and we’ll give them to you.  I really wanted the software so I played. 

My first tweet was not “Hello world” rather me pimping software.  Capitalism at it’s finest!

Just after this, Seth Godin put a post up about corporate-speak.  To his excellent point, yep, the MacHeist guys were straight up: There is such thing as free, pimp.  Okay, overly snarky, sorry.  The offer was straight up and I decided there was value. 

So, to you 100 or so people, sorry, I really wanted the games, err, important software.

Owww! I hate getting hit from behind

[Disclaimer: BrightSpark and my buddy Mark Skapinker has invested in b5media.]

In the military, they call it friendly fire.  That's kinda what it felt like when I read one of the Wall Street Journal's blog post featuring BrightSpark's Mark Skapinker, essentially saying three things: the Canadian VC industry is dead, Government is heading for the hills, all the good talent headed south, and WTF let's just do it ourselves.  Not exactly all Mark's words but that's the tone of the article.

Go read it and come back. I'll wait.

Oy, where to begin.

[Insert here my love for Mark, respect for Mark's entrepreneurial smarts, and all the stuff designed to make this not a personal response.]

First, the Canadian VC community is not dead. It's not collapsing, disintegrating, melting down, frying, or 'broken'.  The industry is having a tough go of it right now, for sure. We are struggling like everybody else with economic realities (no IPOs, mergers, exits, etc). We have Limited Partners who, like those in the south, are having their own issues. All true. All painful.  But let's not sign the burial contract just yet. We have capital, deals are getting done, and we will come out the other end bruised but alive.

Second, the Canadian Government kicks Uncle Sam's big bureaucratic TARP filled ass when it comes to supporting the entrepreneurial endeavors. At the Federal level as well as the provincial level, there are more programs here than in the U.S.  While you should never base a business on Government grants/programs alone, for great ideas, great companies, these programs exist to help.  Real cash money in some cases.  In other cases, opportunities for young/small companies to play in markets you could only dream about.  I'll write up a separate blog post on this point but for now, dollar for dollar, even with the economy in crisis, Canada blows the US away with her support of entrepreneurs. By a country mile (or 1.61 kilometers).

Third, the talent in Canada rocks.  While Mark's actual comment was repeat entrepreneurs are in short supply, the larger point in my opinion is that of talent.  I think we have lots of talent and we do have repeat winners around here. Greg Kiessling, Garner Bornstein, Phil Deck, Albert Lai, Mark Skapinker(!), Tony Davis(!), Osama Arafat, Stuart Lombard, are just the first names that pop up.  I can only say this: Every business day of every month, I meet great talent.  I read great ideas and I watch smart people start cool businesses.  Canadians.  They pack the house every time there is a meet up. I've traveled from St. John's, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia speaking to hundreds of entrepreneurs.  I got quoted last week saying that we (my partners at JLA, RBC, and BPF) probably see about 600 things a month (note to KT: a month, not a week!). And that's just our three funds.  Lots of this stuff, while not a VC investment, are manned by great people with great businesses.  In summary, talent is not a problem in Canada.

Fourth, we'll do it ourselves. I love Mark. I really do. Mark is smart, Tony is smart, and Sophie keeps those two out of trouble by being 2.5x smarter.  So, heck yeah, go make some businesses. Plunk down a little walking around money, get three things going and make them cash flow positive within a year.  This makes my point of talent (repeat talent), great ideas, businesses  getting built, and the angel money they rounded up speaks to the point about money being available for smart people with great ideas.

Yo, Timothy Hay fearless Venture reporter! Call anytime. Call collect. It's a blog you're writing. You have the space to get some other opinions, eh?

Memo to the CVCA: You might think about cranking up  a little positive spin at the next shindig.

The bottom line for me: I'll debate anybody, anytime, anyplace on why Canada is the best place on the planet to start, grow, and maintain a business. 

Update: Mark McQueen's blog post is here and has the snarky meter cranked up to a 11.

Twitter Money

I suspect many people will go insane about the thought of actually paying to use Twitter and I'm pretty sure the money guys behind it are not keen on backseat driving but.....

My friend Mark McQueen and I were having lunch today. He talked about Twitter starting to charge for services, etc. It was some pretty engaging conversation. Fortunately, he went back to the office and blogged his thoughts.

Check it out and give Mark your thoughts.

Why I Love Automatic Anything

I love it when automatic systems are out there helping me work faster, better, cheaper.  Consider AdSense from the land of G.  You have to love how this blog post is married right up to the perfect ad.  But, heck, at least GM is advertising and spending some money!

[Bonus: The Daily WTF]

I wish I could have this gig. You have people from around the world send you these weird things and you create a hilarious daily blog.  Alex Papadimoulis does a great job on the WTF blog in presenting stuff like this:

"Vista blames Windows XP, film at a 11"

Check out his blog here.

Ten Years can Fly Right By

For those of you keeping score at home it will be ten years since the launch of the Chapters/Indigo web site this month.  Some of the gang is getting together on the 23rd.  The evite is located here. I'll be there (which may reduce the attendance) and it would be a kick to see any and everybody. 

Dogs are Expanding Beyond Homework

Kevin Talbot, one of the co-managers of the BlackBerry Partners Fund, has a good post up entitled "My Dog Ate My Wallet", about his dog going to town on his wallet:

"This is a true story.  It happened a couple of weeks ago when my dog took my wallet from my desk and proceeded to chew my credit cards to pieces.  It appears that he wasn't interested in the cash (which was found strewn across the floor) or my driver's licence (lucky).  I needed to replace three Visa cards and the leather wallet of course.  This took almost two weeks to resolve and the entire episode got me thinking about the "Smartphone as wallet" that is one of our central investment themes."

In the post, Kevin lays out some good commentary on the notion of digital wallets, the human behavior of never leaving home without that mobile phone, and other interesting observations on Smartphone evolution. 

You can read the full post here.

The RIM Store - Open and Interesting

RIM launched the BlackBerry Application store last night (midnight). The bloggers picked up on it and over the last 8 hours, there's been some strong traffic.  Actually pretty high/solid traffic for something that won't really get talked about until today.  Om Malik has a review with the bottom line being "good enough."  Like any good geek, I was on this puppy seconds after it went live and I'm pretty happy with it as well.

An interesting (and, for me expected) observation was the top 25 list and what is on it.

The Bloomberg App is number one as of 8a, followed by Viigo.   You'll see the Yellow Pages Business Finder, WorldMate, Google Quick Search, among others in the top 25.   A 3 buck fart app ranks high than Google Talk, gee there's a shock.  It will be fascinating to watch the top downloads from Apple's Store, RIM and Microsoft continue to evolve as everybody goes after various market segments.  There will be lots of demographic and customer information being squeezed out of these lists.

In any event, the folks in Waterloo deserve a hearty well done for saying when it would be released, delivering on that promise, and producing a very respectable V1.0 product.

 

(3 bucks for a fart app?)