It was a pleasure to meet both of them. This was an amazing experience for me, to pretend to be an expert! The crowd was 30 to 50 people in size, mostly business and media related. There's amazing talent in Nova Scotia, Canada! Tether was the overall provincial winner of the I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition we entered and won.
Hear from Patrick Hankinson, director of marketing for Tether, Matthew Doucette, co-founder of Xona Games, and Duncan Enman, founder of Can Stock Photo, as they discuss the logic of their pricing strategies and what they have learned about pricing’s impact on top and bottom line growth.
Patrick Hankinson, Director of Marketing, Tether (www.tether.com) – Tether has developed a simple and inexpensive way for laptop users to connect to the internet through smartphones, including the BlackBerry. For users who do not have free wired or WiFi access, but need to connect their laptops to the internet in an airport or a taxi, for example, Tether enables them to quickly connect through their smartphones, for a one-time fee, without incurring any additional charges. Tether has attracted worldwide media attention, including coverage in The New York Times, and has already been sold to thousands of users. In addition to his role with Tether, Patrick is president of Ninja Otter Inc., a marketing and advertising company.
Duncan Enman, Founder, Can Stock Photo (www.canstockphoto.com) – Can Stock Photo is a microstock agency, a company that sells stock photos and illustrations very affordably. Duncan founded the company in 2004, and it soon became the busiest stock-photo site in the country, today representing 2.2 million photos and 50,000 members. In 2008, US-based stock-photo giant Fotosearch acquired Can Stock Photo and hired Duncan to run the company.
Panel moderator – Dan MacDonald, President and CEO, Innovacorp
(Side note:My personal YouTube channelalso just passed 50,000 views! Check it out for some cool gaming captures, top 1,000 Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 runs, music compositions, and even some sub-minute Rubik's Cube solves. And check out Jason's personal YouTube channel for more of the same and much more impressive Rubik's Cube solves!)
Decimation X is Japan's 12th top rated Xbox 360 game (Retail, XBLA, and XBLIG combined). (current rank)
Decimation X topping Xbox 360 all-inclusive* charts in Japan, at #12 overall! (current rank) *Retail, Xbox LIVE Arcade, and Xbox LIVE Indie Games combined.
Download:Decimation X (Xbox LIVE; 80 Microsoft Points)
Xona Games wins $100,000 taking first place in InNOVAcorp's I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition! There are actually five winners across five zones, as shown in the official press release below. For more history on this contest, revisit our first post. Congratulations to all the winners and runner-ups. We hope this inspires more indie game developers out there! Please feel free to drop us a line.
Innovacorp today announced the first and second place award winners in the provincial I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition, an innovative competition to identify and support high potential Nova Scotia knowledge-based businesses.
“The start-up businesses chosen as first and second place award winners are excellent examples of the types of high potential Nova Scotia companies that have the opportunity to compete globally,” said Dan MacDonald, president and CEO of Innovacorp.“The I-3 finalists are all targeting high growth industry sectors, including clean technology, life sciences, information technology, and advanced manufacturing.”
The first and second place award winners in each zone are:
Zone 1 (Cumberland, Colchester, Pictou, Antigonish and Guysborough counties) 1st Place – LST Energy – Jim Trussler, Gus Swanson and Philip Landry – Pictou 2nd Place – X-Flux Environmental Technologies – David Risk – Antigonish
Zone 2 (Lunenburg, Queens, Shelburne and Yarmouth counties) 1st Place – Xona Games – Matthew and Jason Doucette – Yarmouth 2nd Place – Ocean Leader Fisheries Ltd. – Milton LeBlanc and Bruce LeBlanc – Lower Wedgeport
Zone 3 (Digby, Annapolis, Kings and Hants counties) 1st Place – Clare Machine Works Ltd. – Vince Stuart – Meteghan Centre 2nd Place – Fireworks FX Inc./Solar Flare Inc. – Fred Wade – Grand Pre
Zone 4 (Halifax Regional Municipality) 1st Place – Tether – Tim Burke and Stephen Hankinson – Halifax 2nd Place – Carbon Sense Solutions Inc. – Robert Niven – Halifax
Zone 5 (Victoria, Cape Breton, Inverness and Richmond counties) 1st Place – Health Tech Outcomes – Corrine McIsaac – New Waterford 2nd Place – Billdidit Inc. – Joe Menchefski – Sydney, and Bill Coady – Port Hawkesbury
The first and second place zone winners each receive $100,000 and $40,000 respectively in a combination of cash and in-kind business building services from professional services firms located in their zones to be used for the further development of their start-up ventures. The first place winners will move on to the provincial round happening February 9, to compete for a $100,000 seed investment from Innovacorp.
The winners in each zone were selected through three rounds of competition by a panel of private sector judges. In the third round of judging, the finalists presented oral pitches of their start-up businesses to the judges. Finalists were evaluated based on business plan credibility, management experience, high barrier to competitive entry, large addressable market, and the probability of obtaining a fully funded business plan. Ultimately, the winners were determined by the judges to have the highest probability of entering the market in a competitively sustainable fashion and having the most commercialization potential.
Innovacorp ran a pilot I-3 competition in Cape Breton in 2006 and its first provincial competition in 2007-2008, and is currently concluding its second provincial competition. In less than four years, the competition has received a remarkable 270 start-up company submissions, reflecting the increasingly high level of entrepreneurship happening across Nova Scotia.
Zone 2: Lunenburg, Queens, Shelburne and Yarmouth counties
1st Place: Xona Games—Matthew Doucette and Jason Doucette, Yarmouth – is an independent game development studio targeting Xbox 360 and PC gaming platforms. The company concentrates on intensifying retro-style games and has already gained international recognition, placing 7th in the world and 2nd in Canada in Microsoft’s 2009 Dream Build Play competition. Xona’s game Decimation X is the number one rated Xbox LIVE Indie Game in Japan.
Duality ZF Gameplay: Boss Rush 2009/Dec/22 — Matthew Doucette
Duality ZF gameplay footage: 3X multiplayer, multi-directional, BOSS RUSH, in HARD difficutly.
Introducing Decimation X 2009/Dec/21 — Matthew Doucette
Introducing our second game, Decimation X. A 1-4 player intense retro shmup.
MIGS 2009 Wrap Up 2009/Dec/20 — Matthew Doucette
Montreal International Game Summit (MIGS) 2009 Wrap Up.
Xona Games I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition Finalist 2009/Oct/22 — Matthew Doucette
Xona Games was announced a round two finalist (top 5 in our zone competing for $100,000, and top 25 in all five zones competing for $200,000) in the I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition.
Duality ZF Fan Prediction 2009/Oct/07 — Matthew Doucette
A Duality ZF prediction sent in by a true fan!
Xona Games Featured on CBC TV News 2009/Sep/24 — Matthew Doucette
CBC TV News feature on Xona Games, Duality ZF, and the story of Jason and Matthew Doucette.
Xona Games on CBC News Website 2009/Sep/23 — Matthew Doucette
Xona Games article on CBC News Website, based on the prior CBC Radio One (Information Morning) and CBC TV News interview.
CBC Radio One Interviews Xona Games on Duality ZF 2009/Sep/23 — Matthew Doucette
Ryan Pierce (CBC Radio One) interviews Jason and Matthew Doucette (Xona Games) on Duality ZF's success in Dream Build Play 2009 and future plans.
Duality ZF & Hurricane X2 Make XNA Spotlight 2009/Sep/21 — Matthew Doucette
Duality ZF and Hurricane X2 recognized for being Dream Build Play 2009 Finalists, in the XNA Spotlight.
Duality ZF in Hometown News 2009/Sep/16 — Matthew Doucette
Duality ZF makes our hometown (Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada) newspaper!
Xona Games on Facebook 2008/Sep/28 — Matthew Doucette
Facebook fans, please join our Xona Games group.
Introducing Duality ZF 2008/Sep/24 — Matthew Doucette
Introducing Duality ZF, an Xbox 360 2D shooter from Xona Games.
Xona Games on YouTube 2008/Sep/12 — Matthew Doucette
YouTubers, please join our Xona Games channel.
Introducing Xona Games 2008/Aug/28 — Matthew Doucette
Introducing Xona Games, the next big thing to come from Xona.com!
The Science of Getting Rich 2007/Feb/11 — Wallace D. Wattles
The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles, 1910.
Editing Google Toolbar Dictionary 2007/Feb/11 — Jason Doucette
How to edit Google Toolbar's user dictionary, in case of the addition of a misspelled word.
Ramblings in Realtime 2007/Feb/05 — Michael Abrash
These are the articles about how Quake works that I wrote during the period 1995-1997, when John Carmack and I were developing Quake.
IE7: Open Homepage In New Tabs 2007/Jan/30 — Matthew Doucette
Internet Explorer 7 opens a blank page for new tabs. Here's how to open your homepage instead.
IE7: Disable Language Bar 2007/Jan/24 — Matthew Doucette
Updating to Internet Explorer 7 enables the "Language Bar". Here's how to disable it.
Get Rich Books and Greed 2007/Jan/21 — Matthew Doucette
Thoughts on "get rich" books and their relationship with greed.
Turbo Pascal's 64-bit comp Type 2006/Jul/29 — Jason Doucette
Some history: Exactly what was the deal with Turbo Pascal's mongrel 64-bit integer type, comp, which was handled as a floating point type? Why is its smallest value -(2^63)+1 instead of the expected -2^63 for a signed 8-byte integer?
How do Variable Argument List Functions Work? 2006/Jul/27 — Jason Doucette
How do variable argument list (variadic) functions work? How does printf() know how to deal with both float and double data types for the %f format specifier?
Smallest Positive Floating Point Values 2006/Jul/26 — Jason Doucette
The floating point format allows you to store a smaller positive number than the smallest positive value you think the format can store. Huh? And, if your code does not expect such small magnitudes, then you may be in for some trouble.
Easily Avoid Large C++ Class Copies 2006/Jun/14 — Jason Doucette
Avoid the accidental creation of copies of your large classes, to avoid wasted memory, slow performance, and best of all: avoid manually recreating your own versions of the Copy Constructor and Assignment Operator!
How To Upgrade phpBB 2006/Apr/24 — Matthew Doucette
A simple step-by-step tutorial guiding you on how to upgrade your phpBB bulletin board system to a newer version.
The TI-99/4A Home Computer 2006/Apr/15 — Matthew Doucette
A small tribute to the TI-99/4A Home Computer.
Xona.com Trivia 2005/Nov/10 — Matthew Doucette
Xona.com trivia!
Interested in Writing Tech. Articles For Xona.com? 2005/Nov/09 — Matthew Doucette
Do you enjoy writing articles? Are you enthusiastic about technology? Please read on. Xona.com is looking for motivated authors.
Visual Studio .NET Keyboard Shortcuts Macro 2005/Aug/02 — Jason Doucette
Visual Studio .NET macro that creates an HTML table of all current keyboard shortcuts. Useful for finding key bindings, or for an easier way to browse through them.
Inter.net Violation: Unlimited Account Overusage 2005/Jun/19 — Matthew Doucette
My ISP, Inter.net, is threatening to shut down my "Unlimited Internet access" account if my family members use it more than 1 hour and 15 minutes, individually, per day, on average.
Uninstall Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) 2005/Mar/16 — Matthew Doucette
Sometimes Add/Remove programs will NOT uninstall Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) due to a known bug. This is how to uninstall DAP if this happens to you.
Domain Hacks & Email Hacks 2004/Nov/03 — Matthew Doucette
Background info on "domain hacks" (del.icio.us, blo.gs, cr.yp.to) and "email hacks" (j@m.es, w@y.ne).
Create an MP3 Alarm Clock 2004/Oct/20 — Jason Doucette
Why wake up to the annoying buzzer of your alarm clock, when you can let your computer play one of your favourite songs in the morning?
Google Gmail Invites 2004/Oct/17 — Matthew Doucette
Here are some free Gmail invites, Google's awesome new online email.
Spam Inspector 4.0 Review 2004/Aug/30 — Jason Doucette
A review of Spam Inspector 4.0 from Giant Company Software based on my extensive use - from installing it and using it daily for several months to dealing with customer support.
Anti-Aliased Text: Better or Worse? 2004/Aug/03 — Matthew Doucette
Anti-aliased text is sometimes better, but sometimes worse, than aliased text. Here is why.
Investigate Windows Processes 2004/Aug/03 — Matthew Doucette
Ever wonder what all those processes running on your Windows system are for?
Programming Windows, 5th Edition - Errata Addendum 2004/Jul/01 — Jason Doucette
I created and maintain an extensive errata list of program bugs, text typos, and errors for Charles Petzold's Programming Windows, 5th Edition - the bible of Windows programming.
Visual C++ .NET Standard Edition - Free Optimizing Compiler 2004/Jun/29 — Jason Doucette
How to freely obtain and integrate Microsoft's expensive Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional Edition optimizing compiler and linker into Visual C++ .NET Standard Edition.
Stop Spam Mail 2004/Jun/17 — Matthew Doucette
Here are various ways I stop spam emails without using an email filter.
Monitor Convergence 2004/Jun/09 — Matthew Doucette
Optimize your monitor's convergence to produce the clearest possible image.
