Standout Jobs Launching at DEMO 08 - Live Broadcast Today! Wednesday, Jan 30 2008

I’m here in Sunny California, at the beautiful Marriott Desert Springs Resort where the DEMO conference is being held this year. Yup, Standout Jobs was selected to present at DEMO!

It’s been a long journey for Standout Jobs, and this week marks a major milestone–Standout Jobs has launched our first product, Reception, at DEMO 08. We waited till exactly 7am EST on Monday January 28th, which is when the embargo is lifted according to DEMO rules, to launch the product. The reception (pun intended) has been amazing, we were covered by TechCrunch, GigaOM and Mashable, among the major news sites, as well as local sites such as A frog in the valley, I never nu, Web1979, MontrealTechWatch, TechCFO, Mikel.org, Guillaume Thoreau, and Quebec Valley.

(If you’re interested in all the details, you can of course consult the
Standout Jobs Blog.)

Most of my readers probably also read the likes of my cofounders Ben Yoskovitz and Austin Hill, so all this news is no surprise to you… But I do want to remind you that we will be presenting at 12:44PM EST LIVE on the web at demo.com, and this is where you’ll be able to finally see just exactly why I’ve been so reclusive over the last year! ;-) But to be completely serious for a second, we’d love to have your virtual moral support.

I’d like to also give big props to the Standout Jobs A-Team that made this happen–In alphabetical order:

• Marc Andre Cournoyer
• Natasha Duchene
• Daniel Haran
• Gary Haran
• Austin Hill
• Thanh Vinh Tang
• Alain Wong
• Francis Wu
• Ben Yoskovitz

Thank you for your hard work everyone. We’ll celebrate when I get back!

One Response »

 

I’ve been Nominated for Montreal’s Sexiest Geeks of 2007! Monday, Dec 31 2007

Wow! This is an absolute riot. I’ve been nominated by the Montreal Gazette as one of Montreal’s Sexiest Geeks of 2007!

The competition is pretty stiff, including my good friend Casey McKinnon who has included me in the fun that is Galacticast, and the admittedly uber-sexy Jade Raymond.

Still, I’m for certain the alpha-geek on the roster, since I’m probably the only person who codes on that list!

(OK, OK, Jade is a coder too: she has a Bachlor’s degree in Computer Science from McGill. But she probably doesn’t code anymore these days since she’s now a “game producer”. ;-) )

So vote for me! I’ll reduce taxes! ;-)

One Response »

 

Event Roundup in Montreal Week of Nov 3rd & Status of Montreal Tech Community Saturday, Nov 3 2007

I’ve been ridiculously remiss in blogging and tech-activity organization these days. I have no defense other than to say that at this moment, the best contribution I can make to the Montreal tech community is to ensure that Standout Jobs becomes a success; so all of my energies (and more) are going there.

However, compared to just one year ago, the community has come very far indeed. Just take a look at all the tech events that are happening this week in Montreal:

• Saturday Nov 3rd: BarCampMontreal3
• Tuesday Nov 6th: MontrealOnRails4
• Tuesday Nov 6th: Montreal MySQL Meetup
• Wednesday Nov 7th: FaceBookCampMontreal
• Thursday Nov 8th: Ventures West VC Reception

This reminds me of all the activity that goes on in Silicon Valley, where there are events like this every day of the week. This tells me that Montreal is really approaching Silicon Island every day.

Now, the only thing left is for a few of the most promising startups in Montreal to make big splashes, and we’ll be there!

And so, gentlemen, as they say in my native tongue, 加油!

(To keep up with upcoming Tech Events, be sure to check the events list posted on Montreal Tech Watch)

No Responses »

 

Standout Jobs is Hiring Ruby Gurus and Ruby Devotees Monday, Sep 17 2007

Standout Jobs is hiring again! This time, in addition to Ruby Gurus, we’re also accepting applications for mid-level Ruby Devotees.

To give you a better feel for working with us, our resident Ruby Guru, Marc-André Cournoyer, wrote a great blog post detailing a day in the life of a Standout Jobs hacker. A must-read before you apply!

And no, we didn’t make a video this time around :) but we did put together a nice collage of our photos and people… Check it out!

2 Responses »

 

I’m in an Apple Commercial! Friday, Aug 31 2007

Actually I’m just in today’s Gazette, on the front page of the business section. Not quite as viral as an Apple Commercial but close. ;-)

The subject is online recruiting (of course), specifically recruiting using social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and online classifieds like Craigslist.

Montreal entrepreneur Fred Ngo, co-founder and chief technical officer of Standout Jobs, doesn’t profess the same enthusiasm for Facebook, preferring LinkedIn, a social network made for professional contacts.

But for his hiring needs, the free classified site Craigslist has proven much more effective.

“We put up a job ad on Craigslist and got applications within an hour. We have several resumés now,” Ngo said.

He’s still waiting for someone to respond to the ad he placed on Facebook, but he’s not ready to disavow it just yet. He still sees the benefit of announcing a job though his network of friends in a way that’s easy to pass on.

“Your friends know someone who knows someone who’s looking for a job,” he said.

And going directly to a candidate addresses a major shortcoming of job boards like Craigslist and Monster.com: The most skilled people are usually not looking for work. They’re already hired somewhere.

“And for the candidate, it feels better when someone reaches out to you rather than through some ad,” he said.

Click through to read the whole article.

4 Responses »

 

Cat’s Corner featured in Gmail Video! Wednesday, Aug 29 2007

I’d like to interrupt my blogging haitus to bring you this special message:

Some time ago I noticed that Gmail was soliciting fan video submissions for a promotional video they were putting together. I thought it would be hilarous for Cat’s Corner to submit a shot of the Gmail envelope being passed around a Swingout, and so we did it.

Well, it turns out that over 1100 fan clips were submitted, from 65 countries… Pretty small odds to be selected for the final cut!

But fast forward to today: Our submission made it onto the final cut, AND it was selected for the Thumbnail image! Amazing! I’m so proud… *sniff* Alain and Ann are now worldwide celebrities! :)

Thanks for putting it together, guys.

Edit Thurs. August 30th: It looks like they changed the thumbnail image today. Oh well, at least we had 24 hours of fame. :)

Edit Fri. August 31st: The original thumbnail pic is back! Wonder what the gmail video folks are up to?

4 Responses »

 

Facebook Developer Happy Hour Thursday, Aug 2 2007

Facebook
Originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

A picture of me and Eddie Codel made it to the top of Laughing Squid’s coverage of the Facebook Lunch 2.0 Developer Happy Hour!

Neat!

2 Responses »

 

DemoCampMontreal3 Tonight! Tuesday, Jul 24 2007

Readers of this blog no doubt also read other Montreal Tech Community blogs and will already have been reminded that DemoCampMontreal3 is tonight. Still, it would be remiss of me not to also chime in; so here goes:

DemoCamp Montréal 3
Tuesday, 24 July 2007
18:30 – 20:30
Societé des arts technologiques
1195 boul. St-Laurent
Free admission

( Sign up | Facebook | Upcoming | Google Maps )

I’ll be there, along with the StandoutBoys, so see you there!

One Response »

 

New Business Failure Rate an Urban Myth Tuesday, Jul 3 2007

For years and years, whenever I’d mention to someone that I’d like to start a business, I’d get quoted the infamous “80% of all businesses perish within 5 years” parable.

Well, that piece of “wisdom” never quite sat well with me… and now it seems it’s actually an urban myth!

Entrepreneur.com, in an article titled “Failure to Launch?“, reports:

…approximately half of all new businesses were still operating after four years. Headd and other researchers have had similar findings. “To my knowledge, none of them nor myself have run into a substantiated finding [showing] 9 out of 10 fail the first year,” Headd says.

So for some reason this urban myth has been passed on, year after year, person to person, discouraging people from entrepreneurship. The article sums it up quite nicely:

At any rate, it seems clear that some people simply want to believe that entrepreneurship is harder than it really is.

If I were a cynic I’d say that “The Man” has passed on this “wisdom” in order to stifle competition and keep the worker bees content… But I’m no cynic ;-) so I think this urban legend is probably just an expression of peoples’ fear of uncertainty.

So there you go folks. Yes, it’s not easy to start something, but it’s also not as hard as you think. My advice is then to get out there and just do it!

4 Responses »

 

My Very Own Trading Card? Sunday, Jul 1 2007

Sunir at Freshbooks cornered and interviewed me at Mesh… and now he’s written a great post about me and Standout Jobs in his SuperEntrepreneurs series! I now have my very own trading card… Thanks Sunir. :)

2 Responses »