Start-ups Snapshot
Our regular feature on new ventures launched by QSB alumni returns. We continue to receive submissions about the new businesses launched by both QSB grads and current students.
Fitneff Inc.
Our company, Fitneff™, is dedicated to creating innovative products and solutions that increase the activity levels of busy people both at work and at home. Our name is derived from “Fitness” and “Efficiency”, our guiding principles.
Our ‘aha moment’: Laurel reports, “After an inspirational lecture on Business Venturing by Prof. Elspeth Murray, my EMBA’14 classmate Ron Bettin and I headed to the pub at the Donald Gordon Centre. Over glasses of wine, Ron shared his idea for a treadmill desk that he was in the process of developing. He highlighted its benefits, including the improvement of mental agility, of blood circulation in the legs and of productivity. The EMBA curriculum includes an optional New Venture Project, and I encouraged Ron to use this project to test his concept. I told him that if his venture proved to be potentially viable, I’d invest in the company. His new venture passed the test and Ron and I, along with our classmate Devon Bolton, became business partners and co-founders of Fitneff™ in 2013.”
What business problem does your company solve? With physical inactivity being linked to an increase in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer, the effects of long-term sitting have been compared to those of smoking. In an effort to combat these health risks, we’ve introduced our inaugural product, the WalkTop™ Treadmill Desk. It’s a stylish, light, compact and adjustable desktop designed to fit onto most of the popular treadmills on the market.
What the business needs most right now: Financing, namely cash flow. We certainly remember our Accounting 101 classes and Prof. John Moore’s mantra, “Cash is KING”. Maintaining a cash balance is challenging during the initial start-up phase. We need cash to operate; we need cash to manufacture; and we need cash to market and sell. It’s plain, but not simple.
March 17, 2015 update: The FitNeff Walk Top™ Treadmill Desk got a workout when Canadian Business magazine's Executive Editor Carol Toller tried one at her office. "I was asked to try out a treadmill desk and came to love it, fast!' she says in a video accompanying the online feature.
SimpleTax Software Inc.
My company SimpleTax is the friendly, fast, and fun way to file your income tax return. With an innovative design and pay-what-you-want pricing model, we’re changing the way Canadians do their taxes.
Why I started the company, maybe an ‘aha moment’: SimpleTax was born out of frustration. Every time I sat down to tackle my tax return, I found the available options to be poorly designed, slow, and expensive. Year after year, it wasn’t getting any better. I believed there had to be a better way.
What is the business problem that your product/service solves?
On the surface, the problem we solve is very straight-forward: we help you file your personal tax return with the Canada Revenue Agency. We make that process simple and pain-free.
The bigger problem we’re trying to solve is the fear people have of doing their own taxes. Fear is a common tool employed by companies in our space: “if you do it yourself, you’ll make a mistake”. This is why tax preparers are able to charge a significant sum, or take a percentage of your refund, for even the simplest returns. While accountants add value for those with complex tax situations, most Canadians, with the right tool, should have the ability to complete their own tax returns.
The most fun I’ve had so far was the day we opened up our app to the general public after being certified by the CRA. It was both exhilarating and scary. After spending almost a year developing our product, would it be well received? Would anyone even use it? And then, it happened: our first payment.
Hundreds of thousands of returns later, we’re still having fun. We’ve been covered by BetaKit, Techvibes, the Globe & Mail, Financial Post, Vancouver Sun, Metro, CBC, Canadian Business, and Marketing Magazine. We also have an incredible community of users who continue to entertain us with their emails, tweets, and Facebook messages.
Mosaic
Our company, Mosaic Manufacturing, has built a stand-alone accessory for single-colour 3-D printers that enables them to print multiple colours. This is revolutionary because the only reasonably priced 3-D desktop printers on the market offer only one colour. Our add-on product is compatible with 80% of desktop 3-D printers currently available to consumers.
Why we started the company: Heather and I were both enrolled in the Queen’s Summer Innovation Initiative (QSII) program in the summer of 2014.This joint program of Queen’s School of Business and Queen’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science offers paid internships to students interested in entrepreneurship and innovation. We joined forces with teammates Mitchell Debora and Derek Vogt, both BSc(Mechanical Engineering)’14, and Danny Lloyd, a third-year Electrical Engineering student, to form Team Mosaic. Mitch pitched the idea of a 3-D colour-printing product, and we spent the summer building our new venture from the ground up.
The most fun we’ve had so far was when we won the QSII pitch competition. We beat eight other start-ups to secure a $40,000 seed investment. We had pushed ourselves hard the entire summer and made some really solid progress, but received little tangible validation. There was no boss telling us we were doing a good job, nor did we have customers who loved our product. All of our motivation was internal. Winning the pitch competition validated all of our hard work. It was an absolutely indescribable feeling, one that we hope will be eclipsed in the future as our business progresses.
Our future plans include developing a video product demo before launching a crowdsourcing campaign to raise the funds needed to go into full production. This new venture has really captured the imagination of the Mosaic team, with the three recent grads committing to the enterprise on a full-time basis, with help from the two students, who plan to stay involved.