Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Montreal
Heri who is doing a very cool job writing MontrealTechWatch recently did two maps of the Montreal Technology Community scene. Very cool to see lot’s of friends and thanks to Heri for doing this (and for the mentions).
Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Personal
I want to congratulate my brother Hamnett, father Hammie and the entire team at Radialpoint who were just honored by Profit Magazine as the fastest growing company in 
Quebec (measured in 5 year revenue growth) and the 32 fastest in Canada.
This is a great acknowledgement of a lot of hard work done by the entire team over there. Radialpoints evolution from its beginings to its position today and the current success as one of Canada’s fastest growing technology firms is one a great Canadian success story. Not many ventured backed companies succesfully navigated the late 90’s and early 2000’s and large provider of managed services to ISPs during the meltdown that network providers and the industry at large were in the midst of.
Early this week I was at a conference where Profit magazine columnist Rick Spence was doing a case study on what Quebec’s fastest growing companies do well. He highlighted how Radialpoint has focused on it’s partners business success and has become a critical partner for its customers in helping them earn additional revenue and reduce customer churn.
I picked up a copy of the Profit Magazine that goes on stands next week from Rick and my brother Hamnett is interviewed in an article on serial entrepreneurs;
Most repeat CEOs are creatures of habit, getting into businesses in industries they know and understand. Take Hamnett Hill, co-founder and CEO of Montreal-based Radialpoint Inc. (No. 32). At 35, Hill has owned five businesses, all of them in the technology sector. To help pay the bills while at university in the early 1990s, Hill started a multimedia consulting firm that designed PowerPoint presentations for executives and corporate-training programs. At 21, he and his brother Austin launched an Internet provider in the early dot-com days of 1994, which grew to be the third-largest in Canada. When Hill realized how hard it would be to turn a profit — especially as big telcos entered the business — he sold the company to a firm that eventually became BCE Emergis. Hill then set his sights on the Next Big Thing on the Web: privacy. He and Austin started Zero-Knowledge Systems, an encryption company. When the tech bubble burst in 2001, Hill put the brakes on the privacy service, restructured the company and created Radialpoint, which provides managed Internet services for the world’s largest broadband ISPs.
Radialpoint is continuing a long time tradition of taking the entire company and friends of the company out to see a movie (Ocean’s 13) tomorrow, and they have invited our team at Akoha and Standout Jobs to join them.
Thanks to everyone at Radialpoint for the invite - we are looking forward to it, and congratulations on another great year.
Radialpoint has a number of positions open and has a standout culture of it’s own. If you are looking for a great company to join, check out the open positions they currently are hiring for.
Posted by austin under Akoha, Canada Tech Scene, Community, Conference
I spent last week in Toronto where I had the incredible pleasure of doing a keynote discussion at the Mesh Conference with Tom Williams of GiveMeaning and our great friend and Mesh organizer Rob Hyndman.
Our panel was on social change and charity online, and I was a little nervous when I accepted the invitation because Akoha, my main project and current startup, is still under development and has yet to launch anything.
I had plenty of ideas to talk about. I’ve spent the last three years studying and thinking about ideas on how the Internet can be leveraged for social change, and how the emerging gift economy of social media creates new structures for collective action.
Tom was incredible telling his story of how he came to be working on social change & philanthropy and the great work he is doing at GiveMeaning. Someone later that evening would tell me they felt awful for me after Tom spoke first because they felt that no one could follow such a great opening. (He did go on to say that we complimented each other incredibly well and loved our panel)
I also spoke publicly for the first time about how the loss of my brother Morgan after his battle with cancer and my attendance at the TED conference a week after his funeral was a turning point in my life.
Tom’s write up of the panel say’s it all when he mentions we were both grounded and authentic and I think the fact that neither of us were selling anything, just sharing our experiences that shaped our careers and how we are choosing to be entrepreneurs is what resonated with people.
The panel was an incredible discussion that Tom and I continued throughout the next two days with the attendees and other speakers. Tom and I are kindred souls and I think out shared passion for these issues came through on the panel.
There were a number of people who wrote about our panel, including some liveblogging that gives you some feel for how the discussion went. Here is a round up of some of the posts about the panel from Google Blog Search & Technorati. Here are some photo’s I showed up in from the conference. (Yes I am going bald - blame genetics & 15 years of startups :)
I have tons of other Mesh stories that are deserving blog posts, including some thoughts on the incredible number of young entrepreneurs I had a chance to meet. There was an incredible energy in the hallways where I found myself hanging with old friends and new.
The conference was different from many I attend in that there was a large diversity in the types of attendees with entrepreneurs, social media experts, investors and venture capitalists, technologists, programmers and corporate representatives from large and small companies. This created some unique conversations, as people were sharing lessons and ideas in a very co-operative discussion that wasn’t just focused on who acquired who that day.
I want to thank my friends and Mesh organizers, Mathew Ingram, Mark Evans, Stuart McDonald, Mike McDerment and Rob Hyndman.
They did an incredible job hosting a great conference. Thank you all for inviting me to be a part of this fun event.
Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Community, Standout Jobs
I’m announcing today at the Mesh 07 conference a small initiative that I am helping Zerofootprint co-ordinate.
DarkGreenPC is a non-profit, community organized open source project inspired by Seti@Home and Distributed.net where we are going enable people to optimize the power usage of their computers collectively and turn energy saving into a social activity.
I’m an advisor to Zerofootprint and my friend Ron Dembo and I presented this idea at an meeting on initiatives to combat climate collapse organized by John Doerr at the TED conference and got incredible support for the project.
We are now looking to hire an open source product leader.
Here is a small Standout Job advertisement for the position.
We’ll be posting more details on an upcoming project blog at DarkGreenPC.org. For more information on the project you can see this information at Zerofootprint.
Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Conference, Personal
I’m in Toronto all week and will be speaking at the following events.
JCI Toronto Entrepreneurship talk: Tomorrow night be speaking about entrepreneurship and my experience starting companies at the Junior Chamber International’s Young Entrepreneurs association Toronto chapter. Tuesday May 29th, 6:30pm - JCI Toronto - Delta Chelsea Hotel. There is a $55 registration fee for this event. You can register here.
Mesh Conference: I’m really excited about the Mesh Conference this week. Many old friends from across Canada, and some friends from the valley are attending. The Mesh organizers have done an incredible job with the agenda and line up and I’m proud to be included among an amazing line up of speakers. Mesh is already sold out.
Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Community, Conference
DemocampMontreal2 is tonight. We have some visiting guest in from out of town including some great guest presenters and my friend, angel investor and tech entrepreneur Patrick Lor.
This week at Democamp the following presenters will be demonstrating tonight at 6:30 at the SAT.
It promises to be a great night and the SAT is opening the bar, so come join us for a late cinq-a-sept and see what is occuring in the technology community.
Posted by austin under Blogging, Canada Tech Scene, Community
During my recent trip to Calgary my friends Patrick Lor, Claudia Moore & Sarah Blue from Cambrian House and Kemptom Lam helped me organize a local blogger dinner where I got to meet some great local entpreneurs, Calgary social media & tech folks.
In attendance where Patrick Lor, Sarah Blue, Claudia Moore, David Gluzman, Tom West, Jasmine Antonick, Matthew Dorey, Nox Dineen, Matt Lonsdale, Mark Kornak, Ivan Sierralta, Fred Yee, Mark Rosenberger, and Kempton Lam.
Here is a video I shot with some of the local Calgary technology community saying hello.
Tom West has a great write up of the night.
One of the goals of the dinner was to help instigate (in the spirit of my friend & Barcamp/Democamp instigator grandaddy David Crow and Calgary native Tara Hunt) the Barcamp and Democamp movement in Calgary.
My friend Patrick Lor had these kind words and great announcement about Calgary’s Barcamp and Democamp kick off.
Well, he flies into town last week, and this week we have set a date for Calgary’s first BarCamp. Thanks to Austin Hill for instigating all of this. Also, huge thanks to Sarah at Cambrian House for organizing.
BarCamp Calgary will be Calgary’s premiere unconference, a showcase of Calgary’s technology community. Sign up now!
Date: Saturday, May 26th
Time: 9:00 to 6:00
Cost: Free, IF you promise to spread the word to attendees, presenters, and sponsors.We’re also planning DemoCamp Calgary for April 24th, which is a 2 hour meeting with 4 or 5 company presentations that are strictly PowerPoint free! Why no PowerPoint? - check this out, and see how great a product presentation can be when there are no slides. Sign up here.
Kempton has written up a great report on our discussion about the Barcamp & Democamp ideas that we discussed.
The Barcamp/Democamp local community technology meetups hold a lot of promise for Canada’s technology community and I’m happy to help spread the word. I saw some interesting companies while sitting as a judge at business plan presentation session that Patrick invited me to participate in. My take is that innovation in Calgary is like with other cities in Canada where there is more going on in our own backyards then most people realize.
I’m already involved as an angel investor in one startup that was born out of the Barcamp movement and have met two of the teams I’m mentoring through these meetups.
With the great local entrepreneurs and community members I met in Calgary helping get this going I think something similar could easily occur in Calgary.
Just a reminder DemocampMontreal2 is next Thursday March 29th. There are going to be some interesting surprises at this Democamp so make sure to sign up and come on out.
Posted by austin under Blogging, Canada Tech Scene, Interview
I’ve had the pleasure to work closely with my friend Craig Silverman for more than five years starting while he was part of the media relations team at Zero-Knowledge Systems and then when we worked together on various projects since then.
As part of my continuing series of interviews with members of the Canadian technology scene it was my chance to turn the microphone towards Craig Silverman to talk about his blog Regret the Error and the various projects he has going on.
So, Mr. Silverman after years of you doing interviews for & with me, this 
is a new one. Tell me about how Regret The Error got started, which has become quite the success.
Yes, this is a bit of a switch. My, how the tables have turned, Mr. Hill. The hunter has becomes the hunted. Let’s hope my performance is up to par.
I launched Regret the Error in October 2004, but I came up with the idea several months before and just let it sit for a while. The concept was to create a site that presented the funniest, most egregious and shocking media errors and corrections, and also use this compelling content as a means to get people – journalists and the public – interested in the issue of media accuracy. I had been reading a lot of blogs at the time and wanted to come up with something media-related that might find an audience. To my surprise, the site attracted about 10,000 visitors its first day. That told me I was going to be doing this for a while.
How has the response been from editors and the newspaper industry?
I’m proud to say the response from the journalism community has been overwhelmingly positive. This is good for two reasons.
I suppose the counterpoint could be that I’m not being provocative enough to incur dissention, but my goal is to have a positive overall effect on journalism and that means I‘m more interested in having a meaningful, professional discussion as opposed to screaming bloody murder about the press’ problems with accuracy. And, yes, there are problems.
As a side note, there are many editors and working journalists sending in errors and corrections from their own publications. So they seem to have no problem bringing their own missteps to light. I think that’s healthy.
Any thoughts on the changes occurring to the news media industry right now?
Depending on whom you speak with, this is a time when good journalists are losing their jobs or leaving the industry in droves and the mainstream media as we know it is slowing sinking like a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit. Or, it’s a revolutionary time in the history of the press, a time when new technologies are forcing old models and organizations to change and embrace new ways of delivering the news. This means being (get ready for the buzz words) “platform agnostic” – delivering news any and every way people want it. This requires new levels of transparency about the newsgathering process, and involving people other than journalists in the collection and dissemination of information.
I’m generalizing here with the two schools of thought, but as much as I lament the loss of jobs and believe this can only lower the quality of journalism, I look at the changes taking place as part of a remarkable opportunity for both the press and the media-savvy person at large. Journalists used to have a kind of monopoly on the news. Every morning a newspaper would hit your doorstep and tell you what you were supposed to know. Radio would fill you in during the day, and TV would wrap it all up in a nice package at night. Then you could turn to a magazine or book for a more focused or long-term view on the news. It was a nice little ecosystem of information, and the average person largely picked from a menu of options determined by the media itself. It made media companies rich as hell and it made journalists, who are notoriously underpaid, feel a sense of power and responsibility.
Now, for example, anyone can start a blog and report their own news, be it about what their cat did that day, or what they see going on in their community (work, geography, profession, family etc.) In the words of Dan Gillmor, anyone can “commit acts of journalism.” That’s remarkable. It’s also game-changing.
The old model is what one newspaper editor in the US called “fortress journalism.” The media opened the gates and provided the plebes with what the media determined important and then closed up until the next time *they* were scheduled to bring down the word of God. Rarely did the fortress open its gates and let the people in to see how this mysterious news oracle operated, or enable people to make a meaningful contribution. (Think of how little space was devoted to letters to the editor, and how hard it was for the average person to get a submission printed on the op-ed pages.)
Now it’s the people who dictate how, when and where they want their information. The explosion of options for receiving — and producing — news has changed the old dynamic and journalists and media companies are working to adapt. It’s a relatively messy process right now. Large organizations are often by their nature slow to adapt to change and so we have a blossoming of independent news providers, mostly online, doing some remarkably innovative things.
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the publisher of The New York Times recently set tongues wagging when he said, “I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care, either.” Obviously, he could have phrased that a bit better. “I don’t care” suggests a lack of engagement that brought out the knives in the press, but I think his statement is a positive one. (He subsequently clarified his statement; see here: http://themediamob.observer.com/2007/02/times-sulzberger-newspaper-will-be-around-for-a-long-time.html )
Newspapers as organized providers of information, commentary, analysis and entertainment will continue. But already a newspaper is much more than the paper product: it is a website with podcasts and video, and often also an electronic version. I don’t see the daily paper going away in the very short term, but there’s no question that newspaper newsrooms are thinking of themselves less as being linked to a paper product and more as news providers for a variety of mediums. If the people want their news online, a newspaper damn well better give it to them. And if they want video and audio and archives and chats with journalists etc., these operations know they don’t have much of a choice. People can and will go elsewhere for their news — and they can by and large get it for free. That old fortress is fast crumbling and the villagers have breached the walls.
Maybe that sounds negative, but I think there are remarkable opportunities for news innovation and the barriers to entry are lower than ever before. This is a threat to the established media companies, but they are also extremely well positioned. They have the staff (if they’d just stop cutting and look more to reassigning and retraining…), the resources etc. They also have one thing that brings us back to Regret the Error: credibility. In this onslaught of information and news, people want to find a source that they can trust. It’s an inherent human trait. Trust is a factor in so many of our daily decisions, and it is the cornerstone of the press. If large media organizations can rededicate themselves to delivering demonstrably more accurate, reliable and trustworthy reporting, they can rise above the noise and reaffirm their place at the top of the news food chain. One of the key ways to do this is to (in my best Ronald Reagan voice) tear down those fortress walls. Trust today requires transparency and collaboration. Let the villagers in.
For a really interesting take on this shift, I recommend reading this post from an executive at IDG. It’s really on point:
http://colincrawford.typepad.com/idg/2007/02/the_transformat.html
(Hat tip to the remarkable Jeff Jarvis for spotting it.)
Tell me about your role as Director of Verification for NewAssignment.Net?
Ah, a perfect segue. NewAssignment.Net is a non-profit project started by Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU. The goal is to see how professional journalists and the public at large can collaborate together to research, report, write and edit stories. The idea is to experiment with “open source reporting” and see if we can develop the tools, process and standards that could be used by other media organizations and groups. The focus is on investigative reporting.
My role is to try and develop the fact checking portion of the project. How do we enable groups of people to come together and verify the research and reporting done by the NewAssignment reporters? What tools and systems can we build to meet the highest possible standard of accuracy in what we do? Those are the questions we’re grappling with, and it’s going to take time to answer them. As of now, the team just launched the new site where this “crowdsourced” reporting can take place, and within that site there will soon be a section devoted to networked fact checking. Check it out and please sign up to contribute:
Hopefully, we can develop the technology, policies and practices that can be used by other groups and media organizations to incorporate the so-called “wisdom of crowds” into their work. Reuters has already stepped up with some funding because they recognize the opportunities for this kind of work. And because we’re non-profit, we can act as an incubator and experimental place to advance this concept.
You can read more about my role here:
http://www.newassignment.net/blog/craigsilverman/nov2006/06/can_there_be_inn
More about crowdsourcing here:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
And:
http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com
You also just got your first book deal, congratulations. What can you tell me about the book?
Thanks. Not to brag, but I’m actually under contract for two books right now. The first is a book based on my work at Regret the Error. It will be a definitive look at media errors and accuracy going back to the time when news was exchanged by word of mouth through the invention of newspapers and broadcast media and into today. I look at how the press evolved to make accuracy a cornerstone of its operations, and how studies over the last 70 years show that we are, unfortunately, not walking the talk. The book will feature tales of some of the most egregious and hilarious media errors of history and recent times, and offer suggestions for making the press more accurate. Of course, it will also include hundreds of the best corrections from the website. It will be released in December. Penguin is publishing it in Canada, and Union Square Press (a division of Sterling) is publishing it in the US, UK and Australia.
The second book is a project I’m co-writing. I’m working with the infamous Mafiaboy. He’s the guy who, as a teenager, unleashed devastating denial of service attacks against web giants like Yahoo!, eBay, E*TRADE etc. back in 2000. The FBI and RCMP hunted him down and arrested him a few months later. He’s now grown up and is ready to tell his story. (He has never uttered a word to the press.) We are also going to write about the realities of online security and offer people and businesses concrete advice about how to protect themselves. His goal now is to help educate people about online security. That book will be published in Fall 2008. Penguin owns the world rights to that one.
I never would have guessed it would come together like this, but if I hadn’t spent three years at Zero-Knowledge I probably wouldn’t be able to write this book with him. It goes to show that you never know how certain experiences are going to benefit you down the road.
What do you find exciting about what’s occurring in Montreal in terms of the technology & social media scene?
Well, I was very impressed by some of what I saw at BarCamp Montreal. I think we’ve got a lot of sleeper hits gestating in Montreal and we’re edging our way towards a bit of a breakout. What I like most is the sense of community that seems to exist. People working in these areas are always open to collaborate, meet and talk. There is competition but also a sense that a rising tide can lift all boats. I continue to be impressed by what Hugh McGuire has done with LibriVox (so much that I wrote about the project for The New York Times and Montreal Gazette; read the articles at http://www.craigsilverman.ca ), and even though he talked a bit of smack about the lethargy of Montrealers, Julien Smith is a podcast master. Though I can drink him under the table and proved it a few weeks back. Then there’s Mitch Joel who, I swear to God, knows everyone. I recently had trouble finding a source for an article I was writing, so I sent Mitch an IM and he gave me the perfect contact in about a minute flat.
I’m also wondering exactly what the hell this Project Ojibwe (now Akoha) thing is all about, Austin? You used to not be able to keep anything a secret and all of a sudden you’re a freaking vault. It scares me, though as a former member of your communications department at Zero-Knowledge, I have to say I’m also extremely proud. As a final note, I think it’s interesting and promising that Google is coming to town. It shows once again that we have a huge amount of talent here. Let the recruiting battles begin.
For a few possible readers of the blog who might want me to ask, have you heard from Spanky Bodega and do you know if he has any words to pass on to his fans?
Spanky actually sent me a letter recently. He is in Costa Rica. It said:
“Craig,
The raven flies at night and the dog howls in the day. Spanky here. Sun is good, beer is better. My novel is coming along well but the police have confiscated chapter two due to its potential to ‘incite violence and upset the masses.’ Will bribe them with Baton Rouge ribs to get it back. Please send 15 racks of Baton Rouge ribs. (Ten for me, five for them. Extra sauce all around.)
And tell everyone to stop worrying; that rash cleared up fine.
Spanky B.”
Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Community
It’s short notice, but I’m in Calgary doing some business and visiting family until Friday and was speaking with 
some local friends & bloggers who expressed some interest in organizing a blogger dinner.
Shel Israel (co-author of Naked Conversations) was talking to me on Monday about how he and co-author Robert Scoble have met bloggers around the world through these dinners.
I’ve attended these blogger dinners in Montreal and Toronto and they have been helpful in creating some sense of local tech community.
Some Calgary people have been asking me questions about the Barcamp movement and getting a regular one going in Calgary and this might be a good topic of conversation.
If you are interested in these topics, and want to come out for a meetup let me know.
Patrick Lor and Kempton Lam have both said they are interested. Kempton has a post up about the idea as well.
We are thinking about somewhere around Chinook mall near 7pm or 8pm Thursday evening. If you are interested contact Kempton or leave a comment here. We’ll announce the final details soon.
Posted by austin under Blogging, Canada Tech Scene, Entrepreneurs, Personal
Sometimes the light’s all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it’s been.
Truckin, Grateful Dead
I wrote this post in October 2006 but delayed in posting it until I had time to get comfortable with blogging. Although I’ve edited it a bit in the last couple of weeks before posting, most of the content remains the same. I attempted to write a shorter version of it recently, but decided that I would retain the original format of the post I wrote almost six months ago. It is fitting that I’m posting this from the TED conference since it was the TED conference that inspired the idea for my new project, leading me to leave the company I founded with my brother & father.
It was almost a decade ago in the spring of 1997 when Hamnett and Hammie (my brother & father) and I had just sold our Internet provider Total.Net and had begun to work on a new venture. Our new company was based on the idea that we could build a number of services to protect individuals privacy and security online by making military grade encryption and privacy technologies easy for consumers to use.
There was a very large discussion going on about the fears of Internet users regarding privacy and we felt we could make a positive impact on millions of peoples lives with our solution.
While trying to come up with a name for our new venture, I developed a list of all the encryption & privacy related concepts and keywords that I sent to Hamnett & Hammie. It was my father, Hammie who in a meeting at my apartment keyed onto the words Zero Knowledge from a description of Zero Knowledge Proofs that I had sent around. Shortly thereafter Zero-Knowledge Systems was born. At the time, tongue in cheek names were all the rage and everyone was trying to stand out in the crowded early days of what would become the dot.com boom.
We knew going in that we would catch a lot of grief at times with a name like Zero-Knowledge - but we wanted to stand out. We stood for something different, and the name just seemed to fit.
Our Incredible Journey
The name of course, was only the beginnging of what would become an incredible journey that has lasted almost a decade for me personally.
Our staff would go on to plaster downtown Montreal and our office neighborhood with stickers proclaiming “Changing the World with Zero-Knowledge”. I’m still having to turn down requests from people who want to get some of our old T-Shirts or posters. We wanted the world to know what we stood for - power to the people - privacy for all - we were passionate about changing the way the future would look. We were social entrepreneurs believing that we could both make a profitable company and a contribution to the betterment of society at the same time.
I began capturing notes, journal entries, photo’s and video of the companies ascent early on. I had the idea of writing a book about the companies experience one day. This may have been youthful hubris & arrogance but at the time I was confident we would be a billion dollar company eventually and people would want to know how we did it. Given the time this was not a crazy idea, but you could say I was literally Chasing Billions with Zero Knowledge.
Did we ever have stories though, lot’s of good stories.
Over the course of the next nine years I would rub shoulders with incredible industry and world leaders, extremely well armed cypherpunks, brilliant scientists and luminaries of the technology and venture capital industries. (Too many links to post, but Google has a decent memory of my past activities you can peruse if you are curious.)
I began to spend time with incredible people actively involved in changing the world. I gave speeches at the World Economic Forum, traveled the world meeting and working with global leaders on issues ranging from Ethical Technology Design, Privacy, Security, International Cybercrime law, Canada’s technology innovation strategy, net neutrality, technologies role in social responsibility and many meetings on technology & human rights work.
Amidst the world travels we would also become media darlings, appearing on 60 minutes, CNN, WSJ, NY Times and in hundreds of publications as we became one of Canada’s highest profile Internet startups and acted as a regular expert on the issues of Internet privacy and security.
We brought innovative Silicon Valley style recruiting & retention ideas to Montreal as we exploded onto the Canadian technology scene.
We conducted intelligence agency briefings with most of the alphabet soup agencies, battled killer typhoons in asia, and were taxied to silicon valley in private jets as investors wooed us. We set Canadian records for our financing’s and for awhile were members of that generation of dot.com media darlings.
The Tough Times
There were also a lot of very tough stories and painful lessons we had to learn.
Reducing our head count by the hundreds because of undisciplined growth while reacting to the meltdown of the private and public equity markets. Managing teams while teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as we restructured debt, getting out of potentially crippling lease obligations & negotiating a recap with the investors to keep the company going. We faced the challenges of discontinuing the companies flagship product and having to completely reposition the companies products, target market, technology and structure while trying to keep the doors open.
We would experience some of the downsides of being media darlings as the companies shift in direction and layoffs became popular targets for reporters writing about the dot.com bust. Articles with sentences like “Blood runs in the halls at Zero-Knowledge as the firing carnage continues” to report our reductions in staff made each step that much harder as the articles made their way to partners and customers.
In early 2003, as the company started to generate positive cash flow - I started joking with my brother that if we ever told the inside story of our rise, fall and survival through the bubble that we should call it Chasing Billions with Zero Knowledge.
The phrase struck me as a fitting moniker for our own journey as a company, some of the investment trends that contributed to the dot.com bubble, and many of the ideas & entrepreneurs I encountered.
To be clear, I believe that most every company begins with zero knowledge. Assumptions and theories abound but actual knowledge of what the future may hold for the company is a pipe dream. There are so many questions from team, to product, to competitive landscape that the only real bet you can make is that shit will happen and things will need to change. Every enterprise begins with zero knowledge.
The process of building innovative enterprises requires experimentation and failure. How much experimentation is a function of risk appepitite and cost of money. The cost of money was incredible low and the risk appetite for technology stocks were so much in abundances that we were fielding random calls from retail investors looking to buy stock or get on a waiting list for the IPO for almost 2 years before we even had revenue.
I don’t believe even now in hindsight that we were ever chasing billions while clueless. We proved ourselves able to play by the rules of the that time and raised money and built real products & teams in a way that the market was rewarding (Getting big fast, become the market leader by the size of your brain trust and the broad range of your opportunities).
When the rules of the market changed, we changed with them and made sure we could continue to work with customers finding a business model and customer profile that would grow with us. We made a lot of mistakes that in hindsight now seem obvious. But we rushed into our mistakes recognizing them as valuable lessons and we were eager students.
A New Story - Radialpoint Emerges
I often get questions about the fate of Zero-Knowledge Systems. For those interested in our early experiences as a company, I’m posting a case study done by Professor David Phillips that was written over the course of many interviews and on site visits with our staff throughout the early days of the company. David recently sent me this copy to distribute.
Zero-Knowledge Systems - An Early Case Study in Systems of Surveillance. David J. Phillips, Professor University of Toronto
It highlights some of our successes, mistakes, and our early adventures as a company.
It is an account of the early Zero-Knowledge history (it ends about 2001/2 as we made the transition into the Radialpoint business and turned the company around). Like with all accounts, it can never capture even 5% of what was occurring behind the scenes, but it captures much of what was occurring around the company and provides a good account of our early rise and fall from grace.
When we started Zero-Knowledge my internal email signature carried the phrase “Make new mistakes more often”. Our team culture helped us to react and evolve as we saw new opportunities, identified failing products and responded to the dramatic shifts that occurred in the capital markets.
Zero-Knowledge Systems not only survived but changed its name and is now a thriving company called Radialpoint.
The company has emerged as one of Canada’s fastest growing technology companies, Quebec’s 2nd fastest growing technology firm and a market leader in managed consumer Internet services for broadband providers. The company has been profitable for years, is growing quickly and is now providing Internet value-added services for a community of more then 20 million broadband subscribers through its broadband provider customers. This is one of the largest aggregate broadband subscriber bases in the world.
Writing about the last bubble bursting and the dot.com graveyard that ensued was popular sport for many members of the media. Now we have reporters writing about the impeding Web 2.0 bubble and asking when it will burst. I think enterprising reporters could do well to explore companies such as Radialpoint that have survived the dot.com fallout and emerged stronger, smarter and battle hardened. There are great stories out there for those reporters not just looking to write about what Apple announced.
While I know this story well, and I believe in it with all my heart, the Radialpoint story is no longer my story to tell. The story of how Radialpoint emerged from the dot.com bubble and became one of Canada’s largest software-as-a-service companies that quietly cornered the ISP market for desktop delivered services will be told someday.
That story will be told by my brother, father and the team that continues to work with them there. It is their story to tell.
The team working there deserves to take a bow and get full credit for the incredible work they have done. I’m no longer part of the day to day operations at Radialpoint- so I will not be posting about it’s business on this blog.
I left Radialpoint, in June of 2006 to work on my new projects. This was a very difficult thing to do, but I was no longer the right person to help lead that company.
After the sabbatical I took to help my brother fight and ultimately die with dignity from his battle with cancer, things changed for me. It took me awhile after his death to find my footing again, but I needed to do that outside of the company in an area that I felt I could make a difference in the world. My mind and heart had drifted into a new domain and I couldn’t both follow my heart and try to do the work that Radialpoint needed at the same time.
I remain an investor, friend, family member and supporter in every way of Radialpoint and the team there.
In many ways, the team from Radialpoint plays a heavy influence on the work I am doing now since I learned an incredible amount from my brother, father, our managers, our teams and the staff we had. In the school of hard knocks and practical entrepreneurship I was incredibly lucky to have the mentors, partners and teams that I did.
I want to thank all the teams that worked with me throughout the years. I can say without a doubt, I learned more from you then the other way around.
Large amounts of thanks goes to the my brother and father, our management team (especially Marty, Veronique, Carlos that I worked with so closely) and all the direct reports and teams throughout the years. I also need to thank my assistant for almost a decade, Elizabeth. She has had the pleasure of seeing me at my best, and worst - and was always there working hard to make sure that others only saw me at my best, which I’ll be forever grateful for.
I had the incredible opportunity to work with family, an incredible management team and hundreds of bright staff as they navigated the changes required to keep our company thriving. Their support of my eccentric ideas, my crazy personality and most of all their support of me leaving to do a new project was crucial to me having the confidence to tackle what I’m now working on.
Billions with Zero Knowledge - The Blog
Since I won’t be blogging about Radialpoint that much, and my new project will most likely be operating under the radar for awhile this blog is very much a personal sandbox for me to play in. I’m not marketing or selling anything (at this point) - just having fun and looking to be part of the conversation.
I’ll be writing about topics that I feel I can add some unique point of view too. I won’t be covering or reposting other stories, tracking the latest moves of other bloggers or any specific industry.
I’ll be writing about the topics I care most about which are,
One of my major complaints on all the government committees I participated on for innovation was the lack of a strong culture of mentorship in Canada. This combined with a little bit of angel investing from experienced entrepreneurs could help us nurture the next generation of startups and provide a farm system for the venture capital industry. I’ve seen this model work throughout the world in creating a culture of sharing of experiences resulting in the bundling of great advisory experience coming with risk capital.
I have been very fortunate to have had the experiences I’ve had and I hope by sharing my experiences that I can help a new generation of Canadian entrepreneurs begin to shape their own dreams.
My tagline for this blog is “Changing the World with Little Bits of Knowledge”. I believe that there exists within the technology community the power to change the world both for the good and bad, and I hope my projects and this blog help play a small but meanginful role in the postive aspects of this change.
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Billions With Zero Knowledge - Austin Hill, Entrepreneur & Angel Investor
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