a canadian startup

Busiest E-Commerce Time of Day

Here is a graph of sales by hour at Well.ca.

Note that this is based on our sites’s time — Eastern Standard Time.

Sales peak at around 3pm — which is right before the end of the work day. Sales are worst when people are sleeping (don’t worry, we have a marketing team dedicated to changing this trend). The dips around 6pm and 8pm may have something to do with people eating dinner?

Does this correspond with your expectations?

I identify best with the peak at 11pm. This is the time of day when I make the majority of my important decisions because the day is almost over and I realize I’ve accomplished nothing.

Busiest E-Commerce Day of the Week

Some statistics for you.

Sales based on day of week for Well.ca:

Anyone know why Monday is the busiest day of the week for American E-commerce shoppers, but Tuesday is the busiest day for Canadian shoppers? I am not completely sure.

It is said that the beginning of the week is typically busiest for E-commerce because many shoppers make their purchases from work, and Monday and Tuesday are when people get back to their fast Internet connections. In a future post, it will be interesting to look at purchases by time of day to see when people are ordering — I suspect that most orders are made right at the end of the work day.

It might be too much of a stretch, but if it’s true that people shop when they’re at work, then the above graph might also correlate with productivity. If that assumption is true, then it would imply that Canadians take longer mental holidays — by Friday they are already acting like it’s the weekend and only by Tuesday do they fully get into gear.

(SQL query to generate statistics, courtesy of Well.ca Lead Developer, Chris Long — Thanks man)

Business Plan Tips

In the journey of your startup, you will have sent out many business cards, pitch decks, business plans, and blood samples. Probably in that order.

Here are a few small tips I’ve found that have helped us manage this process.

1. Print three times more business cards than you originally thought, print them cheaply but sharply so investors think that you’re affordable but sharp. I’ve given out more than 1000 business cards in the last 90 days, and I am not even the type of person that likes to give out business cards.

2. Have one folder on your computer to store your business plan, projections, pitch templates, etc. In that folder have the following sub folders:

• Working Copies–>
• Copies Sent to Investors–>
  • ShrinkWorks Venture Capital – Feb 19–>
  • ShrinkWorks Venture Capital – Mar 15 – Due Diligence #1–>
  • VenShrink Enterprises – Jan 12–>
  • Wealthy Investor #5 – Mar 15–>
  • HeckCapital – … etc.

The idea (you’ll appreciate this later on) is to keep track of what you’ve sent and to whom. That way, when you meet with one of these people later on, you can make sure that the newest files you send them will not contradict older documents. Also, you can always find a version of the business plan that is final-ish and tailored to the type of investor with whom you’re currently speaking.

3. Don’t send a pitch deck. Don’t send a pitch deck even when they ask for one. Don’t!

This is one of my more non-standard pieces of advice that’s worked extremely well for us. Investors, at the first stage, do not want to see your 300 page business plan, but they want to get a quick summary of what you’re all about. So they ask for a pitch deck. Don’t do it — Powerpoint is not a document for communication, it is a tool to accompany communication. What you’re better off doing is to create a summary of your business plan that fits on one page and the second page is only a list of your team members and contact information. Add graphs, and use bullets. A picture of our company profile is to the left. One page: PDF — not PPT.

Our one page company profile document is so effective and concise that we’ve seen very few investors end up looking at our business plan until late into due diligence. We find that this document serves well for other purposes as well — we print it in colour on glossy paper and use it for potential partners and marketing companies as well.

How to Get to an Interview at a Web 2.0 Startup

Trust me, you want to work at a Web 2.0 Startup. It might be your only chance to find work you love. There’s usually an XBox 360 or Wii to play with, the climate is exciting and fast-paced but never stressful, and you get to be a key player using cutting-edge technologies. It’s fun.

So now that you’ve decided you want to work at a Web 2.0 Startup, how do you get to an interview?

(I probably shouldn’t give tips to getting interviews while we have open job postings…)

You’ve got to think about it from the interviewer’s perspective — we get a lot of Word resume’s from people without a lot of experience. Not having a lot of experience is okay, I mean we’re using new technologies anyway, but we don’t have time to interview everyone that applies.

Here’s are my tips for sure-fire ways (read: tricks) to getting an interview:

1. Get a recommendation from a friend on the inside

If you know someone that works at my company, and they forward me your resume (or give me a heads-up), it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’ll meet you.

2. Send an email note with your resume (cover letter optional) that talks directly to me

Mention you want work for a Web 2.0 startup (so I know that this isn’t just one of 300 places you’ve applied). Refer to a joke we made in the posting. Say you’re passionate, and interested in new technologies. Tell me that my company is going to be the next big thing, because sometimes I forget (joking).

3. Name drop

If you’re friends with Ryan from The Office, I want to know. But that’s not what I’m talking about. You should name-drop on technologies that are new, sexy, and I would have heard about. Not plain old Java, CSS, or AJAX. I mean something new that shows you’re in the know. For example ExtJS, Django, CakePHP, Jetty, FLEX, Ruby-on-Rails, Amazon AWS, or jQuery. Mentioning Microsoft technologies may have adverse effects, unless you apologize afterwards.

4. Show me a portfolio

This is the number one thing you can do to help me realize that we want you. Startups are looking for people without experience, that’s okay. But how are we supposed to know you know what you’re doing?

It’s easy: build something. Anything. Build something using current technologies and send me a link. Of course if you made something big, like you’re the original author of Digg, that would be interesting. But even if you have a portfolio site with some small demos using jQuery, AJAX, or some other cool toolkit, I’ll be impressed.

You could build a quick FLEX demo in 12 days that will be one of the best things ever — because there aren’t a lot of good FLEX apps. Check this one out, for example, it uses an existing 3D toolkit and the code isn’t even that long. Or another idea is that you could build an ExtJS demo in less than 2 days that will make you look like you are a Web Genius — this demo is awesome and barely 50 lines long. It doesn’t even have to look that great or work completely. You’ll also feel good about yourself in the end.

Not ready to apply, but really interested in getting into the industry? Feel free to contact me and I can point you to some new technologies that I think are going to be the next big thing. Just tell me that you’re interested in working on new web technologies and want to know what technologies to play with. My email is [myfirstname@thiswebsiteaddress.ca]

(Picture was taken from here)

Despite your efforts, team, I will probably not purchase Rock Band for the XBox 360 as a Company Expense

Everyone at work is teaming up on me, trying to make me buy “Rock Band” for the XBox 360.

I received this email today:

From: Alex <xxxx@well.ca>
To: Ali Asaria <xxxx@well.ca>
Subject: why we should buy this

Team Building:
Rock Band has one major difference from other music games: it’s not about one person’s experience. This is a group effort and the gameplay is geared towards teamwork. While the four members of your band must all be concerned with their own performances, you must work together to earn epic scores in Rock Band. Each instrument comes with its own Overdrive (AKA Star Power) system. Individually, they kick in a x2 multiplier for the player who enters Overdrive. But you can stack other member’s Overdrives to creative massive multipliers for the entire group. Get all four members in Overdrive at the same time for a bonus x8. To do this, though, requires communication with your other team members.

Continuing the theme of playing together, Overdrive can also be used to save a bandmate. Should your drummer perform poorly and fail out of a song, another player with sufficient energy stored up can go into Overdrive and bring their buddy back from the brink. In fact, if you want to finish a song, someone must save the failed player. The crowd won’t stand for losing the backbeat for too long. They will boo you off stage if the band member isn’t saved. If you know your guitarist has trouble with the solo in Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” you may want to save your Overdrive just in case he needs a rescue.

Having fun at Work

Alex, our newest team member, talks about her first three days at Well.ca in this blog post. It’s funny and all true.
The greatest part of the workplace is the group of people we have working here. Everyone is fun, professional, smart, and cheerful.

Don’t get the wrong impression, we’re really busy and we do a lot of innovative, exciting work. But yes, we do have an Xbox, and there does seem to be a lot of food involved with our stories.

I like it here.