Twitpic founder Noah Everett is no stranger to start-ups. He founded his first startup in his late teens, a music site called Indiefy. “It was a way for independent artists to sell their music online.” Everett said in interview. “I built it, but I didn’t put a lot into getting it out there so it fizzled out.” His current startup, popular photo-sharing site Twitpic, was built out of his own personal need. “I wanted a way to share my own photos so I spent the weekend coding up the first version of Twitpic for me and my friends to use.”

Twitpic filled a niche that Twitter had not originally implemented – users could send 140 character messages to one another, and to the world, but there was no way to attach a photograph or media item to Tweets. Everett saw this gap in functionality, and created Twitpic in 2008 to solve it.

Aside from being used to share photos among friends, Twitpic has gone on to be a medium for some historical moments. Everett said the biggest highlights for him have been seeing Twitpic used in breaking news situations, like the January 15th, 2009 plane crash in the Hudson River. He believes the biggest milestone of Twitpic has been hitting 35 million users, and being revenue positive from day one, without taking on funding. Twitpic shares its space with other photo sharing tools like yFrog, which is owned by parent-company ImageShack. Twitter also announced in June of 2011 that it was adding photo-sharing to its native application.

His advice for entrepreneurs looking to bootstrap their company is two fold. “Get your core product out the door as quick as possible, your users will tell you where to go.” To cap it off, Everett believes in a “just do it” mentality for startups. Since starting Twitpic, Everett has raised no funding, and has relied on ad revenue to keep the service revenue positive. Everett has always been an advocate of keeping his business small, highlighting this on the Twitpic blog.

Twitpic ran as a one-person show for the first few months, but Everett found that eventually he simply couldn’t do it alone. “I couldn’t run it by myself anymore, my stress levels were through the roof and the company needed employees to grow.” Twitpic runs exclusively on user-submitted content, so making sure that this content is safe was a challenge. “It’s really amazing to see the cool things people upload…you get to see into their lives,” said Everett, adding that sometimes moderation is still necessary, “Users will upload anything…be prepared to remove bad content.”

Everett’s biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs is simple: “Just do what you love and get out there and do something. There will be good days and there will be bad days.” Everett believes the key to success is to never lose sight of your vision, even amid criticism. “Keep your vision in front of you at all times…the noise will constantly try to distract you from it.”

Twitpic has expanded recently to the mobile space by releasing their own iPhone application, and an Android app is in the works as well. Everett maintains his commitment to putting users first, saying “we just released our mobile apps and we’re excited to see where that takes us, but as always we just want to build the best product possible for our users.” Also on the way from Twitpic is the release of Helpmint, a customer service system Everett wrote for Twitpic that he is opening to the public.

This week represents a pretty big milestone – 100 issues of Sprouter Weekly! From the very first issue back in March 2010, we’ve been sending you Hot Startups, insightful Founder Profiles, useful startup articles and great events every week, and we’re eternally grateful that you’ve been reading them for over two years.

Our first issue was a great success – on March 11th, 2010, we interviewed Canadian entrepreneur Dan Martell, featured startups Groupon and crowdSPRING, and looked at events all over the world. Since then, we’ve been doing our best to find the latest and greatest startups, and bring you Founder Profiles that are exciting, informative, and most of all, inspiring.

This week, we’re going to look back at Sprouter Weekly, and see what the most popular Founder Profiles were, which Hot Startups went on to make it big, and learn more from you on what you love about Sprouter Weekly.

Stay tuned for our walk down memory lane, and thanks again for joining us every week!

Update: We’ve picked our lucky commenter! Thanks to everyone who commented, and we’ll post the details once we’ve confirmed all the info!

With mesh12 just around the corner, we wanted to give you an opportunity to get in on the action! If you’ve never been before, here’s the skinny on the mesh conference:

mesh is a two-day conference held in Toronto that explores the different ways  the internet is changing how we live, work and play. mesh gathers together leading thinkers and talented innovators who have earned their stripes doing great digital work, and creates a platform for people to connect with others who are interested what’s next, share ideas and be inspired. mesh12 runs from May 23rd to the 24th.

mesh has some great speakers lined up this year, including author Clay A. Johnson, author Rebecca McKinnon, Harvard researcher David Weinberger, and NPR social media strategist Andy Carvin. Topics range from E-Learning to big data, and everything in between.

Sound like something that tickles your fancy? Great! We’ve got one free ticket to give away!

Just check out the mesh12 schedule here, and tell us in the comments which talk or panel looks the most interesting to you! We’ll pick someone from the comments, and send over details on how to get your free pass.

Jon will be there, taking in all of the digital talk, so if you see him, say hello!

BumpTop founder Anand Agarawala didn’t always want to be an entrepreneur. In fact, he initially felt that business and wealth would get in the way of raw creativity. But building a business with close friends changed all that. “After having a built a business with an awesome group of friends and having times we’ll never forget, I’ve changed,” he said in interview. “Business doesn’t have to be dirty, economics are a necessary part of the equation when you’re doing anything at scale that touches lots of people.”

Agarawala’s company BumpTop provides a desktop computer environment that simulates a real-world physical desk. Documents and items are represented as three-dimensional objects on a virtual desk, and users interact with them via stylus or touch-screen input. Agarawala originally got the idea for BumpTop as part of a Masters thesis at the University of Toronto.  “Tablet/pen computing was big at the time and current `Tablet PC’s’ by Microsoft used UIs designed for the mouse,” he said, “The thinking was `What if we rethought the entire user interface completely for touch?’  Also, we wanted to push the desktop metaphor to its logical conclusion in some sense, with ultra realistic simulation of physics.“ The desktop simulation was praised on technology blogs, including a 5-star rating on CNET and a positive review on Engadget

Agarawala believes he got lucky with the transition of BumpTop from Masters Thesis to successful startup. “I put a video of my thesis on YouTube and within the first day it blew up quickly, gaining millions of views.  I figured if I was ever going do a startup, might as well leverage all this momentum this idea had. “ After raising $1.65 million in funding from Austin Hill, Growth Works, Scott Pelton, and Extreme Venture Partners in 2008, the momentum paid off and BumpTop was acquired by Google in 2010.

While building BumpTop, Agarawala said the most important lesson he learned is to follow his intuition. “Succeeding in the startup world isn’t really about having a perfectly hatched plan at the outset.  You’re going to find yourself in all kinds of situations/opportunities where you’re not quite sure what to do.  I think I looked overly to others for advice and got into a bit of analysis paralysis mode instead of trusting my gut and just continuing to grind.” He also believes dwelling on choices too much doesn’t work well for startups. “Decide quickly. Some decisions you’ll have to make have a clear answer, but most don’t. So pick one and move on. Velocity is more important and gives you a chance to course correct.”

Agarawala also learned lessons about building a team, and believes motivation is more important than management. “Hire smart people, fire them up and empower them.  Don’t micromanage when you’re not getting the result you want, motivate.  Smart people won’t stand for it and you really don’t get the best from people when you do. “

BumpTop was available for both Windows and Mac platforms, but Agarawala cautions against working with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) early on. “It’s extremely time consuming and demanding. I’d avoid it if possible. It also makes it very hard for you to pivot, which is critical in a startup.”

His final piece of advice for entrepreneurs is to make sure they’re starting a business for the right reasons. “Some people just kind of flow into it, or do it to seem cool. I’ve seen a bunch of Stanford CS folks kind of just do it because everybody else is, believe it or not. Being in a startup is an emotional rollercoaster, with lots of highs and lows so make sure you’re down to see it through.“ Agarawala’s emotional rollercoaster included an acquisition by Google, which he said was stressful, but exciting. “Our deal took six months or so and we had to live in secrecy with some of the most exciting news in our lives.”

Although BumpTop is no longer available to consumers, and no updates are currently planned, Agarawala is still working on user interface at Google. He’s a Project Manager on the Google+ Mobile team, and hopes to find a way to make BumpTop available again in the future.

Here’s the original YouTube video that Agarawala posted to YouTube of the Masters thesis that would become BumpTop:

As a follow-up to our coverage of the CTA@NYC startups from earlier this week, we wanted to share the pitch videos each entrepreneur recorded for the launch of the Canadian Technology Accelerator program.

Chris Ye – Uken Games

Cassandra Girard - Buyosphere

James Prudhomme – Recoset

William Mougayar – Engagio

Peter Evans – Speakerfile

Ian Collins always thought about ways to earn money as a kid. The thought of working for someone, and having a ‘normal’ job never occurred to him, especially since his father bought and fixed old houses when he was younger. After graduating from college with an engineering degree, he joined his dad and brother to build houses in his spare time, while working at a job at a big company he didn’t enjoy. After going back to school to get his MBA, Collins worked for another year at a larger company before deciding it was time to start working for himself.

After starting five businesses, including mobile content portal Web2Mobile, Ian founded Clickfree in 2005. Clickfree provides automatic backup software to the consumer PC market, and the idea was inspired by an interaction with Collins’ mother at Christmas. “I had gone to Costco to buy a digital camera for my Mom for Christmas and started to think through the experience,” said Collins in interview, “She would be fine with taking photos, and then uploading them to the computer, then viewing & sharing.  The whole experience would break down though when it came to protecting the photos, there weren’t any backup products that would suit her.“ He soon realized that there was likely a market for automatic backup devices that offered “plug and play” simplicity, and Clickfree was born.

Throughout the five companies that Collins has founded before, he’s learned a number of startup lessons that he has applied to Clickfree. “Never expect to raise financing, especially not on your schedule,” said Collins. “Expect everything to take at least twice as long as planned (usually a lot longer), stay super focused on exactly what problem you want to solve, and try not to get distracted by opportunities that will just pay the bills (but sometimes you have to give in on this rule since you have to be able to pay the bills).” Clickfree has also given Collins a unique opportunity to learn about international logistics. “One important lesson I learned that applies to anyone in the hardware business is to minimize SKUs. For every additional SKU, no matter how harmless it seems at the time, more money will leak out of your business to a million little things, and that will eat away at your margin. Fewer is always better.”

Clickfree has raised over $30 million of funding since launching in 2005, including $8 million in Series D funding from Intel Capital in 2011. Collins believes that entrepreneurs looking for funding can be divided into two categories – those who have startup experience, and those who don’t. “With a track record everything is easier, it’s easier to attract great talent and investors.  Raising money without a track record seems to be harder than ever.  Investors are still cautious (the ones I know anyway) and are looking for proven management.  So many startups think investors will flock to their idea, but investors want to see some kind of sign that the thing will work and that the team can make it happen.” In addition to raising Series D funding, Clickfree also passed one million units sold in 2011, which Ian considers the company’s biggest milestone.

Clickfree also holds 12 patents for the technology that drives their automatic backup platform, but Collins is cautious to recommend patents. “It’s great to own the IP surrounding your technology, but even a company the size of Clickfree probably wouldn’t get into a patent battle intentionally, “ he said, “Since it would take millions to fight a patent battle, patents generally aren’t of any practical use to a startup but investors and acquirers love to see them so you really need to file a few applications.”

His biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs is to understand that progress is important before investors will take notice. “I’ve talked to so many people that thought they’d attract investors long before they really could,” said Collins’ “You need to hang on and build the company, find sources of cash flow wherever you can (while trying not to get distracted from your core mission) and show that your concept will work.”

When asked what’s next for Clickfree, Collins’ hopes that an acquisition is on the horizon. “Clickfree will eventually be bought by someone, then I’ll be off to build a new company.  I’ve always got a few ideas brewing so when the time comes I’ll choose whatever looks best and get it going.”

Welcome to Part 2 of our coverage of the exciting startups involved in the Canadian Technology Accelerator in New York City! You can read Part 1 here, but here’s a bit of info on the CTA:

Back in February, the Government of Canada announced that six Canadian digital media startups would be participating in the Canadian Technology Accelerator in New York City.  The CTA Program, launched by by the Consulate General of Canada in New York City, is run by the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service and modelled on similar initiatives in Silicon Valley.

Here’s a look at three more of the startups that joined BFB Fashion, Buyosphere, and Engage.io in New York City:

Recoset is a real time machine learning and predictive modelling platform designed to provide machine learning and predictive analytics on a platform as a service model. Their aim is to provide Real Time Advertising Technology, and connect advertiser’s data to real-time marketing transactions. They currently have two applications that are tested and deployed as part of partner programs. Recoset was founded by James Prudhomme in Montreal, Quebec.

Speakerfile lets speakers publish rich-media speaker and event profiles, and build their market profile. Event organizers and members of the media can access a directory of quality speakers on a variety of topics, and corporations & associations can create hubs for their employees, showcasing the expertise and opportunities for speaking engagements. Speakerfile was founded by Peter Evans in Toronto, Ontario.

Uken Games is a cross-platform game development studio that builds social games for the iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry and Facebook. Their titles include Forces Of War, Crime Inc., and Mighty Monsters, all of which have reached the top 25 in the Apple App Store and/or BlackBerry AppWorld. Uken Games was founded by Chris Ye in Toronto, Ontario.

Sarah had the chance to interview all six of the participating startups on their goals, challenges, and driving force. The final two videos created from these interviews can be seen here:

What Inspires You:

The Benefits of the NYC Community:

Back in February, the Government of Canada announced that six Canadian digital media startups would be participating in the Canadian Technology Accelerator in New York City.  The CTA Program, launched by by the Consulate General of Canada in New York City, is run by the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service and modelled on similar initiatives in Silicon Valley.

Sarah was invited to the launch of this exciting program, and hosted a series of videos looking at the aim of the CTA program, and interviewing the entrepreneurs taking part in the CTA initiative in New York City. We wanted to share the story of the six startups making the leap from Canada to New York.

First, let’s look at three of the six startups that moved to New York for the CTA initiative:

BFB Fashion is a B2B, members-only community designed to help boutique fashion outlets connect directly with up-and-coming fashion brands in a private, virtual showroom. Designers benefit from having a virtual showroom to host their collection, look-books, and press, while buyers can customize search filters, and request samples. BFB Fashion was founded in Montreal, by Kassondra O. Dyebo.

Buyosphere is an online connection platform that brings together people looking for products, and people who can help them find great deals or unique pieces. Users ask questions about products, and Buyosphere connects this question to people that have expressed expertise in this product area, or people who have bought similar products. Users can answer questions as well, bringing their unique product advice to other users. Buyosphere was founded in Montreal by Tara Hunt.

Engagio is your inbox for online conversations and relationships. It allows you to manage your conversations across multiple social networks and comment systems, and shows these in a threaded, email-like format. Engagio allows you to track who you are interacting with, and your level of interaction, with options for tagging conversations. The system manages conversations on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linked, Disqus-enabled site, Hacker News comments, and Foursquare check-ins. Engagio was founded in Toronto by William Mougayar.

To get the real story behind each entrepreneurs’ goals, challenges, and driving force, Sarah had the chance to interview all of the founders and share their insight. These interviews became a series of four videos, and you can see the first two here:

Governments Role in Startup Success:

Unique Challenges for Entrepreneurs:

Odysseas Tsatalos’ entrepreneurship story started during his childhood in Greece. Reading about inventors in his encyclopedia, he decided early on that his dream was to one day see himself in print for one of his inventions. While his parents wanted him to become a doctor, Tsatalos travelled to the U.S. and got his Ph.D in Computer Science.

He got the idea for his current company oDesk while working at his previous startup, Intacct. Tsatalos wanted to work with a childhood friend, who was still living in Athens, but was having trouble communicating between countries. After cobbling together a solution involving a webcam and a shared computer screen, the idea to build a product to enable remote working collaboration took shape. “After a couple of years of lukewarm demand, we realized that people needed online workers just as much as they needed online work technology, so we decided to create an online workplace for contractors with the original technology as the backbone,” said Tsatalos in an interview.

oDesk has grown into a leading resource for companies looking to find professionals to collaborate on projects, and to manage outsourced projects. The online collaboration space has grown substantially in the past few years, as demonstrated by the popularity of tools including oDesk, and Elance.

In the beginning, the most difficult hurdle for Tsatalos and oDesk was trust. “How could businesses trust that a contractor they had never met (sometimes hundreds of thousands of miles away) would have the skills and reliability to do important work?” said Tsatalos. To tackle this issue head-on, oDesk incorporated time-tracking and team-room software that allows businesses to get real-time visibility into what their contractors are working on. oDesk also built in qualification tools to help companies better test skills, read feedback, and view portfolios.

To help build out oDesk, the company raised funding in 2006, and has raised three more rounds of funding, including a $15 Million Series D round in early 2012. Throughout four rounds of funding Tsatalos has gained some great insight into the funding process. His biggest piece of advice is not to confuse funding with business success. “Quite often, a startup can get venture-capital backing without really having proved itself, which can give the illusion that a company is succeeding more so than it actually is,” he said, “It’s important to really be honest with yourself about your company’s progress and prospects, without letting VC funding give you unrealistic expectations.”

Another important lesson was that disruptive ideas don’t always lead to immediate funding. In his experience, venture capitalists generally follow trends, and many visionary companies had a hard time raising funding, or were bootstrapped. He advises new entrepreneurs to look for partners and advisors who have startup experience, rather than just focus on funding. “For younger entrepreneurs, it is far more important to get a great partner and advisor along with the investment. For more mature entrepreneurs who already have a network, the money can be the main focus.”

Finding the right advisors is important for young entrepreneurs and Tsatalos believes the right board can make or break a young business. “Nothing is more frustrating than a board that is out of sync with your vision. Conversely, nothing is more empowering than having an investor who is your biggest champion, even when you yourself lose faith in your vision.”

Tsatalos said the oDesk pivot in 2005 was the most important milestone for the business. oDesk transitioned from an online collaboration tool into an online workplace in 2005, and this change was not without risks – “The online work sector had not been successful up to that point — everyone had either lost money or knew someone who had lost money in the space. We also took on a great deal of financial risk by pivoting like that, but we really believed that online work was the future. This risk paid off in spades.” He’s also proud of oDesk’s mission, saying “oDesk was created to address an inefficiency, a personal problem. But very early on, its powerful global impact became clear — which makes all of the trials and tribulations worth it.”

Tsatalos credits his team, and a commitment to providing value for oDesk users, as the mark of their success and growth. “Demand alone does not make for a successful startup, and the rest of our tremendous growth is thanks to the combination of a talented team, innovative technology that allows us to guarantee payment to contractors and work to employers, and a focus on providing value to our users at all stages of the online work process,” he said, “We take culture very seriously here, and it is a major factor in our hiring decisions. We always ask ourselves not if a candidate will fit in with the existing culture, but whether they will improve upon it.” This commitment to hiring the right people applies to all roles, from top executives down through every level of the company, and Tsatalos credits this approach to his team.

Tsatalos is hoping 2012 will be an even bigger year, but doesn’t plan to rest on their existing success. “As the largest and fastest-growing company in the space, we have a good head start, but this is no excuse to rest on our laurels — there is still a lot of work to be done.”

Monday, April 30th, 2012:

Dev Basu will be hosting a Live Session on Sprouter next Monday at 11am EST! You can ask questions for Dev at Sprouter.com/devbasu

Dev is the Founder & CEO of Powered by Search, a Toronto Internet Marketing agency specializing in search engine optimization, social media marketing, and web analytics & call tracking. Dev is also a blogger, speaker, and has been featured in numerous publications, including  The Globe and Mail, CTV News, and The Financial Post.

Dev is a Sprouter Expert, and answers questions on Startups, Search Engine Optimization, Lead Generation, and Marketing. Ask him a question now!