Speaking with Chris Nadeau at Evolving Solutions was a pleasure. I found him to be modest and confident with an evident passion for what he was doing. 

What is Evolving Solutions?

My brother Adrian and I formed Evolving Solutions 7 years ago. In 2004 we moved into our office space where we are now in Saint John, NB. At Evolving Solutions we offer several products:

Big Santo - CMS web marketing system

Office Gateway - Online Office Project Management

Envoy - Email Marketing

YourTeamOnline - branched off of Evolving Solutions and is now it’s own company. It was originally created as Elite Coach, a product for coaches, but that evolved into the current YourTeamOnline which launched it’s beta on November 6, 2007 as a product for coaches and players to manage their teams and share with others.

Other services include web design, logo design, hosting and consulting.

I covered more of YourTeamOnline Recently that has links to a review from StartUp North and comparison with its competiton Team Page with this blog posting.

What makes you tick?

The web and sports.

Can you share some information about your clients? Success stories?

YourTeamOnline has 700 teams on it including a team in Italy. Evolving Solutions has severeral small to mid-sized companies that it provides products and solutions. Something that was very unusual compared to most other companies at ThinkNB is that 85% of it’s business comes from within Atlantic Canada.

What technology is used at Evolving Solutions?

Java integration, java api.

Are you funded or self-funded?

Evolving Solutions is Self-Funded. YourTeamOnline received a New Brunswick Innovation Fund of $50,000.

How are you marketing Evolving Solutions?

Primarily through building relationships. Although YourTeamOnline being a social networking aspect, it is virally marketed through blogs and other social media.

Who are your competitors?

Mighty Community and Spheric would both be local competitors.

Do you find it challenging being located in NB?

No

What does Evolving Solutions have that makes it stand out among everyone else?

Simplicity, no jargon and building relationships.

Chris really seemed to understand the value of relating to people in everyday terms. Their marketing reflects that and I think it will be an asset to them.

What’s next for you guys?

YourTeamOnline will continue to grow. There are lots of great features that we’ll be looking to grow and build on.

I think their passion and desire to really make a difference will take them far. You can also follow along with Chris on his blog.

Following up on my previous post about the Breakthru competition. I had heard through the twitter vine that the pitches were interesting, so I was looking forward to hearing who the winners were today. 

Brad Pierce and his partners in Greenlight Geomatics were the winners of Breakthru (Telegraph Journal news article), New Brunswick’s Business Plan Competition. 

Miramichi-based Greenlight’s is developing a GPS-based, automated technology for railway companies that meticulously map and controls herbicide spray without affecting environmentally sensitive areas.

The New Brunswick Innovation fund held the gala dinner last night and the platinum, gold and silver winners were announced. A quick summary:

Platinum -Greenlight Geomatics - $100,000 equity investment, $39,500 in-kind legal, marketing, accounting and IT servies.

Gold - Trivnet Media Systems - $50.000 equity investment, $16,500 in-kind services.

Silver - MassRule - $25,000 equity investment, $9,000 in-kind services.

Best Business Plan - Greenlight Geomatics - $2,000

Best Presentation - Trivnet - $1000

Most Innovative Idea - PlayDartsNow - $1000

Most Charismatic Entrepreneur - Justin Kennedy of PlayDartsNow - $1000 

thinkNB launched tonight for a mix and mingle with exhibitors and guests at the Aitken Center in Fredericton. Tomorrow is a full day event open to the public. I had the opportunity tonight to meet with a few of the exhibitors and talk to them about their businesses. It was all rather loose this evening and tomorrow I’ll dive more into specific questions when I talk to various technology industry demographics. I used this event as my first time trying out utterz.

I met Dan Martell from Spheric last year at a Wizard Academy workshop put on by the Fundy Group. We have always had lots to discuss about web 2.0, online marketing and social networking. Tomorrow I’ll be talking to Dan and the others at Spheric tomorrow to find out exactly how they’re lazy but for now here’s an utterz from Dan.

Today StartupNorth compared NB based YourTeamOnline and BC based TeamPages. I don’t have much to add but I do think YourTeamOnline may want to consider adding screen shots like TeamPages. Both teams also mention the ability to control privacy settings in their privacy page at the bottom of the site. If I was a youth coach, I’d want that information stated clearly with the site information before I join. I’d want to be sure I could control what items are viewable by others in the site and what items weren’t. In TeamPages, once logged in, there is a privacy option that does provide a fair bit of choice, but I couldn’t find anything in like that in YourTeamOnline, but I have might have overlooked it. Another idea might be a page a coach could print out to provide to parents that explained what the site manager was and how the site handled the info on their kids with regards to privacy.

Can you tell I’m a mom and that I’ve coached youth leagues before?;)

p.s Yes, as one reader asked. This blog is going to have a female flavour to it.

The New Brunswick Innovation Fund (NBIF) has announced the finalists for the Breakthru NB Business Plan Competition. Breakthru’s purpose was to reward NB entrepreneurs 19 and older who have an innovative product idea for a NB business venture.

mobile2social – Tracadie-Sheila
Combine social media with GPS and Internet enabled cell phones and you’ve got something to sing about. mobile2social is working on a way to introduce GPS technology to the social marketing mix so that friends and marketers can tell where you are and what you’re doing. The project leads are high-tech entrepreneur Mario Basque, marketer Yan-Alexandre Keable and hardware/software developer Éric Dusablon.

Greenlight Geomatics – Miramachi City
Railway companies across North America spend over a billion dollars a year to manually get rid of plant growth that threatens track safety. Using GPS technology, Greenlight is developing an automated technology that will meticulously map and controls herbicide spray without affecting environmentally sensitive areas.
Championing the project is land surveyor Herman Koops, engineering students Anthony Illukwe [software] and John Lord [mechanical], and business students Brad Pierce and Khaled Taha.

Mass Rule – Riverview
General searches on the internet, or “googling” is a no-brainer for most people who want to get general information. But finding out what people think about that information is another story. Mass Rule is developing a revolutionary internet poling solution that delivers searchable statistics about people’s opinions. Shawn Carver, founder of THINK Technology, previously launched one of the first premium text messaging brands and campaigns in Atlantic Canada.

PlayDartsNow.com – Saint John
Game-play is now a mainstay for the virtual world, where people play each other online from all over—something not so easy for traditional games. PlayDartsNow is developing a technology that will turn your dartboard into a virtual playing field. Using a sensory device, you can use your own dartboard to play online with anyone who has the same technology. Heading PlayDartsNow is Justin Kennedy, a private software consultant who has previously advised a number of high profile companies including Microsoft, Sony and Umbra

Trivnet Media Systems – Saint John
There was a time when you could sit in a restaurant, order a meal, and stick a couple quarters in the jukebox station, situated at the table, and play your favorite song. Imagine what you could do today. Trivnet is working on a new generation of table top media devices that adds value for the patron and the owner, including entertainment, information access and billing. Leading the team is marketing specialist Rivers Corbett, and father-son duo John Trivett, a long-time radio broadcaster, and William Trivett, an electrical engineering student.

Carbon Concepts - Fredericton
Today, some provinces and US states give tax breaks for generating your own emission-free energy. But the only way to get the savings is if you can distinguish electricity made from electricity taken from the grid. Most micro-energy solutions don’t know the difference between the two. Carbon Concepts is developing a new measuring device to do this for sale in Ontario—to start. Championing the innovation is Levi Hargrove and Adam Wilson, a PhD and MSc candidate in electrical engineering, respectively.

A total of $245,000 in cash and in kind prizes of support for legal, marketing, website services and accounting services. The prizes will be awarded on November 22. 

It’s great to see this type of event to encourage entrepreneurs in NB. Although I think as a province we could do even more. I’m looking forward to following the companies and hope they help put NB on the map for innovative technology.