By day, Anthony Carbone is an engineer at DuPont Canada. From 6pm to 2am, he’s his own man. Not only does he travel back to his old university town, Guelph, to grow his property management firm, but he also moonlights as a web designer for hire with his partner Vinay Menon.

It’s in his soul. He has to be busy. “I’ve always been an entrepreneur, ever since high school; cutting lawns, doing landscaping, selling my time as a web programmer and developer back in university.”

Why does he do it?

Sure, there’s the obvious reason. “Just extra money, basically.” But it’s more than that. Rattling around the back of his head are a huge number of unexpressed ideas that he feels compelled to act on.

In fact, there is one idea in particular Anthony and Vinay have been
driving towards since they met in undergrad. As Anthony tells it,

I met my partner outside of the engineering building at the University of Guelph in my second year and the topic was cars, money and the Internet. It was just at the time when everything was peaking and the Internet bubble was at its prime.

They decided since to moonlight as web designers to raise enough cash to launch their true passion, a car spotting online community called MadWhips.

Car spotting?

Taking photos of sweet rides. Whips? Well, I had to ask too.

Anthony

Obviously the “whips” is referring to the new slang term for your ride.

Sunir

Is it really?

Anthony

Yeah, well, like your crib is your house, your whip is your pimped-out ride, right?

Sunir

I feel old now. Thank you very much.

But isn’t moonlighting a problem for DuPont?

Anthony says,

I have a really good relationship with my boss and he knows that I’m not really interested in going anywhere for the next two, three, four years and I still enjoy that corporate education that I’m getting by being at DuPont and interacting with all the different business units. That kind of corporate experience to me is more important than venturing off on my own right now.

Moonlighting is a distraction, though.

They’ve been striving to achieve their dream for years, working hard on the side. But it’s on the side, and their day jobs rule their schedule. The question Anthony left me with was, “when do we take on that certain level of clientele and when can we afford to say, ‘Okay, one of us can quit our jobs’?

Niall recounts a speech by W.P. Kinsella, author of Field of Dreams, whom he saw speak at the University of Toronto.

This was just before we started the business. After his talk somebody got up to the microphone and, obviously a fan, said, ‘Mr. Kinsella, the passion in your writing really comes through, it’s just amazing. Maybe you can speak a little bit about your love for baseball, the culture of Native Americans, and talk about that and how that led you into writing.’

Kinsella replied, “Well, I don’t want to disappoint you but I was a writer in Vancouver. And I was working away and I was not selling much; I wrote a story about baseball and it sold, so I wrote another one about baseball and it sold. Then I wrote a story about Native Americans and that sold, so I wrote another one. Like a miner who finds his vein of gold, we are working that vein and I will follow it until it’s done.’

“Putting Health on the Map.”

That attitude reflects a common trait in Niall’s life that led him step-by-step to become CEO of one of Canada’s hottest young health informatics companies, Infonaut. After university, he became a writer just as the Web was new, and Niall found himself attracted to it. He quickly found himself doing a lot of web work for the entertainment industry. Looking at what he was doing, Niall realized the web was becoming a giant database. Inspired, he jumped into the financial industry to learn about data warehousing. In 2001, he translated that experience to provide management reporting to health care on a $1.5 billion long term care project.

As Niall describes,

The government had started to seriously impact and affect a system that had been in equilibrium for years, without quite understanding that system. As a result, issues and problems started to emerge. People couldn’t wrap their head around what the solutions might be because we didn’t quite understand the industry that we were having such a profound impact on. And all of the information was there; it just wasn’t organized and reported in a good manner.”

When we used data to predict problems before they emerged, we stumbled upon a really clean solution. “We started coloring some maps based on our reports; red in this area is bad, green is good, here’s the hotspot. Those resonated, and they asked for some more maps and then more maps. Before long everyone stopped asking for the spreadsheets and just wanted the maps.”

Thus, Infonaut was born with their neat tagline, “Putting Health on the Map.” They are one of the leading solutions companies that helps health planners visualize, analyze and integrate their data. By layering data over a map, planners can drill down from a national overview, all the way down to a local neighbourhood – based on hundreds of health metrics and health outcomes that are tracked, like various wait-times for surgeries – or access to Primary Care. When planners can make decisions that relate to your circumstances and your neighbourhood, they can do a better job delivering services.

So, has Niall finally found somewhere to stick? Not a chance. “I’m 36. I’ve got a countdown to 40 on my laptop. At the age of 40 I’m going to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life – and I’ve got a feeling it involves something completely different – probably working with my hands.”

Ali is a manic guy. Just listen to him, “sleep is my biggest distraction from work. It’s really hard for me to manage. Like I want to stay up every night and work on it and then I’m tired in the morning and I’m trying to figure out how to form that balance so I can work more and still not have red eyes.” What could possibly be so important that he’s sacrificing his health?

Ironically, he’s trying to grow CanadaHomeHealth.com, a Canadian version of America’s Drugstore.com, up from scratch. And he’s doing it because it’s most fun he’s ever had.

Ali has had his share of good jobs before. Ali is the creator of the (in)famous BrickBreaker game on the RIM Blackberry. “I think I’ve destroyed a couple thumbs myself,” he laughs. He’s also done user interface design at Microsoft. However, neither of those plum positions appealed to him. He craved the challenge of starting a business from scratch and growing it huge.

The kernel of the idea was straightforward. His father is a pharmacist at Guelph. Originally, Ali started by selling a few products online from his father’s store, and unexpectedly things just took off. As Ali says, “we just started seeing people coming in without really any marketing. Hey, this is kind of neat, this is fun, it markets itself. People are ordering at midnight and when I’m not even in the store. It became really fun that way. So we just added products and added products. We have 5,000 now and we’re still going.”

That was enough, and so now CanadaHomeHealth has become his passion. As he says, all day and night,

All I think about is scale; I want it to be big, and that’s important for me, for the staff that work with me, and just for the project goal in itself. I just want to see how can you make something out of a garage become something that people have heard about.

I really like what I’m doing. This is the first time I’ve ever been in a job where this is what I want to do. This is the kind of job I like. I love the relationship I have with customers all over Canada. I love managing the stock. I love the fact that it’s changing every day and that I’m right into the code but right into the business and the PR. Oh, I love the fact that it’s really overwhelming! I always want to be in that state. So I’m worried that one day this will become stable and then it won’t be fun any more. That’s something that I worry about.

I haven’t seen someone who wanted it more than Ali. He’ll get there in the end, no doubt. Let’s just hope he takes better care of his own health.

It all started one day, hanging out at the mall. These Ryerson University undergrads, all friends, were sitting there and noticed a curious event. A girl was going from store to store handing out résumés, looking for a job, any job. Here was someone, young, probably a student, who needed a simple job to make ends meet. The best she could do is bet that at least one store needed to replace staff recently lost in their high-turnover retail world.

They saw the pain. They did their research. As it turns out, people who need to work hourly wage, high turnover jobs don’t want to waste money and time commuting for a job that doesn’t pay as much money for their time. Yet, the existing job sites did nothing to address this pain. Enter JobLoft.com, a brilliantly simple idea. List hourly wage jobs by proximity to people’s homes, and text message job listings as they come available to candidates willing to pounce immediately. For employers this was a no brainer: quickly fill jobs with happier employees less willing to quit.

And then enter the Dragon’s Den. JobLoft got their big break on the CBC’s angel investment reality TV show. They were so close to not going. “We went in last minute to the audition. We didn’t even think we would go,” said Chris, but in the end, “I remember telling Lee before the cameras were on like, well, we have nothing to lose.” Not only did they not lose, but they convinced every single Dragon to invest in their company. They did it with poise, with preparation, with professionalism, and with day-glo orange ties.

Things didn’t work out with the Dragons, but it was all for the best. The exposure gave them needed momentum, and JobLoft.com is growing rapidly. It has funding. It has customers. It is profitable. It has a good chance of being a true success story. And it’s only been a year since they started.

What’s next for Canada’s next team of tech entrepreneurs? If anything, the experience has helped them grow together. Three of the four founders live together, with the fourth close by. They have learnt how to balance stress, friendship, and dirty dishes, which is something to be envied. Well, they’re keen to finish establishing JobLoft.com. Then, they have more ideas to work on.

I’d say they are good bets.

While Omar had already gotten his feet wet in the TorCamp community, DemoCamp 13 was his big introduction to the crowd. He was demoing ProductWiki, which for many there was an altogether novel concept. ProductWiki joins the very thin ranks of the commercial, public, open content wikis on the Internet, like WikiTravel and WikiHow. In Omar’s own words, ProductWiki is “what would happen if you took Wikipedia and Consumer Reports and they had a baby.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given a rowdy, half-drunken room of TorCampers, ProductWiki received a lukewarm reception. Well, a surly reception. And that’s unfortunate because ProductWiki harbours a small secret that makes all the difference in the world.

ProductWiki is profitable. Not just break-even profitable, but enough that three engineers could justify leaving their Silicon Valley jobs to move back to Canada and work full time on what they consider first and foremost a labour of love. As Omar says, “it is nice being able to pay ourselves without having to work for any other boss.”

So, how did they get from an idea to having control over their own lives? They believe in what they are doing, and that gives them the energy to work all day long through good times and bad. All Omar wants is to have “an impact on the world, that’s really all I care about. How that comes about right now is ProductWiki, which I am pouring my heart and soul to.”

And second, they are a family business. Omar works with his sister and brother-in-law out of their house. When the riskiest move starting a business is picking the right partners, working with family is a huge leg up. As Omar says, you have “more bonds that keep people honest.” Then again, I can sympathize as a younger brother myself, that there is a huge downside to working out of his older sister’s house. “I’m an expert now on marriage, because I watch them. They’re a married couple, and I see them 10 hours a day, day in and day out. So maybe it can be too much information.”

I first heard about StandoutJobs.com the way most people had. I watched their hilarious video job posting and wondered how a stealth startup hires a Python wrangler. Little did I realize when I sat down to interview Fred Ngo about his new job, here I was talking to one of the creators of that viral video, and one heck of a creative guy.

Fred Ngo used to work on a 100-person CPU design team. On a team that size, he felt a passionate individual could only make so much of a difference in the world. He longed to join ranks with a peppy young startup to make his mark on the world, but it was difficult. Finding the right startup, with the inspiration and drive to make a difference, was not that easy.

Closing the gap

As a consummate entrepreneur, Fred did not let the gap between his passion and available opportunities deter him. He imported BarCamp to Montréal and became a leader in the local tech community. After all, if you can’t find the right opportunity in life, sometimes you must make it by building a better community.

Despite this, he had trouble finding the right opportunity. At BarCamp Montréal, Fred lamented to Austin Hill, a fellow Montréal entrepreneur, “Hey, I can’t find any cool startup jobs. I want to join a startup and make a difference.” Austin replied, “Well, I can’t find any great employees who are passionate and want to join startups.” And suddenly the opportunity was obvious: closing the gap between the passionate and inspiring causes.

The essential problem, though, was that typical recruiting sites sucked. Bullet points strangled the life out of every job. Boilerplate buried each company’s human spirit underneath safe phrases. Job descriptions were optimized for motivating search engines, not for motivating human beings. You’d have a better time getting excited by sticking a battery on your tongue.

Jobs for the YouTube generation

Well, the solution to that problem is obvious once formulated in the right way. Get away from the 1950s. Use the power of new services like YouTube to tell the human story. Show the quirks and personalities that characterize the company. Expose the culture and the emotional drive and the funny bone to the world. Demonstrate that your company is not your average a 100-person team, but a place where the inspired come to inspire.

Really, I think StandoutJobs.com is saying that in a century where top talent is scarce, and work-life balance is blurring, and big tech continues to follow Dilbert into cube hell, “branding” is not just about how your customers see your externally facing product, but also how your employees and prospective candidates see you, as a person, with a personality, with passion, with a funny bone. Someone they actually want to spend most of their day with.

Go figure. People like working with real people. Genius!

(Standoutjobs.com is currently operating in “semi-stealth” mode, but a preview site is available at standoutjobs.com. Fred and his crew expect to launch the full service in the Fall of 2007.)

Entrepreneurism is in my blood. My parents both came from Kenya, where they were children of retailers and industrialites. In fact, I come from from a long line of entrepreneurs escaping poverty in India. They worked hard, starting by laying the ties of the Kenyan railway at the turn of the 20th century to becoming one of the core commercial classes at the turn of the 21st. What was their motivation? Getting others like themselves out of poverty in India on towards a better life. Now, my generation is leaving Kenya for England, Australia, and in my case North America to start the cycle once again.

Me? I’ve worked at a fair share of start ups. Many of my friends are entrepreneurs themselves. In all that experience, one thing struck me time and time again. Every great entrepreneur takes this crazy plunge because they have some dream, some passion they can only satisfy by breaking new ground.

Motivation is about giving

Business isn’t easy. What keeps folks motivated to slog through all the everyday non-sense? I found the most passionate, most focused, entrepreneurs at their core want to contribute to something wider than themselves, like my relatives raising others out of poverty. I actually liked how Tony Robbins put it during his energetic talk at TED: you only grow to acquire more resources that you can use to help others.

My own passion is helping good folks follow through successfully on their dreams. Last month, I enthusiastically joined FreshBooks because they help the little guy start their dreams by starting a business. For my first task, I was thrown at Mesh 2007, a conference swimming in tech startups where I interviewed all the entrepreneurs that I could find. I was struck once again by how many entrepreneurs get in business to make the world a better place.

Entrepreneurs are superheroes

I think entrepreneurs are modern day superheroes. They are taking great personal risk, at great personal costs, because they just want to make your life better. They are people to emulate.

As my introduction to the FreshBooks community, I’m posting a series of Super Entrepreneur trading cards. I encourage you to copy the cards that most inspire you, post them on your blogs, and explain to others why you did this crazy thing in the first place. Show that you aren’t alone. You belong to a League of Business Heroes making the 21st century better through your hard work and love.