Katherine Hague

Introducing ShopLocket

You might have heard me mention it on Twitter but if you didn’t already know, I’ve spent the last few months working on ShopLocket. Today we unveiled our new hompage and at long last we can’t wait to start letting people start using the site over the next few weeks.

Curious what we’ve been up to? Come get a sneak peek at one of our upcoming demos.

CUSEC DemoCamp — January 19th, Montreal, Quebec

SproutUp — February 22nd (buy tickets February 1st), Toronto, ON

We’re excited to finally have a chance to show everyone what we’re building. Its still in its early stages, and feedback is welcome!

You can also follow us here as we continue to release more details! Want to get in on the beta? Signup at ShopLocket.com.

Launching the Canadian Maker Passport!

I’m excited to announce the launch of the Canadian Maker Passport! This is a project I’ve been working on with ThingTankLab for the past couple months. The first passports were distributed at SoOnCon on September 30th, and were gone in a flash! If we do say so ourselves, they are pretty awesome and we can’t wait to get them out to more people.

The Canadian Maker Passport encourages greater collaboration between individuals at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship and design. This Passport also acts as an entry point for individuals interested in following their passion and discovering what the Canadian maker community has to offer.

With the Passport, Canadian makers (whether members of a hacker/maker space or not) are invited to collect stamps from the various hackerspaces and  hacker/maker events throughout the country or even abroad! We’re also inviting space & event organizers to create their own personalized stamps.

Current participants stamping Maker Passports include are ThinkHaus,  Site3, Interaccess, Hacklab.to, SoOnCon, ThingTank Lab, kwartzlab, Diyode and unLondon. We’re always looking for more spaces and events to add to the passport.

Get Involved!

1) Email me to get your hands on a passport!

2) Become a partner organization or event and create a stamp. All partners get listed on the Maker Passport website. 

Learn more at makerpassport.com!

Something worth waiting for…

Reblogged from a recent article on Women 2.0.

Katherine is a 20-year-old aspiring entrepreneur currently living in Toronto and working as Marketing Manager for local startup ecobee. After spending the past 5 years learning the ins and outs of Toronto’s tech scene, Katherine is more excited then ever to be part of such a vibrant community.

I found what I love early on. It’s hard for me to believe it’s almost been 5 years since I attended my first entrepreneurship event through Impact. I had always been the kid setting up lemonade stands or trying to sell hand made greeting cards to unsuspecting teachers [looking back they were really terrible cards, my poor teachers!]. I knew that one day I wanted to start a company but I had no idea there were other people, even kids my age, out there trying to do the same thing.  Attending my first Impact event changed the way I look at the world and introduced me to a network of like-minded people that I could never have imagined existed. I was hooked, and I haven’t looked back since. 

I did anything I could to be involved. As a 16 year old trying to get involved in the world of startups, I took the approach that it didn’t matter what I was working on, so long as I could be involved. I volunteered on the planning committee for the event I attended and began actively promoting entrepreneurship to students. One thing led to another, and by 2008 I was co-chairing the event.

Less talk, more action. After a couple of years of standing on the sidelines of startups, planning events, I decided I needed to get some hands on experience. I started working with a number of startups that my friends had founded and ultimately found myself as an independent consultant on digital media and marketing projects.

I stumbled into tech. You can only spend so long in the startup world without realizing that it’s dominated by tech companies. I loved the fast pace of innovation, the people, and the idea of building something that could change the way people live their lives. I would stay up at night reading Jessica Livingston’s Founders at Work or any startup story I could get my hands on. One of my favorite founder stories is Tony Hsieh of Zappos. I even got to tour their office a couple years ago when I was in town for CES. Next time you’re in Las Vegas, skip the casinos and take the Zappos tour instead, you won’t be disappointed.

What I Earned After 141 Days in the Shopify Theme Store

This year, at the end of February, I released a theme to the Shopify Theme Store. Today, I’m releasing all of my sales numbers to date.

When I decided to create a theme for Shopify, I knew Shopify was growing quickly. At the time they had over 11,323 stores using the platform (I think its over 15,000 now!) and only around 72 themes available in the Theme Store. Of the 72 themes, many were actually just style variations on a single template.

There were no open reports on how much anyone had made releasing a theme, or any numbers on what percentage of Shopify users actually purchase themes (Shopify also has free themes in the marketplace). I decided releasing a theme for Shopify would be an interesting experiment.

I’m not a designer, so paying a friend to work with me and build a theme was not without financial risk. Would I make my investment back? Would it be worth the effort?

Turns out…it paid off! I made back my money in about 2 months, and everything since has been icing on the cake.

Our theme, New York, sells for $120 (you pick the price) and come in 4 styles. 

Twenty percent of every sale goes to Shopify. As of July 14^th we had sold 85 copies of the theme, resulting in a total theme profit of $8160 (theme profits do not account for any personal expenses you might have had building the theme). Not to shabby for a side project! Imagine if your had multiple themes in the store? You would have yourself a little side business. Tim Ferriss would be proud.

Note: Profit is shown as it would be in your Shopify Partner account and does not include my expenses. (Those you’ll just need to estimate :P)

Now keep in mind that its not an exact science, every theme does not sell at the same rate. In fact, my theme is by no means one of Shopify’s top earners! Its not the most downloaded paid theme, its not the least downloaded, its about average. You can see for yourself by filtering the Shopify Theme Store to only show paid themes, and then sorting by most downloaded. Check it out.

Figuring out what niches aren’t currently being serviced in the theme store, deciding what look and feel to have, and selecting the right features to include in order to maximize sales is not easy! Not to mention, once your theme is up you need to be prepared to answer questions, reply to support emails, and submit patches if you want your theme to succeed. But if you’re willing to put in the time up front, having a passive income and the opportunity to help a bunch of small businesses get up and running is truly rewarding.

So, why am I openly publishing my sales rather than hording the numbers and building more themes myself? That’s a good question. While I do plan to release more themes, the truth is that this is the post I wish I had seen when I was deciding whether or not to take on the initial risk of building a theme. If that means I need to be the one to write it, so be it. 

What you do with this information is totally your call. I’m best off if you do nothing at all ;) 

View the full data for this post on BuzzData.

7 Reasons Why its Better to Be a Woman in Tech

I want more women in technology and entrepreneurship as much as anyone. But at the same time I think that we tend to undervalue the power of being in the minority. Its important to acknowledge the opportunities that come with being a woman in this industry, rather than focusing on those aspects that might make it less than ideal.

Here are 7 Reasons Why its Better to Be a Woman in Tech.

1) You stand out.

When you’re one of only a handful of women at an event, or sometimes even the only woman, like it or not you get noticed. As an entrepreneur this can be a huge advantage. I think most entrepreneurs or ambitious people in general would rather get noticed then blend into the crowd. I say, use the attention to your advantage. Oh, and be ready for it, because if you find yourself in the spotlight its sometimes nice if you have something to say…

2) People remember your name.

In line with the last point, if you stand out and get noticed people are more likely to remember your name. If you meet 40 men and 3 women at an event, aren’t you more likely to remember the details of your conversation with the 3 women? And it isn’t even a gender thing; if the numbers were reversed wouldn’t you be more likely to remember the men? Anything that gets your name remembered certainly makes that follow-up email a whole lot easier!

3) You make a better story.

I hope that one day a woman starting a tech company will not be front-page news. However the sad, but honest, truth is that it still is.  Michael Arrington has stated outright that TechCruch actively seeks out women focused events and startups to cover. Until the day that female founded startups are par for the course, women in tech have a huge advantage when it comes to media. Let’s face it, you make a better story.

4) People want to hire you, investors want you in their portfolio.

Our industry is hyper aware of the gender gap. There are lots of tech companies out there that, even a few years in, have no women on the team. Even fewer companies have women in technical roles. Are these companies sexist? From my experience, the answer is overwhelmingly, NO. If a qualified female candidate showed up tomorrow they would welcome her with open arms. Not to mention they’d breathe a quiet sigh of relief that no one could accuse them of having sexist hiring practices.

The same often applies for investors. Someone may not invest in a company just for the sake of balancing out the gender ratio of their portfolio (or at least I hope they wouldn’t!). But if you’re a qualified investment that also offers some gender balance, it certainly doesn’t hurt.

5) You bring a unique perspective.

As a woman you can bring a different perspective to your work and to the companies you start. There are countless examples of men building products for women, without any input from women! Women may not be an alien species, but its sometimes good to have representation from your target market on the team. As a female founder you may even be more likely to think of an idea that men in the same industry hadn’t thought of yet. Differences shouldn’t be overemphasized, but at the same time we shouldn’t undervalue the fact that as a woman you have a unique set of experiences to bring to the table.

6) There are events, grants, programs, and awards just for you!

In an effort to combat the gender ratio problem in tech, tonnes of initiatives have popped up to support and recognize women in the field. A few examples that just scrape the surface are, Women 2.0, Girl Geek Dinners, Dell Women’s in Entrepreneur Network, RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards, and Women Who Tech. These are just some of the amazing resources offered exclusively to women. Could you imagine the uproar if similar organizations or awards existed just for men! My god, there would be hell to pay. So long as there aren’t ‘enough’ women in our industry these opportunities will exist. They are amazing ways accelerate your development, build a network, or get exposure. 

7) The community wants you to succeed.

We all want to see more women in the industry. We want to see women kick ass and build successful companies. The more successful women there are in this industry, the more attractive technology and entrepreneurship will look to young girls. As a community we tend to offer a little added support and encouragement to women. As a woman you can leverage the added support of the community to more easily find the mentors and networks of people that everyone needs to succeed.

In my humble opinion, I think there are a lot of guys that would kill to have access to the opportunities outlined above. Rather than focus on some of the negatives that may come from being a woman in a male dominated industry I think we need to shift our focus to those times when it is in fact an advantage. I mean, isn’t entrepreneurship in general about turning challenges into opportunities?  

See the post reblogged on Women 2.0. 

New York Now Available in the Shopify Theme Store!

Today I’m excited to announce the launch of New York, a theme for Shopify. Shopify is an e-commerce platform that lets store owners easily set up and manage their online store. 

I have watched over the years as Shopify has grown into the awesome ecosystem it is today. Now, upon the release of this theme I am thrilled to be a part of it!

The new theme was built by the amazing and talented CSS ninja Shawn Allison. We have been working on it for the past couple months and are very excited to release it to Shopify users!

We saw the opportunity to create a theme that incorporates the best of existing themes, best practices, and a bit of our own design flare! With its clean vintage design and powerful customizations features, New York is perfect for almost any store!

The theme is easy to use and packed with lots of powerful features!

• Home page slideshow with up to 5 slides
• Fully customizable footer
• Drop down menus for easy navigation
• Built-in product recommendations
• Social media sharing for product pages
• …and much much more!

New York comes packed with 4 styles! New York’s 4 preset styles are inspired by some the city’s most iconic streets; Madison Avenue, Broadway, Wall Street and 5th Avenue. 

Madison Avenue incorporates the classic 60’s style that has most recently become the theme of AMC’s Mad Men. 

Broadway’s clean bright design, brings the bright lights of the theatre district to any store. 

Wall Street’s minimalist design allows store owners to easily add custom colors or just let your products speak for themselves. 

Finally, 5th Avenue brings high style to any store. 

To learn more, check out the Shopify Theme Store and view a full demo of the New York theme!

Feedback? Email us at shopify@ninjaparade.com.

Fashionably Late: Franchising Still to Arrive at the Social Media Party

I’ve been spending a lot of time over the past few months thinking about social media and its interaction with the world of franchising. Why have so few franchise networks been able to successfully leverage social media tools, and why do so few digital media agencies look to franchises as prospective clients?

Social media has taken our world by storm and has long out grown its infancy. In fact, Facebook received its first round of funding in 2004 and Twitter was founded back in 2006. Popular platforms are widely adopted both by consumers and businesses of all sizes. Whole industries have already been spun out to support social media campaigns and range from campaign management tools, to full digital agencies. Online success stories are becoming more and more common, and ROI is a key focus any campaign. Why then have only a limited number of franchises been able to leverage this medium?

Franchise is a business structure rooted in process and operational control. These origins lead to slower adoption of new technologies and innovations. Corporately controlled entities have the ability to develop and implement new strategies without consulting outside agents for support, resources, or permission; whereas franchisors must take in to consideration varying expectations from their franchisees.

Franchisors looking to implement a social media strategy face the challenge of training and coordinating franchisees of different levels of commitment and technological ability. These are issues that have not yet been effectively addressed by digital media agencies, who tend to take the approach of developing strategies in house and then rolling them out on behalf of a corporation. The introduction of tens or hundreds of additional stakeholders, each of which is essentially running an independent business, adds a level of resource strain that up until now has limited the success of franchise campaigns.

Due to the obstacles facing franchises who are looking to engage in social media, many franchises have opted to take one of two courses of action. Either the franchisor lets social media grow organically by allowing each franchisee develop a local strategy or the franchisor decides to take control of the social media strategy at a head office level. Both of these strategies fail to fully leverage the power of the tools in use. Allowing franchisees to dictate their own use of social media can create a fragmented brand image which can sometimes have negative implications for the brand overall. While running social media out of head office can help alleviate this issue, this strategy fails to leverage the network power of an organization’s franchisees.

I have come to believe that a hybrid approach is required for social media success in franchising. This approach would involve both high level strategy and local level activation. The franchisor has only limited power to spread a message when compared to the collective power of its franchisees. A local level activation strategy would allow the entity to take advantage of its network. However, consistent and competent use of social media tools across all locations would require extensive training and support for franchisees. A lack of proper planning and well laid out practices and procedures is known to be a recipe for failure in franchising, and the use of social media is no different.

While franchising is still largely uncharted territory for social media, I feel that by applying proven implementation strategies from other areas of franchising to this new medium we can leverage the power of social media across entire franchise networks in ways that have not yet been possible.

Avoid the Social Media Guru

Social media is not complicated, and its not expensive. In fact, its free! Anyone that tells you anything different is probably trying to rip you off. This is coming from someone that is currently making her living off providing help to companies on social media strategy and implementation. Hypocrite? I like to think not, and here’s why.

Give me or anyone else that understands the first thing about the internet a half hour and we could have you up and running with a Twitter account, Facebook page, and even a blog. But so what? Those accounts are ghost towns unless you are able to effectively leverage them to reach out to and engage your audience. Social media is a platform like any other. It is how you use social media tools, whether or not you are able to translate your brand into an online environment and then sustain that presence is what really matters.

There seems to be a common misconception that if someone has a lot of ‘friends’ or knows how to get attention online they will somehow be able turn any brand they touch into digital gold. These people are what I would describe as self-proclaimed ‘social media gurus’. Sure this type of personality may be able to get you some followers by metaphorically standing on a mountain top and screaming out your name to the people they know; but how is this sustainable and more importantly how will this strengthen your brand and your community?

Effective reach should not be measured by comments, page hits, followers, contest submissions, or even the number of times your content is shared. Sure those metrics can be helpful to see how many people your message is reaching, but what’s more important is who your message is reaching, why they are there in the first place, and whether or not they will be coming back.

The thought that I might be compared to companies that are effectively taking advantage of their client’s technological ignorance to extort more money than their services are truly worth makes me sick. These ‘social media gurus’ give a bad name to anyone working in the realm of social media consulting. Effective social media strategies require planning, trial and error, creativity, a thorough understanding of a companies primary business activities, offline activation, and more than anything else….time! There is a lot of value to be found in working with people who will help develop deliver your company’s social media strategy, just remember to stay away from the social media guru.