BrightLane

District M

susy — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 15:28:20 +0000

Our Mission

In a fast-changing industry, district m strives to be a trusted leader in programmatic solutions, creating strong relationships with both advertisers and publishers. By delivering a transparent marketplace, district m is the fabric that unites both parties to meet today's high digital advertising demand.

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Website:

https://districtm.net/en/

Pinch Social

susy — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:35:18 +0000

OUR PASSION FOR SOCIAL MEDIA IS VIRAL

We’re Toronto’s social media, communications and digital marketing agency working with clients in arts, entertainment, media, lifestyle, finance, tech and more.

We bring a social approach to all aspects of marketing and communications. Whether through Social Media, Content, Digital Marketing or Strategic Communications – we know how to reach people, and deliver them to you.

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Website:

https://pinchsocial.ca/

Strut Entertainment

susy — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:08:17 +0000

Strut Entertainment is a boutique firm providing the highest quality in public relations, brand partnership and event management services. Specialties include: entertainment, music and key lifestyle brands throughout corporate Canada. Strut brings exceptional style with a fresh contemporary perspective that will define your success.

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Website:

http://strutentertainment.com/

Why You Should Consider a Coworking Space

tawny — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 22:19:49 +0000

If you’re an entrepreneur without a dedicated office space, you’re probably tired of hopping around between coffee shops or dying of boredom at home.

The space where you work can have a large influence on what you're doing and the direction your business is headed.

But is making the jump to a coworking space actually worth the investment? We think so – here’s why:

#1. The networking opportunities are endless

Networking plays a huge part in business growth. As BrightLane founder G. Raymond Chang once said, “it’s people that make any successful enterprise.”

Being surrounded by other businesses all day gives you ample opportunities to meet new people and make new connections. These connections could potentially help you advance your business, gain new insight and lead to overall success.

Additionally, constantly having the company of other entrepreneurs with great ideas can help foster your own creativity that can help your business grow and flourish!

#2. Be part of a tight-knit, welcoming community

People are more productive when they’re happy. If you’re feeling like the day is dragging on while working alone in your living room, this can slowly erode your motivation to work. Not to worry – we have a solution!

Many coworking spaces host lots of social events—such as a happy hour or an afternoon snack— which are a great way to meet new and interesting people around the city! Aside from business connections, this can also be an opportunity to bring the coworking community together for a chance to get to know one another outside of their workplace roles.

#3. Increase your productivity

Productivity is contagious!

When you’re surrounded by people who are working hard, it will make you work harder as well. Hard work is the foundation on which successful businesses are built upon, therefore a diligent and energetic environment is essential.

In addition to this, sometimes making an investment into a workspace can motivate you to work harder to justify the extra cost. This pays off over time and – if you are productive enough – can actually pay off more than the monthly cost you incur!

This is how coworking can help keep businesses on track. Increase in productivity means an increase in growth!

#4. Save on common office costs

Sharing a common space also means saving on common costs.

When you choose a coworking space, your monthly fee earns you access to many common office items such as: a printer, paper, shredders, printer ink and more.

At most spaces, this monthly cost will also earn you a desk, filing cabinet with a lock, Internet access, and most importantly, coffee!

Coworking offers endless benefits to its members, from growing your business network to saving on many office costs. But most importantly, when collaboration, innovation and motivation surrounds you, your business is bound to grow!

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cchampion — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 22:15:08 +0000

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King West

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 14:11:01 +0000

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A perfect home for Toronto Entrepreneurs

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How to Turn a Dirty Laneway Into a Thing of Beauty

Mark Evans — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 06:53:21 +0000

When BrightLane was building its co-working facility in downtown Toronto, one of the biggest issues was creating an entrance that impressed and made people comfortable.

With the entrance located in the back of the building, people would have to go down a laneway. But the laneway was dark, dirty and unattractive. It was the kind of place that would make people think twice about heading down, especially at night.

Being creative people, we started to think about ways to transform the laneway into something beautiful that reflected our brand and the collaborative and inspiring space we wanted to develop.

Somewhere along the way, the idea for a contest emerged. What better way engage the community than have someone within the community create a vision for the laneway! We created a video about the contest using the headline “Can you make this space AWESOME?”

To publicize the contest, we did extensive marketing, including video interviews with people on the street about their ideas for the laneway.

In the end, we received 185 submissions from around the world. Some of them were, well, interesting such as having a skating rink or a waterslide. And many of them were exciting and oozing with creativity.

We narrowed the list down to 20 entries, and then had different people pick the top-five. This included our landlord, Hullmark, which loved how the design would add another great ingredient to the revitalization of the 93-three-old, five-story building on King St., just west of Spadina.

Surprisingly, one entry appeared at the top of everyone’s list. Katherine Ross, a graphic designer and OCAD graduate, suggested a design that featured fragments of colourful acrylic panels that are suspended above the laneway.

Here’s how Katherine articulated her idea:

“During the day, as the sun moves over the lane way, the shadows cast by the acrylic shapes move and reflect their colours onto the ground, and sides of the building. The moving colourful casted shadows are evocative of the energy that the entrepreneurs and creative minds of BrightLane put to work every day. At night, a flood light would be appropriate for keeping the lane way dynamic and continuing the casted shadows of the shapes; creative minds don't really sleep now do they? In the winter the experience would be significantly more vibrant against the white snow.”

Everyone at BrightLane was excited about the winning design, but there was one problem: We weren’t able to contact Katherine to let her know that her design had been selected.

“She submitted an email, which is what I used to congratulate her,” said Susy Renzi, BrightLane’s general manager. “I didn’t hear back. I tried my personal account, nothing. I tried another account, nothing. I tried LinkedIn, I found a girl, Katherine Ross, who was an architect student. I said ‘this has got to be her’. I sent her a LinkedIn message asking if she had applied to the contest. If so, we had great news. Again, nothing.”

So we had a problem. If we went ahead with Katherine’s design but couldn’t contact her, that didn’t strike us as the right approach.

Fortunately, we got lucky. In reviewing an email newsletter list, we found an email from Katherine, who had asked us to use a different her email than the one in her submission. Problem solved!

Almost immediately after sending an email using the new address, Katherine responded. She had been walking by the space, and been wondering who had won the contest. Soon afterward, we invited her for a tour and awarded her the prize of free co-working space.

We’re hoping to get Katherine’s design installed in the spring when the weather gets warmer. Without a doubt, it is going to give people a positive first impression of BrightLane.

For more on the laneway contest, check out this story on Urban Toronto.

Eight Great Online Tools for Entrepreneurs

Mark Evans — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 10:13:43 +0000

By Mark Evans
As small business owners, you’re always looking for new tools and services to accelerate growth or make business more efficient.

In the past few weeks, I have been doing some exploration to drive my marketing and sales activities. Here’s a list of online tools and services that I have added to my digital arsenal.

WiseStamp: For Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo users, WiseStamp makes it easy to create an email signature that does more than simply provide basic information. Using Wisestamp, you can insert photos, links to social media networks, your latest blog posts, events…and the list goes on. It’s a great way to put your email signature on steroids.

LeadIn: Ever wonder who’s visiting your Website and what they are doing? LeadIn is a free plugin for WordPress that shows you the pages that someone visited before filling out an online form. It provides some really interesting insight so you have a better idea of what a potential customer might be interested in.

Crazy Egg: Another interesting way to see how people use your Website is Crazy Egg, which creates user-friendly heat maps. By knowing where people are clicking, it is easier to make Website changes to drive better conversions. Crazy Egg offers a free 30-day trials, and it has monthly packages starting at $9.

Full Contact: Anyone with a large digital footprint has contact information in various places – LinkedIn, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and personal address books. Full Contact is an online contact management services that aggregates your contacts and, as important, makes sure they are updated. There is a free version that includes up to 5,000 contacts, and a $9.99 monthly version that includes up to 25,000 contacts.

Assistant.io: Everyone knows how time-consuming it can be to arrange meetings via email. Assistant is a free Gmail extension that allows you to quickly provide someone with times when you are available to meet. All the recipient needs to do is click on slot that works for them, and the meeting is booked in everyone’s calendars.

Buffer: There is a lot of value in sharing content via social media. But it can be time-consuming to do it on individual platforms. Buffer is a browser-based tool that lets you post content on multiple platforms at the same time. It also lets you establish times through the day to publish updates. If you, for example, you find five interesting stories in the morning, you can use Buffer to spread them thorough the day rather than all at once. Buffer has a free version, and business packages that start at $50/month.

CoSchedule: For bloggers, it can be a challenge to schedule and publicize posts. CoSchedule is a Wordpress-based tool features a drop and drag editorial calendar, and easy ways to share content via social media. It also includes features to manage teams. Pricing is $10/month per blog.

LinkedIn: For many people, LinkedIn has limited value other than connecting with people and searching for bios. But LinkedIn quietly unveiled a new feature that has a lot of potential for people looking to raise their brand profile. Jumping on the publishing bandwagon, LinkedIn now lets you create content. From personal experience, it’s interesting to see how many people read content and leave comments.

Needless to say, there are thousands of interesting online tools and services to drive different parts of your business. It’s worth checking out some of the tools above to make doing business easier and better.

Want to win six months of free coworking space at BrightLane? We're accepting submissions for the BrightLane Business Awards until Dec. 3.

Toronto's Startup Ecosystem is Booming

Mark Evans — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 07:29:19 +0000

In the past five years, Toronto’s startup ecosystem has come a long, long way.

It wasn’t that long ago that people talked about wanting to become an entrepreneur but, for a variety of reasons, could not or would not take the leap.

These days, however, there is a lot more walk than talk. Toronto is teeming with entrepreneurs looking to create vibrant businesses.

There are recent graduates who have decided the volatile world of being an entrepreneur has more appeal than getting a “real job”, and people with lots of corporate experience who believe the time is right to take a shot at doing their own thing.

At the same time, Toronto’s startup ecosystem has been maturing and improving on a variety of fronts. Although we could probably wave the startup flag more enthusiastically, Toronto has emerged as one of the world’s leading startup communities.

According to the Startup Genome’s Startup Ecosystem 2013 report, Toronto ranked eighth globally, while Vancouver was ninth and Waterloo 16th.

Without a doubt, much of the ecosystem’s vibrancy has to do with the volume and enthusiasm of entrepreneurs who are creating and working for startups. There is a growing feeling of boundless optimism and endless possibilities when it comes to the potential of startups.

In many ways, the army of entrepreneurs has created a rock-solid foundation for the startup community to grow and thrive.

But there are other parts of the ecosystem playing a key role.

A good example is the growing number of accelerators and incubators that are helping entrepreneurs nurture their ideas and improve their skills. This includes organizations such as HIGHLINE, the Digital Media Zone (DMZ), InCubes and JOLT, which didn’t exist five years ago. Today, they are being used by many entrepreneurs as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

The incubators and accelerators are being fed by a steady flow of talent from universities such as Ryerson and the University of Toronto, as well as colleges such as George Brown, Seneca, Centennial and Sheridan. And then you have the University of Waterloo, which is producing scores of engineers and developers that help to fuel startups in Toronto.

While people power startups, capital helps them accelerate their growth. While few people would describe the venture capital landscape as robust or flush, it is getting better. Investors such as Mantella Venture Partners, MaRS IAF, Klass Capital and BDC are providing capital to a growing number of startup entrepreneurs.

At the same time, startups such as ClearFit, Top Hat Monocle, WattPad and Freshbooks are raising large amounts of capital from U.S. VCs who see lots of investment potential north of the border.

Another source of strong support for the ecosystem are experienced suppliers who can provide startups with financial, sales, marketing, capital, legal and sales support to drive growth. In many respects, anything a startup would need is probably accessible in their own backyards.

So where does Toronto’s startup community go from here?

It’s a case of simply continuing to move forward with the same amount of energy and enthusiasm. While there will be challenges ahead, startups have become an integral part of Toronto’s economic landscape. Every day, there seems to be more momentum as more startups are created and financed.

These are clearly exciting times to be an entrepreneur.

At BrightLane, we’re excited about becoming a member of the startup ecosystem. We believe there is an important role for co-working spaces to support entrepreneurs who want to work in a collaborative environment that doesn’t require them to make a long-term commitment to office space.

We think co-working spaces will emerge as a key part of the ecosystem, providing a bridge between entrepreneurs working in basements, accelerators and incubators, and the leased office space.

We encourage you to check out the Website or swing by for a tour of own facility in downtown Toronto.

Coworking: A Fast-Growing Global Phenomenon

Mark Evans — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 14:37:43 +0000

One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is a simple one: where should they work.

For many new entrepreneurs, the home office is where is begins. In many cases, it is the spare bedroom, the kitchen table or the basement where they carve out “work space”.

While these options allow entrepreneurs to get started without making a big investment, they can be less than ideal. It can be a challenge working from home with all the distractions from family, errands, etc.

Home offices can be less than stimulating given you work alone most of the time. And it is challenging to have business meetings at home, which means spending time at the local café to meet people.

So what are the alternatives to the home office?

You can find an existing business with a spare desk that will let you camp out. But this is kind of like crashing on a friend’s couch. After awhile, the novelty wears off, which leaves you looking for a new home.

You can rent an office but that can be expensive for a new entrepreneur, and it can involve a long-term commitment, which is less than ideal for new businesses.

But there is another option that sits between the home office and leasing an office: co-working spaces. These are places where entrepreneurs can work with other people in a collaborative environment.

It gives entrepreneurs an affordable place to call home that includes a lot of the business services they need – meeting rooms, printers, Internet access, kitchens, etc. In many respects, it is the ideal place for entrepreneurs looking for a place to establish themselves.

Co-working spaces are quickly emerging as a popular option globally. As entrepreneurship and startups become more popular, co-working spaces are attractive because they provide flexibility, particularly when it comes to space, services and costs.

According to Forbes, there are nearly 6,000 co-working spaces around the world, compared with only 300 in 2009. As impressive, 260,000 people work in these facilities, a 26-fold increase from five years ago.

George Horhota, BrightLane’s president, said the popularity of co-working spaces has much to do with more people deciding they should work for themselves. “Working from home isn’t effective, and you can’t meet a client at Starbucks,” he says. “This is a global trend where people want to work in close proximity to others.”

If you buy into the idea that co-working is an interesting proposition, what should you look for when picking one? Here are some questions to ask:

What are the different co-working packages? Some entrepreneurs need a place to hang out a few days a week or month, while start-ups or small companies require larger spaces to meet their needs. A good co-working space can accommodate different kinds of entrepreneurs and businesses.
Is there flexibility when it comes to the space needed? The reality is business can happen in cycles so, ideally, there is a value in being able to scale up or down to handle growth or a sales slowdown.
How long can you stick around? Moving a business can be distracting and time-consuming so it is a good idea to know whether you can establish a long-term relationship with a co-working space.
What services are available? Beyond a desk where you can work, what else is offered? Are there meeting rooms, kitchens, photocopiers, event spaces, Wi-Fi, bike storage, etc.?
What are the working hours? Some entrepreneurs work nine to five, but a lot of entrepreneurs want 24/7 access to a co-working space because running a business can be a non-stop proposition.
What is the culture? What are the opportunities for collaboration, mentoring and coaching? A huge benefit of co-work spaces is handing out with other people. Working in an environment that encourages collaboration and learning is a great way to establish and grow a business.
Does the co-working space specialize on a single vertical, or is it open to a variety of businesses? Some entrepreneurs want to work with like-minded people, while others enjoy hanging out with people doing different things.

Any kind of business decision means getting answers to key questions; so it is important have a checklist of what you want from a co-work space.

At BrightLane, we are looking to make our co-working space as flexible, collaborative and convenient as possible. To learn more about our facility in downtown Toronto, browse through our Website or drop by for a tour.