MONTREAL
As you might expect, there’s no shortage of technology on Alexandra Pier in the Old Port of Montreal this week, where hundreds have converged for the International Startup Festival.
Flat-panel displays update constantly with new information and photos uploaded by participants, laptops glow from cocktail tables and wifi is everywhere, if a little laggy at times.
More surprising are the low-fi but effective methods some attendees have employed to catch the eye of potential investors roaming the floor of the cavernous Iberville Passenger Terminal.
Members of the tech-obsessed Communitech team, here to broaden our network, check out Montreal’s burgeoning startup scene and see what we might bring back from a stellar list of presenters, have certainly taken notice of all the guerrilla marketing.
It starts on the pier itself outside, where someone has scrawled “Have you been Cheek’d?” in white chalk on the asphalt. It continues inside, where a woman with a Cheek’d tattoo on her arm sports a T-shirt that says “Are you following me?” on the back, and a decidedly old-school paper poster for Cheek’d is taped to a wall outside the washrooms, complete with tear-off information tabs.
Cheek’d, if you haven’t just looked it up, is a novel online dating site where a user can post a profile, then hand out cards to people they meet and would like to get to know better. The recipient uses the card, which carries an access code, to log on to the person’s profile and, if interested, set up a date.
Speaking of washrooms, an online sports store has managed to secure a captive male audience by posting stickers above the urinals in the men’s room, bearing only its name, Sportically, and a QR code.
Another startup is doing some curiosity-baiting of its own by spreading pin-on buttons around on tables. The pins carry just one word, tradyo, tempting anyone who picks one up to Google it and find out about the company’s location-based buy-and-barter app, which allows users to find treasures for sale or trade in their neighbourhoods.
Meanwhile, in one of the sun-filled corridors of the terminal, Arwid Bancewicz employed a simpler method to catch attention: a bumper sticker on the upper back of his shirt, advertising Vertex.IO. Bancewicz and three friends co-founded the company, which helps developers design, implement and scale the back ends of their apps – or, in his words, “make mobile development really, really easy.”
As for the bumper sticker, “We’re going to be sitting down a lot,” Bancewicz said in explaining its high position, along his shoulders. “People will see my back.”
Nothing technical about that, but hey, if it works it works.
