In a report released last week called
Toronto: Canada's High Tech Hub (PDF), the city's Economic Development and Culture staff reported that Toronto remains Canada's digital innovation capital, home to 30% of the country's ICT sector. The report singled out one small startup headquartered at Ryerson University's Digital Media Zone incubator as an example of the exciting activity taking place: HitSend Inc, makers of Soapbox.
Soapbox, the first application developed by HitSend, aims to give people in specific communities or networks (companies, for example) a platform to put forward ideas, debate them and vote on them. Founded by Ryerson students Brennan McEachran, Graham McCarthy and recent graduate Ayu Er, the company launched Soapbox in October of last year. Already it has added a fourth staff member, a sales and marketing representative.
Brennan says the products soft launch has been very successful. "In Vancouver, a company site we set up had 900 users within three days, and their page had 14,000 interactions. Within a week their largest competitor called us to set up a page of their own."
HitSend is preparing for a more widespread launch of SoabBox in July of this year.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Sources: Brennan McEachran, HitSend; Heather Kearney, Ryerson Digital Media Zone; Shane Gerard, City of Toronto