Startupify.Me

Startupify.Me is not a project incubator.

We hire the best software developers in our community who are bored in their current jobs. We put them to work in partnerships with established businesses to co-create new product based businesses.

We're hiring! Apply now!

You’re an exceptional software developer with a passion for understanding, and solving, real problems. While it pays the bills, and gets you some much needed experience, putting in the 9 to 5 isn’t doing it for you any longer. You’ve considered making the leap into your own startup but you don’t have a team or idea. Time to Startupify.Me?

Leave the confines of a job behind and take your first step as an emerging entrepreneur. We’re offering you the opportunity to co-create a new product in partnership with an established business. This opportunity is only limited by your ability to execute.

• You’ve deployed production code using PHP, Java, .NET, Python, JQuery, Ruby, Objective-C.
• You’re the code craftsman on your team with an eye for design.
• You’re ready to work alongside experienced entrepreneurs to learn about startups, how to create and fund them.
• You live in Guelph, Ontario and can work at our offices at ThreeFortyNine Coworking.

This is a paid 6 month contract. It’s your chance to broaden your network and gain exposure to our amazing client companies and mentors, all in the context of creating a new business. You will certainly be highly employable at the end but the best of our cohort may be offered equity to continue building one of these new businesses.

Email us now to apply.

Please include links to portfolio websites and/or a resume. As well, tell us a little about what you’ve built lately. What programming languages do you specialize in? What entrepreneurial experience do you have? Have you helped organize community events, have a side project with some friends, ran a lemonade stand as a kid?

Yes we are name dropping. Our mentors define what awesome is when it comes to launching technology products. Each has committed to spending time in our offices working directly with you and our client projects. This list isn't complete as we're still making the rounds signing up our mentors.

We work with existing businesses by placing our tech entrepreneurs inside for a six month engagement. We come into your organization, find and develop opportunities to build differentiated software to grow the stand alone value of your business.

Once identified, we spend the remaining five months building rapid prototypes in order to test market assumptions. Our approach is focused on using customer feedback to evolve much faster than traditional product development practices.

Our initial cohort will kick off early 2012 with five businesses. Each business will have a single tech entrepreneur leading their project, however, they will have the support of their five person cohort along with the Startupify.Me team and it’s mentors.

Email us, tell us about your business and let's get working!

Existing Clients

This project is led by Brydon Gilliss from ThreeFortyNine Coworking but that will change as we build some momentum.

If career success in software were simply defined as the design and development of innovative and intuitive software, then Brydon Gilliss would be very successful. Since the late 90s, after earning an Honours BS in Engineering Systems and Computing from the University of Guelph, he’s been the lead developer of new technologies and software for companies like Cognicase (formerly Personus) and MKS Inc. He went on help build companies like BandOfCoders and Brainpark. Along with his current life in the startup world, he mentors Guelph companies through his role as Entrepreneur In Residence with Innovation Guelph. He was awarded Communitech’s Annual Tech Impact Award in the fall of 2009.

But to Brydon, an equally important component to success is supporting and contributing to a strong and viable tech community on a local level. It’s this commitment to his industry that prompted Brydon to launch DemoCampGuelph, an informal and collaborative meeting of 100+ minds for those in and around the Guelph area involved in any and all aspects of the web, software, startups, and tech. Additionally, Brydon has been recognized within the industry for helping local entrepreneurs develop and advance innovative ideas.

To add to his list of accomplishments, Brydon has been asked to share his knowledge and enthusiasm for the tech industry with a number of speaking engagements that have included The Business of Software, meshU, DemoCampToronto, Guelph Technology Organization, Guelph Technology Economy, and more.

When the workday is over, Brydon enjoys spending time with his wife and two children, passing the puck, and wielding any number of power tools renovating his downtown Guelph home.