Montreal Tech Watch

Over at the Tap In Tuesday blog, Gabriel Sundaram has a detailed recap of the last Tap In Tuesday meetup.

The event gathered 20 or so new entrepreneurs, with Carl Mercier, who built himself many tech tools, but best known in Montréal for having founded Defensio, an anti-spam tool, and having successfully sold it to WebSense, a larger company from California.

Like James Duncan before, Carl Mercier was never afraid of putting out new ideas, and at the same adapting to the times, such as following all the technology changes. Seeing all he’s done, one might think one secret of successful entrepreneurship is to be just confident (or just doing it, even if it’s seen as risky and just following your guts), and do as much products and versions as quickly as possible. It’s a simple lesson, although something that is never heard or taught in universities or your social network. Many entrepreneurs are told for instance by various “entrepreneurship” centers and business consultants to do extensive marketing research or do a detailed Excel simulation, which they do gladily, since it’s reassuring. And of course, it takes a minimum of business sense to launch a startup but the lesson from Carl Mercier and other successful tech entrepreneurs is you’re just better off creating it and exposing it.

Next meetup is with Marc Gingras, successful tech entrepreneur, founder of Tungle, the easiest meetup scheduler. Head over to EventBrite to get your spot (places limited to 20 entrepreneurs)