About Us

MJ and Shelley went to Vancouver to collect our award and speak on a panel about Web2.0 and Enterprise

Blue spoke on a panel at the Festival; Digital Convergence: New Media, Social Media and Distribution Possibilites

Gwabsco gets infused with a little cash while we try and kick this baby out the door and let it spread it's wings.

We changed venues for this year's AGM (it was a little crowded last year). It went smoothly and Belgo provided us with some delicious food afterward.

We're going to be building Make Good on our Chaordix platform. Also, Make Good acquired the Greedy or Needy community. Giving2.0 is about to get a whole lot cooler.

Blue went out to speak on a panel at Next Media.

Jeff Howe’s deep dive into the crowdsourcing phenomena is set to be released by Random House in Spring 2008.

Michael and Blue went down to Palo Alto to speak on a panel about crowdsourcing at VLab. Note: It was Blue’s 30th birthday.

Cambrian House made it on to TechCrunch. Not the most flattering picture painted, but we’re of the Jessica Simpson attitude that any press is good press.

In early May, we began a very private beta of the Gwabs game. We have scheduled an Open Beta for 2nd quarter 2008. Gwabs commercialization strategy represents a stage-gated approach, with incremental investment contingent on private beta success. Want into the beta? Go here!

Mob4Hire officially launches it's Beta and gets some good press. Register your handset on their website

The Game Developer Conference February 18-22, 2008 in San Francisco was a success! Our pipeline of distribution partners materialized quickly, and we have several options to evaluate. If you’re keen – here are event highlights.

Gwabsco was approved for Q1 2008 funding of $500,000 from Telefilm Canada and $135,000 from IRAP Alberta. Thank your funders! (curtsy)

We have established a separate corporation to manage Gwabs (yet unbranded and referred to internally as Gwabsco). Gwabsco is owned 100% by Cambrian House shareholders.

Jasmine participated in a webinar round table with Jeff Howe (WIRED magazine contributor and author of the upcoming book: Crowdsourcing), Anil Rathi (CEO of IdeaCrossing) and Aaron Strout (Mzinga) to discus the power of crowdsourcing. Over 300 people from various Fortune 1000 companies tuned in.

On December 1, Robinhood Fund was re-branded as “Greedy or Needy” (turned out those Robinhood brand managers were possessive!). The active community is more than 27,000 members with 3,000+ forum posts per day and members donating money to each other to grant extra wishes. We're looking for revenue streams for 2008 (ie: advertising).

In order to gauge interest in the Chaordix™ crowdsourcing platform and open the door to people who could attract valuable beta partners, Shelley and Jasmine presented at the Vancouver Angel Forum. The result: Cambrian House was voted the "runner-up" for the "Most Likely to be Acquired" award and many people expressed interest in working with us.

FilmRiot aims to be the leaders in applying crowdsourcing to funding independent film projects. Formerly called "Fundable Films", they won IdeaWarz in 2006 and officially launched in November 2007. Now incorporated, FilmRiot is raising financing with support from Cambrian House - yah, we own equity in their business ;). Welcome Andy Doan and Don Holmsten to the family.

Blue and David are fresh back from Seattle and An Event Apart where they hung out with web standards godfather Jeffrey Zeldman and world-renowned CSS expert Eric Meyer and other A-list presenters to immerse in web design and UI best practices. They hosted a fantastic lunch and learn for the team.

Jasmine spoke in Michael's place at the API conference in San Francisco about the importance of developer relations to achieving CH's vision. API stands for Application Program Interface. Companies can release their API to the public, allowing for what is called a "mashup" of its data, thus creating distribution channels through third parties previously impossible. Think del.icio.us, Twitter, Digg, and Flickr and of course Facebook. See - it's like you were there!

It was "the" must-attend networking event in San Francisco. Although we normally attend these events to garner attention and media coverage, we made an effort to keep quiet. We soaked up insights from Web 2.0 gurus about upcoming trends, made some new great contacts and met with our current partner prospects to keep them apprised of our progress and plans ahead.

Thanks to Hal Josephon's China Access program, Michael travelled to China with fellow North American entrepreneurs to meet Chinese government and business representatives and Chinese entrepreneurs. After attending GDC Shanghai, Michael spoke about Cambrian House at Cyberport in Hong Kong and at BarCamp Bejing.

Red Herring magazine hosted their first Canadian event in Montreal in early September and invited Michael to present Cambrian House as an Canadian start-up to watch.

Michael was invited to join a panel to discuss Wisdom of Crowds during VidFest. Panel members included Andrew Keen - Web 2.0 scrooge who foretells the death of culture and intelligence because amateurs have too easy access to create and share information. We were prepared to argue but the boxing match we were expecting didn't happen!

As part of VidFest, Hal Josephson and Jasmine participated in the International Partnership Forum: a speed dating-style business networking program that had them hopping from table to table meeting reps from Microsoft, Capcom and others to talk about Gwabs. The conversations opened up some great business development opportunities for Gwabs.

We lined up an ace game developer partner to help take Gwabs to market now to end of June. Piranha Games has the option to purchase up to 10% of Gwabs equity once our raise is officially kicked off.

Business 2.0 Magazine selected the world's best Web 2.0 services based outside the United States and Cambrian House ranked #3 out of the Top 10 World Shaking Business Models. Along side us was Joost from the guys who gave us Kazzaa and Skye now taking over TV, and Nokia spinoff Widsets who turns Web widgets into handy things for cell phones.

Hal Josephson has agreed to lead the business development initiatives for Gwabs. Hal joined CH as an advisor earlier this year and will bring his vast knowledge of the industry, extensive network of contacts, and mentorship abilities to the table to get Gwabs before the eyes of the right people and create partnerships that will take the game to market. Great to have you Hal!

The tourney launched on August 29, pinning 13 IdeaWarz winners and 3 wild card contenders against each other in a battle for the crowd’s votes. On September 26, the winning idea as determined by the community will win 3 hours of business mentorship from Sean Wise and $2,500 to start executing their idea.

On July 18 Cambrian House hosted our 2006 Annual General Meeting. Approximately 75 shareholders attended and Michael gave shareholders an update on product development and discussed some of the learnings staff and management have experienced.

Private equity firm, Spencer Trask Venture Partners, has a history of investing in innovation. They funded Thomas Edison's efforts to take the light bulb to market, invested in the Human Genome Project, HIV vaccine, InnoCentive (crowdsourced R&D) and more. Spencer Trask invited Shelley and Michael to meet their team and chairman to discuss CH's strategy and how it aligns with Spencer Trask’s vision. Can you say - start of a beautiful relationship!

Jasmine headed to Mountain View to attend Debbie Landa’s (Deal Maker Media Network) Under the Radar Conference – an event dedicated to bringing media, Web 2.0 start-ups and VC’s together to help small businesses breakthrough to the next stage. We reconnected with business development, VC and media contacts. Better than Kevin Bacon, Debbie’s network of VCs and entrepreneurs consists of over 70,000 people in the Silicon Valley and beyond.

Calgary Inc. named Michael Sikorsky and Cambrian House as Calgary's top innovators! That's right. It's not just our good looks and charm... it's our crowdsourcing tenacity, attraction of a crowd of members, and the way we are seeing and shaping the future that makes us a good date.

The WaterCooler - a new way to post thoughts, comments, feedback and more between community members - was released.

MESH, Toronto Canada's newest Web 2.0 conference, invited Michael Sikorsky to speak alongside Jeff Howe and Simon Pulsifer to discuss crowdsourcing as the new wave in business and innovation.

Squeaky was crowned winner of the Friendly Giant IdeaWarz Tournament with his idea "GPS Location Device/Member-Supplied Info"" which will help travelers with GPS devices upload travel tips and comments for each other. Thomas Malone for the invite!

Sean Wise, an observer to CH's Board of Directors, released his book Wise Words on Amazon.com.

The Bazaar (Cambrian House's crowdsourced marketplace for ideas, businesses job postings and more) launched thanks to the awesome work Chris, Marrone and the team.

CH released our first widget to allow members to promote their ideas on FaceBook.

MJ was invited to speak at Sloan School of Management (MIT) about CH's corporate structure and our beliefs about crowdsourcing. Thanks to Professor Thomas Malone for the invite!

Members of the CH team locked themselves in a room for nearly five days to redesign CH.com's user interface and increase the "magic."

The Digital Media Association of Alberta honored Cambrian House's marketing savvy by awarding us with the "Best Corporate Promotional Video" at their awards ceremony. Check out the video!

Michael was invited to speak at Red Herring's annual Spring Innovation conference in Monterey, CA at the beginning of May. The event brings together industry leaders and honors the best of the best.

One of the largest angel groups in Canada with 60+ investors, the Vancouver Angel Forum introduces emerging companies to private equity investors. CH often heads south versus west for cash but the short flight sure paid off. Michael Sikorsky's pitch won "Best in Show" and more importantly helped CH connect to a new network of angels that led to over $425,000 from 3 new investors.

Hailed as the "Oscars of the Internet" by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Congrats to the Robinhood Fund team!

CH partnered with Mashery to enable developers to access Cambrian House's API, develop mash-up applications and, in turn, earn Glory Points!

Cambrian House became the first Web 2.0 company to give community members a stake in the game. On April 17 we launched Community Owned at Web 2.0 Expo.

MJ, Sarah, JR, Jasmine and David headed down to San Francisco to participate in Web 2.0 Expo. The conference and expo focused on emerging industry trends, high-ranking speakers, and new and veteran Web 2.0 companies.Our Tiki Booth was a hit!

PeteC's Wicked Travel Site! is victorious. Slogan: "Find out how far your dollar will let you go!"

Invited by Professors Andrew McAfee, Karim Lakhani, and Peter Coles of the Harvard Business School, Cambrian House participated in a case study on the merits of using prediction markets for IdeaWarz. Jasmine, MJ and JR went down to discuss, and hear what Harvard's brightest had to say on the subject.

Josh Catone's article on crowdsourcing puts Cambrian House at the top of 5 other crowdsourcing companies. When the article made the front page of DIGG we got plenty-o-traffic!

Huge thanks to Andrew McAfee, Karim Lakhani, and Peter Coles at Harvard for coining the term Cambros, our new Cambrian House currency. Cha-ching!

Andrew mentions Cambrian House in his blog.

After winning Pitch4Profit, MJ presents at the Great Canadian Pitch-Off (at the Canadian Venture Forum) and wins.

After meeting journalist Rick Spence in December, we were crossing our fingers that the reason we hadn't seen his story published was because it was making Profit Magazine's Web 2.0 issue. And we were right! Cambrian House and MJ were featured on the cover as Canada's revolutionary web-based company.

His idea Speed Dating by Webcam beat of 15 other contenders. ChildOfTv thought of this idea while fostering a long distance relationship with his girlfriend over instant messaging.

Don Tapscott was the featured presenter at Cambrian House's first Cambrian Lounge event on February 26. Over 250 people attended and we heard nothing but rave reviews! If (like billions of others) you missed the event then we recommend you take the time to check it out.

Out of 25 semi-finalists, Cambrian House is among the three finalists to move on to the final round of the competition: a live pitch at the Great Canadian Pitch Off. Cambrian House, ViaVol and Telegele garner top votes and will present to the crowd in March.

Sean Wise of Mentor Capital and CBC's Dragon's Den is a powerhouse - we're excited that he's joined the team.

After much anticipation IdeaForge, is released. IdeaForge gives people the opportunity to have more room to elaborate on their ideas. Slogans, logos, pitches and commericals can now help you promote your idea.

On February 10th, MJ, JR, Rob, Jason, Sarah and Jasmine headed to Stanford University for Community Next - the first conference aimed solely at bringing social networking communities together to discuss emerging trends, common practices and debate tools and philosophies.

Cambrian House celebrates our 1st birthday. One year down - and we have so much to celebrate thanks to the support of our friends, family, investors, and community members.

A board member since January 2006, Shelley Kuipers now dives in deep to Cambrian House as our President beginning February 2007. Shelley contributes experience as a founder of serial startups and advisor to software entrepreneurs on launching and scaling their businesses through financing, talent, sound operations, product distribution and professional services. Watch her Facebook addiction grow!

Cambrian House and HotHead Games sign on the dotted line. This partnership will brings Cambrian House years of gaming experience and important contacts within the gaming industry - a huge asset to the Gwabs team and participating community members.

MJ and Jasmine met with Jeff for dinner in NY to talk about our experiences building a crowdsourcing community and hear about his experiences writing and speaking about the growing trend.

Sean Wise summarized 2006 as the year of the mob and forecasted the trends to watch for in 2007. Cambrian House is featured as a company that is successfully harnessing the wisdom of crowds.

CityTV did an 8 minute spot on MJ and Cambrian House as a forerunner in the Global Market for Crowdsourcing, as a local company.

January was the month for RHF to step out of the shadows and really shine, revealing the new re-branded website. Then the team took to the streets of Toronto in January to help kick off the launch of the new site by delivering the cheques to the winners of the $20,000 giveaway. Watch the video!

The first ever podcast guest for Juxtaviews was none other than our own CEO, MJ. Highlighting the innovative ways CH is empowering individuals to get their idea out there, Juxtaviews went all out in their analysis of CH.

A few members of the CH team head to Salt Spring Island, BC to plan out the year ahead. Thanks to Brian Craig for being a great host :).

On January 17, the Gwabs Mini-Game was released to much excitement within the Cambrian House community. The Mini-Game was created as a test-run before Gwabs is released and as a reward to Cambrian House community members.

We started off the year being featured in the Tawianese Trade Commission Web 2.0 book.

Community member John Lynn, aka TechGuy, along with Cambrian House was featured in the UK Financial Times, highlighting the hidden power of crowdsourcing.

Noticing we're all getting a bit pudgy, we change caterers, hoping to eat healthier and lose some of our excess lbs.

IdeaWarz Purple Cow Tournament winds up. BTOWN's Real Estate Investors idea rises victories.
IdeaWarz

RobinhoodFund.com catches the eye of Red Herring in an article titled "New Breasts for Christmas".
Red Herring article

CH Christmas Party. Christine challenges Zack to an epic Dance Dance Revolution battle as everyone eats, drinks and is merry.

Prezzle.com is HOT with loads of last minute Christmas shoppers hitting the site.
www.prezzle.com

Cambrian House named as one of the trends to watch in 2007 by the UK Guardian.
UK Guardian article

Cambrian House visits Google on Pajama Day to retrieve the White Laptop after it was signed by Dr. Vinton Cerf and Dr. Larry Brilliant.
Follow the White Laptop

Rob makes the Top15 on YouTube with this Wii-Tarded video clip.
See The Video

IdeaWarz selects 16 new ideas from IdeaExplorer to compete in its second tournament.  The winner?  techguy's Just for Lunch Networking.
ideawarz.com

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple signs the White Laptop and supports our cause.
followthewhitelaptop.com

We spread the CH gospel, made friends, met potential investors, were featured in Don Tapscott's conference presentation, and got loads of signatures on the White Laptop.
http://web2con.com/

The place where wishful thinkers can pad their pockets.
Make A Wish

Our first monthly IdeaWarz tournament, 16 top ideas from the community were pinned against each other to battle it out. The winner? AndyDoan's Fundable Films.
ideawarz.com

Robinhood and Maid Marian rally the troops.

Cambrian House is featured in BusinessWeek's article about crowdsourcing.
Business Week Article

Cambrian House kicks off our White Laptop campaign to collect signatures from tech rock stars to help out tech hopefuls. Guy Kawasaki is the first to sign it, thanks Guy!
followthewhitelaptop.com

Guy is inducted into the NVA Hall of Fame. To celebrate JR played some hockey with him.
Read the Letter

Desktops beware! IM fighting game Gwabs is unleashed to the world!
gwabs.com

The Viking ship sails its maiden voyages with tasks for Profit and for Glory.

M.J. appears on CBC's The Current alongside Wired Magazine's Jeff Howe talking about Cambrian House and crowdsourcing.

Cambrian House far exceeds it's Q2 goals of 100 members and 1000 ideas with 4000 members 1500 ideas.

The first of many servings of entrepreneurial advice from Cambrian House. This helping focuses on eating investor fear.

-CH launched June 26th
-Top 100 visited site in Canada based on Alexa.com
-Cambrian House sends Google lunch

Google is inducted into the NVA Hall of Fame. As a token of our appreciation to all Googlers worldwide, we sent them lunch.
See the videos.

Our CH team finally push the BETA launch. The reward... a new xbox360 in the office (complete with Geometry Wars).

I can't believe it's not butter.

We got hooked up with SourceForge Enterprise Edition so we can invite all the developers and creative people in the universe to have fun with us.

The Cambrian House is awarded the New Leaf Award for "Most Unique IP".

Peter was the first vigilante contributor to Cambrian House. He found our test site before launch and didn't blow our cover. Though we have more than 9 employees, he'll always be user #9 to us. Thanks Peter :)

-Cambrian code hit it big
-Prezzle gained steam
-Neighborhood fund market test
-Goats in the house!

To kick off our foundation, we donated $1000 to the local Mustard Seed - a non-profit organization that responds to the needs of the inner-city's less fortunate.
More about our foundation

Coinciding with the launch of the Da Vinci Code, Cambrian Code was released into the universe. This buzz generating online puzzle made it to reddit.com
cambrianhouse.com/pwnit

A huge New York buzz campaign takes place in Times Square. Flowers are added to the list of online gifts.

Jeff Howe of 'Wired' introduces us to the term Crowdsourcing.

Our team is always practicing hourly iterations. The 'Hour of Power' is at hand!

The board establishes a monthly reporting criteria. The meeting consisted of: Shelley, James, Glen, MJ, Rob, and Zach.

First Quarter results are released. The investor open house is held at the CH office in Calgary.

The third installment of our monthly newsletter to investors is issued. Highlights for April:

-Prezzle goes live
-share certificates are issued

'Flintstoning' refers to using humans behind the scenes to do backend product fulfillment avoiding the automation of a process prematurely.

Cambrian House's first dance competition resulted in Zach claiming the DDR champion title. Christine managed a close second.

The only interactive and live desktop background that responds to your screen movements and desktop action adding life to your desktop.
desktopplayground.com

The first golden tree award goes to Christine Anderson! Exceptional dedication to the company. Your hard work has produced some amazing results.

RenoWorks Homeowner Edition allows you to preview your home improvement projects before you do them.
renoworkshomeedition.com

52 days after Cambrian House Incorporates, AdWord alerts becomes the first product to record a sale on the web.
adwordalerts.com

Inside Procter & Gamble's New Model for Innovation.
"Most companies are still clinging to a bricks-and-mortar R&D infrastructure and the idea that their innovation must principally reside within their own four walls."

Smitty was the number one foosball player in the office for quite some time. Rob decided to step it up a notch. In a game for all the marbles, Smitty's butt gets severely kicked by Rob.

Pre-order volumes of prezzle indicated great customer interest. The product was developed and launched in April.
prezzle.com

March was a busy month for us. We pushed AdWords live, ran numerous market tests, developed and tested version 1.0 of Prezzle, and coined 'flintstoning' and 'the hour of power.'

Pressed for meeting space, the area under the stair-well is designated as our new secret meeting room.

CH supplies breakfast, lunch and dinner. There's no need for any lunch bags around here!

The fun way to buy, wrap and give gifts online. They can't open it until the date you choose!
prezzle.com

adwordalerts.com

MJ convinces JR that forming a startup is more fun than surfing. Thanks for joining the team JR.

This month we cracked off 3 market tests, scheduled the first investor open house and moved into our new office at 229 11th Ave. SE.

Four designers enter our one-day design competition- one logo leaves. Using 8 intense one hour iterations we created the design for our company logo.

#1. Zach $100
#2. Peter $75
#3. Chris $40
#4. Dan $35

It used to be hard to upload videos to your iPod. Frustrations be gone with PodBlast.
podblastvideo.comm

AdWord Alerts sends you real-time messages alerting you of critical activity happening in you Google AdWords campaigns.
adwordalerts.com

12 days after opening the doors, we collect our first bit of revenue. The team was ecstatic to see a contributed idea realized.

CVR (Computer Video Recorder) is an online protection mechanism used by Parents to monitor their children's computer usage.
cvrforparents.com

Patrick Lor joins our board of directors as an observer. Patrick's pioneering efforts at iStockphoto make him a perfect candidate for our board.

James Szarko joins our board of directors as an observer. We're very pleased to have him on our team.

Glen Gray joins our board of directors as an observer. His wisdom will be a vital addition to the board.

Brian Craig joins our board of directors as an observer. Excellent news.

Shelley Kuipers joins our board of directors. We're excited to have her on our team.

Chameleon is the name we give our top secret internal project that allows us to commercialize product ideas at fierce speed.

Vacancy rate was at an all time low(0.07%), but we lucked out and got a great place in downtown Calgary.
Tour the office with the Queen.

The excel version of a business plan is put together.

MJ's B-day. CH starts eating fear(raising money). Check out the before and after shots of the party.

Michael Beauregard comes up with the name Cambrian House while out for lunch with MJ. The thought came from the Cambrian Explosion where a fantastic burst of plant and animal diversity took place.

Cambrian House is incorporated.

MJ bounces the idea off his friends and potential investors. Over many Coke Zeros and PowerBars the idea is distilled and refined.

MJ conceives the idea for a new Internet startup. To discover and commercialize software ideas by harnessing the wisdom and participation of crowds.