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Beyond the Rack's Yona Shtern Shares Advice for Entrepreneurs at Accelerate MTL 2012

Yona Shtern is the co-founder and CEO of Beyond the Rack, a Canadian startup that was named the fastest growing E-tailer in the US in 2011 by Internet Retailer Magazine. He has been an entrepreneur for over 10 years and is a frequent speaker and panelist at international marketing and technology conferences. He has also received numerous awards for his advertising, product launch, and marketing strategies.

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Ottawa's RentingWell is Like FreshBooks for Property Managers

Toronto's FreshBooks has established itself as a world-class web platform to create, send, and manage invoices online. Ottawa's Sliced Bread has concocted a platform that could achieve the same success in the property management space.

Sliced Bread, an app studio formed in 2010, announced the private beta of RentingWell in April. We snagged a beta code to test the platform and first impressions were strong.

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QuickMobile Launches Analytics Dashboard with Real-Time Data for Event Marketers

Event marketers and organizers will now have access to real-time analytics data to improve event logistics and measure success with the release of QuickMobile’s new Analytics Dashboard. Accessible through the Vancouver startup's content management system, the new dashboard is available to all customers and delivers hourly updates of data captured from event attendees’ use of QuickMobile’s mobile meeting apps.

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Canadian Startups Share Stories of Success and Failure at Mesh 2012

Yesterday marked Day 2 of the Mesh12 Conference in Toronto, Ontario. There were some inspiring and passionate presentations during the morning session, with speakers like Rebecca MacKinnon, author of The Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom, Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, David Weinberger, co-author of Too Big to Know and The Cluetrain Manifesto, and Canadian Dr. Michael Evans, founder of the New Health Design Lab.

Mesh12 Conference organizers Mark Evans and Stuart MacDonald moderated an afternoon breakout Q&A session entitled “Tales from the Trenches. Stories from Startups” which boasted an impressive list of Canadian startup founder speakers including: Aliza Pulver, Andy Yang, Evgeny Tchebotarev, Dups Wijayawardhana and Heather Payne.

Below are their stories – from getting started to surviving the twists and turns of running a business:

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Victoria's Chartbrain Transforms Music Charts into Automated Music Video Playlists

Want to stream an automated playlist of the best music videos for free? Victoria-born Chartbrain has your back.

A solo project built by Canadian developer James Gagan—who was involved in the somewhat similar Songspin startup—Chartbrain's premise is beautifully simple. First, select a music chart. There's Billboard, Last.fm, Hype Machine, and more. Next, choose a countdown (from the bottom of the list up to the top song), a top 10 countdown, or a shuffle. You can also start with a specific song.

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Communitech's HYPERDRIVE Joins FounderFuel and JOLT in TechStars Canadian Network

Last month Techvibes reported that Toronto's JOLT had become a member of the Global Accelerator Network (formerly TechStars network).

The Global Accelerator Network (GAN) is an alliance championed by TechStars and originally created as part of the White House’s Startup America Initiative. JOLT was not the first Canadian accelerator to become part of the GAN - Montreal's FounderFuel has also leveraged the TechStars brand north of the border.

Today Communitech's new tech accelerator, HYPERDRIVE, announced it will become the third Canadian member of the GAN.

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