Hey Canadian students! Do you have a wicked idea that will change the world? Need some startup money to get started?!

Canadian Business is having their annual The Great Innovation Competition. The winner will win:

* Up to $50,000 in engineering and consulting services from Nytric Ltd. towards developing a prototype

* A free feasibility study by Nytric Ltd. valued at $20,000

* Intellectual Property legal services from Bereskin & Parr, valued at $10,000

* Business and financial advisory services from nbp, valued at $10,000

* Invaluable publicity including a profile in an issue of Canadian Business Magazine

All it takes to register is provide details under 1000 characters for the following categories: Innovation, Product Status, Marketing Status, Competitive Analysis.

Entries due by May 1, 2009.

Click here for more details.

Good luck!

- Peter Kao

Yes! Today, I finally got a chance to get back at companies that outsource their call centers.

I purchased Quickbooks Pro 2008 for my startup company – Influenza Media with the assumption that it will support multi-currencies just like ALL previous versions. Sadly, I found out that it only supports CDN currency when I got home.

I gave Quickbooks a call and asked about their “upgrade service”. Long story short, they asked for another $200 dollars to “upgrade” my Pro version to a Multicurrency version, which makes the total sum up to ~$400 dollars. That’s fine because they had told me that I could keep the Pro software…which means I can just return it back to Best Buy (where I bought the software) and get my full money back!

What costs $400 dollars – I got for $200 all from “upgrading” my software.

In your face India!

- Peter Kao

It’s only fair that we put his face somewhere…for being the worst American president ever.

- Peter Kao

I have already started on one of my New Year’s Resolution, which is to manage my money better. The reason is not because I am in a huge debt or starving and living off leftover garbage food, but more so to get in the habit of understanding where my money is going or coming from.

This will be something I will need to do anyways when I start my own business, since I will have to somehow track my cashflow.

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