Ottawa has a notorious reputation as a “hard place to start a startup” but once you sit down with Lee Silverstone, co-founder of Gymtrack, you may change your mind. Lee’s company helps gyms and gym-goers track their fitness progress while lifting weights. Their approach involves hardware that attaches to the machines themselves and then synced to a wearable device (you can learn a little more about them in this recent article on BetaKit).
The focus of this short clip is how this little-known company managed to score a personal invitation to 500 Startups from Dave McClure himself (while at Startup Fest in Montreal), and how that changed their business plan in a huge way. The results? Raising $2.5 million in a seed funding and transitioning from hoping to be a $1 million company to aiming to be a $1 billion company in Ottawa.
Watch the full interview on UNTETHER.tv.