Today it was announced that Amazon is planning to launch its “Prime Now” service in Vancouver and Toronto this November and January, respectively. 

The pilot program will offer two-hour deliveries for members and, according to the Wall Street Journal, will be be heavily focused on groceries. 

It’s worth noting that most of Whole Foods’ stores in Canada (now owned by Amazon) are in and around Vancouver and Toronto. And that Amazon has already started lowering prices to make those stores more competitive.

Right now a “Prime” membership in Canada costs CAD$79 per year. I’m not sure if the price will change at all for “Prime Now”, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that it won’t. 

If this service was available to you today (or if you’re in a city that currently has it), would you (do you) use it? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Two common objections around online grocery shopping are that many people want to touch and feel the goods before they buy and that perishable deliveries are a challenging thing to coordinate.

I think I can work around those objections and would certainly try this today if it was available in Toronto. What about you?

When people like Richard Florida talk about today’s “superstar cities”, the usual suspects include London and New York for finance, the San Francisco Bay Area for tech, Milan for fashion and design, and so on.

And you can certainly find the data to back up these claims. For instance, if you look at venture capital dollars invested, many of these same cities reappear near the top: San Francisco, San Jose, New York, etc.

One city that doesn’t often appear on these sorts of lists, though, is Seattle. 

However, clearly something special is taking place in the city. For the second year in a row, Seattle has been named the construction crane capital of America. No other American city comes close right now. (However, Toronto is still #1 in North America.)

At the same time, if you think about all of the companies that have come out of Seattle over the years, you start to realize that maybe VC dollars invested isn’t enough to tell the entire entrepreneurial story.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson once

Today it was announced that Amazon is planning to launch its “Prime Now” service in Vancouver and Toronto this November and January, respectively. 

The pilot program will offer two-hour deliveries for members and, according to the Wall Street Journal, will be be heavily focused on groceries. 

It’s worth noting that most of Whole Foods’ stores in Canada (now owned by Amazon) are in and around Vancouver and Toronto. And that Amazon has already started lowering prices to make those stores more competitive.

Right now a “Prime” membership in Canada costs CAD$79 per year. I’m not sure if the price will change at all for “Prime Now”, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that it won’t. 

If this service was available to you today (or if you’re in a city that currently has it), would you (do you) use it? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Two common objections around online grocery shopping are that many people want to touch and feel the goods before they buy and that perishable deliveries are a challenging thing to coordinate.

I think I can work around those objections and would certainly try this today if it was available in Toronto. What about you?

When people like Richard Florida talk about today’s “superstar cities”, the usual suspects include London and New York for finance, the San Francisco Bay Area for tech, Milan for fashion and design, and so on.

And you can certainly find the data to back up these claims. For instance, if you look at venture capital dollars invested, many of these same cities reappear near the top: San Francisco, San Jose, New York, etc.

One city that doesn’t often appear on these sorts of lists, though, is Seattle. 

However, clearly something special is taking place in the city. For the second year in a row, Seattle has been named the construction crane capital of America. No other American city comes close right now. (However, Toronto is still #1 in North America.)

At the same time, if you think about all of the companies that have come out of Seattle over the years, you start to realize that maybe VC dollars invested isn’t enough to tell the entire entrepreneurial story.

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson once