Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
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Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
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Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#2Favorite quote:
Vancouver is found in British Columbia (BC), amongst the Rocky Mountains on Canada’s west coast.
Yah. Excellent.
Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#3Favorite quote: Vancouver is found in British Columbia (BC), amongst the Rocky Mountains on Canada’s west coast. Yah. Excellent.
Somebody get these two a map.
Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#4What bothers me about these articles is that they lay out all these reasons for why a place will be great, or is a great place to start a company, but then why -- in spite of these assets -- does that place not produce like Silicon Valley?
I am not saying Toronto is not a great city to live and work and start a business.
But if it has all these things going for it, why isn't it producing startup value per capita like SV? Doesn't this show that these things are not enough for a startup scene? Or, to put it another way, having startups is not essential for a great city.
Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#5Seems like Conrad is doing the equivalent of one of those $YOUR_CITY voted best place to live 2017 articles, but instead for entire countries, and specifically for startups.
Not saying he's necessarily wrong about any of this though, I wouldn't know.
Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#6I'm surprised to see how little funding/support there is specifically from Alberta[1], given the oil/gas wealth and the general awareness (going back decades) that they need to diversify their economy.
1 - https://www.mentorworks.ca/what-we-offer/government-funding/
Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#7I'm surprised to see how little funding/support there is specifically from Alberta[1], given the oil/gas wealth and the general awareness (going back decades) that they need to diversify their economy. 1 - https://www.mentorworks.ca/what-we-offer/government-funding/
Alberta used to be the best province regarding the behaviour of government, and this was one of the great things. The provincial taxes are fairly low, and until the most recent regime change none of the cities had municipal debt.
I would take lower taxes over a grant most days.
Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#8I'm surprised to see how little funding/support there is specifically from Alberta[1], given the oil/gas wealth and the general awareness (going back decades) that they need to diversify their economy. 1 - https://www.mentorworks.ca/what-we-offer/government-funding/
Some quick googling and there appear to be many more Alberta government business funding programs:
http://www.smallbusiness.alberta.ca/funding-a-business/
That's probably the case for other Provinces too.
Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#9Favorite quote: Vancouver is found in British Columbia (BC), amongst the Rocky Mountains on Canada’s west coast. Yah. Excellent.
To be fair, there are mountains and they're pretty rocky :-)
Re: Canada is North America’s up-and-coming startup center
#10The startup scene here in Vancouver is scrappy but really shouldn't be compared to SV in any way, it's just not a fair comparison.
We are, however, woefully under-represented with experienced seed stage investors, as the author states. The few that are here have abandoned seed and pre seed and are exclusively VC, mid to late round investors. Can't blame them, either, as the wins are still few and far between.
Vancity seems to excel at bridging H1B visas for large firms hoping to cycle them into the US once they've cleared. Candidates get here easier and quicker.
We're also a cost effective labour farm, and our devs are happy for the work to help pay for their ridiculous mortgages.
Great city to live in, worst city to fundraise, good place to launch and validate, and really nice for avoiding the noise.
We'll see a unicorn or two in the coming years. They'll just go a much different path than the typical SV startup.