41–50 of 111 posts
My company does 100x the traffic of our nearest competitor but you'll never see a TechCrunch article about us, since we're in Toronto. So there's no pressure for overnight success and you can work diligently towards making a better product instead of meeting unreasonable expectations.
One thing that Canada has in it's favour is that for competent CS graduates, you're competing with stultifying companies rather than companies in the SF bubble. PagerDuty is one of those companies that I expect Canada would've been happy to keep, and we're loving it in SF, but we're fighting with a lot of similar companies for people. This year, we opened up an office in Toronto, and even though our standards are the…
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* Disclaimer - I wrote the post Thanks for suggesting I look young :) I have a hard time taking advice from young people too. Well ... until Brian Wong, schooled me during a tech conference we were both panelists for. A lot of super smart valley entrepreneurs "bypass" what it takes to be a well rounded business person ... I guess. But I doubt that has anything to do with age, and more to do with the current frothy ac…
Thinking about it, I'm sure they can be just as good. Regardless of age. I would guess it's like anything else. Constant exposure and practicing will breed excellence. I would just be scared of all the mistakes they haven't made yet. It's funny you mention Brian Wong, his company is a competitor of the company i work for. He's a smart guy, from what i can tell, but he would actually be one of the examples i'd use to…
I have a few problems with this article, namely the comparisons drawn between The Valley and Canada. I am currently a Canadian citizen, working in San Francisco at a company that moved from Vancouver many years ago. The author seems to be comparing the Bay Area to the entirety of Canada. Canada is not a small area, a city or a state. It is an entire 'continent' spanning multiple provinces with very different laws and…
* Disclaimer - I wrote this post. Totally agree, Canada is incredibly diverse so this article is a bit overgeneralizing. Starting in Waterloo / Toronto / Vancouver / is night and day to Winnipeg (nothing against winnipeg). The main take away is to be wary of the hype in the valley. That pervades the culture. Everyone from investors to your family fill you up with hype. You don't get that in Canada. You've gotta fight…
Rose coloured glasses. You want to startup in Canada? Either a) have access to network with money, or b) bootstrap like there's no tomorrow. Investors in Canada have an appetite for risk somewhere in the neighbourhood of "mutual fund vs GIC" levels. For someone with Silicon Valley connections, fine it could work, but this is not good general advice. Even iNovia, which is probably the most forward looking VC in the co…
This man here speaks the truth. Without revenue, it is easier to get a $30k grant than it is to find an angel investor willing to invest for the same amount. (Source: I raised a $30k grant in about 3 meetings and 5 hours of paper work. I also spent about 6 months with two idiot "angel investors" from Ryerson Angel Network when I was young and dumb and didn't close a dime. One guy said he wanted to invest but sheepish…
Accelerators are a great source of private capital that can be great social proof for angels - just make sure the one you choose / apply to are VC backed because those will be the ones that force you to think big and shoot for the moon.
One thing that Canada has in it's favour is that for competent CS graduates, you're competing with stultifying companies rather than companies in the SF bubble. PagerDuty is one of those companies that I expect Canada would've been happy to keep, and we're loving it in SF, but we're fighting with a lot of similar companies for people. This year, we opened up an office in Toronto, and even though our standards are the…
But can't Canadians move to the valley too with the TN visa?
I wonder if cheaper health care costs give Canada any kind of advantage business-wise?
I wonder if cheaper health care costs give Canada any kind of advantage business-wise?
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I'm glad you had a great experience visiting Toronto and experiencing the startup culture there. I'm sure I'll see the area totally different when I return from SF and I may just find a role that I fit in very well. I totally agree with you about the over inflated hype currently in the valley. While this leads to a lot of failed startups and 'wrong' ideas being funded, I think it's still a healthy ecosystem for promo…
The hype and "over-investing" is deliberate. Why? Well, let's face it, the most revolutionary things have all started sounding silly and insane. People will buy things over computers without having actually seen or touched them? Humans will fly? Will travel to the moon? Everything is actually well modelled by equations that imply that everything is a wave and has probability it exists? So just because YOU think it so…
This is true. I can name half a dozen billion dollar companies I rolled my eyes at when people told me what they do.
"They're trying to make money by having people tell everyone they know what they ate for breakfast? Really?"
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"I don't see the same enthusiasm towards tech and startup in Toronto that I see here in The Valley." Having tried establishing my startup in Toronto before, I fully agree with your statement. I know at least 6 more people who got frustrated trying to start tech companies in Toronto/Waterloo and finally gave up and moved to US/valley. Most Canadian govt funding programs for startups (I tried) are for politicians to ha…
The great Canadian startups I know don't look incredibly highly of government programs (namely SR&ED and IRAP). They're great, but can be distracting, taking you away from building value in your startup and into filling out meaningless forms. That said, free money is free money, and I've seen successful startups (that aren't politically connected) leverage these programs without being distracted.