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Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

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Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#11

Post by potatolicious »

tlear wrote: post #7
throwaway1979 wrote: post #4

I'm canuck and am very cynical about the startup space in Canada. 1) Large number of the best developers leave. I doubled my salary moving from Toronto to the Bay area. 2) Silicon Valley (and NY) has smart money. Not to insult Canadian VCs, but the ones I've met are glorified bankers. 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants. 4) In the bay area, everyone I knew (and their do…

1. Any numbers? Toronto you can get some pretty decent money. Also living in downtown with no car as opposed to driving everywhere in Bay area and paying crazy rent. It is not that clear cut imo. NYC is a better comparison probably 2. Not sure on this not enough experience 3. It is trivial to get a visa for Canada to work, compared to US there is no comparison. Note that for Canadian citizens it is different in US (m…

> "Any numbers? Toronto you can get some pretty decent money."

Just from my own circles - $125-150K base, with additional equity/bonuses on top, in NYC, for a bunch of nerds only 1-3 years out of undergrad. The range is similar in SF/SV. This is astronomical by "pretty decent" Toronto standards.

IMO the notion that NYC/SF/SV compensation eats Canadian salaries for lunch is not really that controversial nor ambiguous. I am easily earning over 2x what I would pull off in Toronto, or Montreal, or Vancouver.

[edit] There's an additional point of on top of this: Canada has essentially no major innovative software institutions. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, et al act as anchors in their respective communities and their influence can't be discounted.

They attract talented people who actually give a hoot about the impact of the things they work on, and provide a talent pool for startups to draw from. They also act as a cushion against the risks of startup-dom, as most capable engineers have a (very decent) plan B.

The equation in the US often works out like "I can go work on a nimble team doing really cool stuff that impacts real people and possibly get rich. Even if we fail, I walk back into a 6-figure job working on really cool stuff still." - this has a tremendous impact on the startup scene, and simply does not exist at all in Canada.

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#12

Post by neilk »

potatolicious wrote: post #11
tlear wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Any numbers? Toronto you can get some pretty decent money. Also living in downtown with no car as opposed to driving everywhere in Bay area and paying crazy rent. It is not that clear cut imo. NYC is a better comparison probably 2. Not sure on this not enough experience 3. It is trivial to get a visa for Canada to work, compared to US there is no comparison. Note that for Canadian citizens it is different in US (m…

> "Any numbers? Toronto you can get some pretty decent money." Just from my own circles - $125-150K base, with additional equity/bonuses on top, in NYC, for a bunch of nerds only 1-3 years out of undergrad. The range is similar in SF/SV. This is astronomical by "pretty decent" Toronto standards. IMO the notion that NYC/SF/SV compensation eats Canadian salaries for lunch is not really that controversial nor ambiguous.…

Your expenses are probably much higher though. Generally people adjust by downgrading their standard of living. It's not unusual to be making $100K+ in SF and have a roommate. I can't imagine what it's like in NYC.

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#13

Post by gavingmiller »

throwaway1979 wrote: post #4

I'm canuck and am very cynical about the startup space in Canada. 1) Large number of the best developers leave. I doubled my salary moving from Toronto to the Bay area. 2) Silicon Valley (and NY) has smart money. Not to insult Canadian VCs, but the ones I've met are glorified bankers. 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants. 4) In the bay area, everyone I knew (and their do…

re 5: SR&ED (the program I assume you're referencing) is 'free' money. If my company can make back 3/4 of a developers salary by doing "proposal writing" why wouldn't they do that?

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#14

Post by potatolicious »

neilk wrote: post #12
potatolicious wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Any numbers? Toronto you can get some pretty decent money." Just from my own circles - $125-150K base, with additional equity/bonuses on top, in NYC, for a bunch of nerds only 1-3 years out of undergrad. The range is similar in SF/SV. This is astronomical by "pretty decent" Toronto standards. IMO the notion that NYC/SF/SV compensation eats Canadian salaries for lunch is not really that controversial nor ambiguous.…

Your expenses are probably much higher though. Generally people adjust by downgrading their standard of living. It's not unusual to be making $100K+ in SF and have a roommate. I can't imagine what it's like in NYC.

Conceptually true, in reality not so much. The additional expense of living in SF/NYC does not at all cancel out the additional pay. I've done this calculation many times - no matter which way you slice it, you earn substantially more in real terms in the US.

Just doing some quick napkin math now - to maintain my existing NYC lifestyle in Toronto (and my current savings rate) I'd need to be in the $100-110K range. Who's heard of a guy 3 years out of undergrad making $110K in Toronto?!

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#15

Post by nodemaker »

throwaway1979 wrote: post #4

I'm canuck and am very cynical about the startup space in Canada. 1) Large number of the best developers leave. I doubled my salary moving from Toronto to the Bay area. 2) Silicon Valley (and NY) has smart money. Not to insult Canadian VCs, but the ones I've met are glorified bankers. 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants. 4) In the bay area, everyone I knew (and their do…

> 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants.

Can someone please elaborate on this one ?

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#16

Post by bearmf »

potatolicious wrote: post #14
neilk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your expenses are probably much higher though. Generally people adjust by downgrading their standard of living. It's not unusual to be making $100K+ in SF and have a roommate. I can't imagine what it's like in NYC.

Conceptually true, in reality not so much. The additional expense of living in SF/NYC does not at all cancel out the additional pay. I've done this calculation many times - no matter which way you slice it, you earn substantially more in real terms in the US. Just doing some quick napkin math now - to maintain my existing NYC lifestyle in Toronto (and my current savings rate) I'd need to be in the $100-110K range. Wh…

110k 3 years out of college is very rare in NYC as well.

EDIT: It is certainly not unheard of, but only for top graduates. Also, I see you were talking about equivalent 110k salary in Toronto which would be 130-140k in New York. This is a high base salary by any standard.

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#17

Post by crazycanuck »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

I may be a little bit cynical about the first 4 reasons, but the last one is very real. SR&ED tax credits mean that the Canadian government will fund 20-35% of your R&D as long as you do the paperwork (aka logbooks) and can stick it out long enough to have profits to apply the expenses against. These benefits are lucrative enough that failed R&D firms are sometimes purchased almost solely for their outstanding R&D ta…

Actually, you don't even need profits to apply the credits against. They are refundable, which means that if you didn't owe taxes to offset against, the government actually writes you a check in the amount of the credit.

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#18

Post by tluyben2 »

throwaway1979 wrote: post #4

I'm canuck and am very cynical about the startup space in Canada. 1) Large number of the best developers leave. I doubled my salary moving from Toronto to the Bay area. 2) Silicon Valley (and NY) has smart money. Not to insult Canadian VCs, but the ones I've met are glorified bankers. 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants. 4) In the bay area, everyone I knew (and their do…

1) Money is everything? Toronto no, but I would like to live in BC and I wouldn't care about the pay as long as I could live. We hire a lot of people who just want to be happy in a nice town and have a family. This 'all for money' thing is just shortsighted and naive. You will live to 95 and be sane for most(all) of it. That's not long and don't waste it.

2) Yeah that's actually normal here (EU) too, not sure if the VCs in Silicon Valley are generally(!) different though? (question here :)

3) Was that different? I once applied via a someone who knew what he was talking about and he said if you are under 40 and have plenty of money it's a shoe-in, otherwise it sucks. This is 8 years ago.

4) I can see that, but so what? You want to meet great people or you want to meet great people at startups? Anecdote; I was standing in the supermarket in this 40 people (!) town in Spain and behind me was this old scruffy guy. I was playing with my s2 and he said something like amazing tech. He is a founder of a quantum computing texan company who goes here on vacation. I met more interesting ACTUAL good people here than in Berlin. I don't know about SV but I don't really care about wannabe's, I want to meet people I can learn from and/or start something with; in startup-mekka people have little experience and are engaged to be married to some crap anyway all the time. And cocky. Work for life, not money! It's all too short. I digress.

5) This is also a thing they have in most EU countries; big companies find it great as they do that paperwork anyway, small companies drown in the paperwork. I did a 6 year project like that and the paperwork took around 25% of the time. That doesn't sound like a lot but it REALLY doesn't benefit the research. Agreeing with the parent here; big companies use & abuse, small companies don't.

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#19

Post by mynegation »

nodemaker wrote: post #15
throwaway1979 wrote: post #4

I'm canuck and am very cynical about the startup space in Canada. 1) Large number of the best developers leave. I doubled my salary moving from Toronto to the Bay area. 2) Silicon Valley (and NY) has smart money. Not to insult Canadian VCs, but the ones I've met are glorified bankers. 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants. 4) In the bay area, everyone I knew (and their do…

> 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants. Can someone please elaborate on this one ?

I presume GP talks about tightening rules on immigration. Federal Skilled Worker program that was the main source of skilled immigrants to Canada several years ago was a point system where factors like your age, education, work experience, marital status, number of official languages you speak, and secured job offer were contributing to the overall score and your occupation did not matter.

Some time ago, this programme became limited to the specific list of occupations, with application limit per occupation and overall cap. And, software developers were not on the list. As of July 1st 2012, Canada temporarily stopped accepting applications until "early 2013" to implement some more changes.

Re: Reasons to Start a Startup In Canada

#20

Post by jb55 »

neilk wrote: post #10
throwaway1979 wrote: post #4

I'm canuck and am very cynical about the startup space in Canada. 1) Large number of the best developers leave. I doubled my salary moving from Toronto to the Bay area. 2) Silicon Valley (and NY) has smart money. Not to insult Canadian VCs, but the ones I've met are glorified bankers. 3) This is no longer true. The recent govt is increasingly unfriendly to immigrants. 4) In the bay area, everyone I knew (and their do…

Agreed. There's basically only a couple of reasons to start your startup in Canada. * Portable, cheap healthcare. A lot of people in the US don't join a startup due to the health insurance issue. The healthcare you get from a startup is not even close to what a big company can offer you. * You're like me (no CS degree) and the US government doesn't think you look like an engineer. This can be worked around, but for m…

You're second point is pretty much the reason why I ended up joining a startup in Canada. I got job offers from Facebook and Google for twice the pay, but I couldn't get a tn visa. According to the Canadian government I am not qualified to work there since I dropped out of College.

But yeah if it weren't for that there wouldn't have been much incentive to stick around.

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