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Startups in Montréal

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Re: Startups in Montréal

#41

Post by jordigh »

futuravenir wrote: post #40
jordigh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it a bit troubling that you list beautiful women as a plus of a city, as if women were a natural resource like trees or clean water. I also don't know what you mean about Montreal not being edgy enough. There's plenty of counterculture in Montreal. Did you ever spend a lot of time in Hochelaga? The language laws have a very good historical basis. Used to be that the bosses all spoke English and the employees a…

>I find it a bit troubling that you list beautiful women as a plus of a city, as if women were a natural resource like trees or clean water. As a Montrealer, I would say that we have beautiful people living here in general. OP is likely heterocentric in their commentary. >Did you ever spend a lot of time in Hochelaga? Not much of a tech scene...but incredibly progressive/beautiful attitudes. Also, very French. If you…

> I grew up mostly with English friends and never spoke French. These days, I spend a lot more time with French friends and I feel much more at home.

I went through the same, actually. I "grew up" in the McGill bubble, but when my French got better, it's like a whole other city opened up to me.

Re: Startups in Montréal

#42

Post by nxzero »

jordigh wrote: post #25
toomim wrote: post #5

I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…

I find it a bit troubling that you list beautiful women as a plus of a city, as if women were a natural resource like trees or clean water. I also don't know what you mean about Montreal not being edgy enough. There's plenty of counterculture in Montreal. Did you ever spend a lot of time in Hochelaga? The language laws have a very good historical basis. Used to be that the bosses all spoke English and the employees a…

>I find it a bit troubling that you list beautiful women as a plus of a city, as if women were a natural resource like trees or clean water.

Seriously? It's like if I told a gay friend when they said they were thinking about moving to SF because (insert missing phrase) - that they were (insert missing phrase); who are you to say liking a type of people is wrong.

Cities are different - and I assure you that some cities have more beautiful people than others.

Re: Startups in Montréal

#43

Post by simlevesque »

icpmacdo wrote: post #11

Any hot tips on places to apply to for junior mobile developer positions in Montreal? I am graduating in a month from a college in Ottawa with a diploma in Mobile Application Design and Development and need to start gearing up to find a job. I have experience in Objective-C iOS, Android and Cordova and am wrapping up decently large native iOS game for a school client project.

Shoot me an email w/ your CV : simon@tractr.net

Re: Startups in Montréal

#44

Post by jonny_eh »

The biggest reason I won't do a startup in Montreal again is the need to make your product bilingual. It's a huge distraction when it's just you and one other person trying to find product/market fit.

So many pitches ended with "we'd pay for your product, but it needs to support French". You can guess what happened next, we wasted weeks supporting i18N, then translating to French, only to discover people didn't want the product, even with French support.

The rent, food, and (most) people were great though!

Re: Startups in Montréal

#45

Post by halfear »

cryptoz wrote: post #13
Raphmedia wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(quebecers here) Not language racism but english-phobia. Everyone that I know will switch to english to help people, but they expect that the reverse will be true too. You will be expected to at least attempt French. Attempting it will be enough and people will gladly help you out.

I lived in Montreal for 6 six years, as a student and for my first job. I speak a bit of French, but not much. One day in Place Ville Marie I was getting a coffee at Starbucks. I accidentally bumped into someone in line, and I said "sorry". He snarled at me angrily and said "Get out of here, go back to Toronto". I don't think I had never been to Toronto at that point in my life. Mostly that does not happen. Mostly pe…

Yup, you can forget a director-level position unless your last name is Tremblay or Gauthier. Grew up in Montreal and loved it, but bounced to SF the second I had the chance.

Re: Startups in Montréal

#46

Post by schwap »

JamilD wrote: post #8
toomim wrote: post #5

I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…

I find this is a culture that pervades most of Canada (with perhaps the exception of Waterloo). It's a culture that follows, not leads and innovates. We're all for pretending to be like Silicon Valley… but not trying anything new :)

In the tech sector, I would agree. In other industries, however, I would strongly disagree.

Re: Startups in Montréal

#47

Post by Khao »

the_duck wrote: post #32

I've heard vague tales of Canadian companies receiving tax incentives to do research, in the form of SR&ED credits. ( http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/txcrdt/sred-rsde/menu-eng.html ) Does anyone have any concrete experience with the program?

I'm working on one of the startups mentioned on the website (although one that's buried way deep in the list).

What I know as a dev : My company pays an outside firm specialized in getting R&D credits for companies. I don't really know how much it costs and how much it brings in. Every quarter, all the devs have to sit down and do a kind of interview with a guy from that firm. We're a pretty standard SaaS platform so it's hard to really know what can be considered R&D from my point of view. During the interview, we go over our work for the last quarter and dig into areas that could potentially be considered R&D. We'll explain in details what are the technical challenges, how what we're doing is different than what's already available out there, if we did prototyping, research, user testing, etc... Then they write up a nice report and try to get us as much R&D credit as they can!

Re: Startups in Montréal

#48

Post by [deleted] »

jordigh wrote: post #25
toomim wrote: post #5

I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…

I find it a bit troubling that you list beautiful women as a plus of a city, as if women were a natural resource like trees or clean water. I also don't know what you mean about Montreal not being edgy enough. There's plenty of counterculture in Montreal. Did you ever spend a lot of time in Hochelaga? The language laws have a very good historical basis. Used to be that the bosses all spoke English and the employees a…

[deleted]

Re: Startups in Montréal

#49

Post by euphemize »

toomim wrote: post #5

I moved to Montreal last summer and spring, after years in Seattle and Berkeley. Then I gave up and moved back to Berkeley. Pros: + Bitcoin Embassy Montreal! + Really cheap hipster life + Wonderful cheap food + Walkable city + A French culture that values living, parks, & community! + Beautiful women, and lots of them + There actually is a tech scene! Woah! + It's different Cons: - Less edgy culture. Less individual…

So, you were in MTL for ~1 year? Working / studying?

Re: Startups in Montréal

#50

Post by Khao »

Apocryphon wrote: post #30
jordigh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or for worse, Quebec is a nation of renters. The rent laws are thus skewed in the favour of tenants. The rental board enforces the laws very strictly. Tenants can refuse rent increases and have many rights that are probably keeping prices down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9gie_du_logement

Interesting. How come there isn't a large influx of people moving into the city?

Montreal is still expensive compared to the suburbs. Urban sprawl and congestion on bridges at rush hour is a big problem.

Québec is the most taxed province in all of North America too and salaries are lower than most other places. It's all relative.

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