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Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

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Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#91

Post by 3pt14159 »

dquail wrote: post #54
3pt14159 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why does everyone seem to think you need to raise money from Canadian investors? We raise from US investors in our first startup. We were Canadian nobodies with nothing but a beta as a pitch deck. Yes, it's easier to raise if vc's can drive down the road to visit .... But it's a lame excuse to use.

When you are in university or fresh out of it you don't know to get us angel funding.

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#92

Post by fduran »

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #85
saffer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hint: If you're an English speaking American with more than 5 years of work experience or a bachelors degree you have enough points As an English speaking South-African finishing a PhD at an American university, it's good to know there are other options if the U.S. decides not to give me an H1-B (the quota was exceeded in the first week, so apparently we all get put through a lottery: https://news.ycombinator.com/i…

Canadian residents are covered by universal healthcare, can vote, can work, etc. (That's a lot more than the U.S. offers residents.) You need 67 points to get residency status in Canada. With the new system: PhD? 25 Points Speak English? 24 Points Under 35? 12 points (less 1 point per year over 35) 1 Year of work experience? 9 points Total: 70 points There are a lot more ways you can get points. But if you're a young…

Canadian residents most definitively cannot vote, they pretty much can do the same as a citizen except for voting and spending too much time out of the country.

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#93

Post by fduran »

fn wrote: post #89
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canadian residents are covered by universal healthcare, can vote, can work, etc. (That's a lot more than the U.S. offers residents.) You need 67 points to get residency status in Canada. With the new system: PhD? 25 Points Speak English? 24 Points Under 35? 12 points (less 1 point per year over 35) 1 Year of work experience? 9 points Total: 70 points There are a lot more ways you can get points. But if you're a young…

Anyone know how long the entire process takes -- from sending in the application, all the way to being able to cross the border with a moving van -- using the points system?

When I did it in 2004 it took one year almost to the date to get the approval, another 6 months to get the visa (you need to submit medical test). There is/was a web site where people posted their times so you could get an idea, also there's the official site, I don't remember if they give some times.

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#94

Post by j_mack »

Other than the Dragon's Den show that makes a mockery of early stage entrepreneurs, or "cockroaches" as one panelist likes to refer to them, Canada has failed miserably to participate in the tech scene.

From a recent report by the Conference Board of Canada titled "Canada Fails to Put its Money Where its Ideas are—and it Shows in Poor Innovation Grade":

"Ottawa, April 4, 2013—Canada ranks second-to-last among its peers in venture capital investment and business R&D spending, according to The Conference Board of Canada’s ranking of innovation among the world’s leading economies. And the rest of the report card doesn’t get much better, as Canada ranks 13th in the 16-country How Canada Performs benchmarking."

Google the report if you have any dillusions about doing a startup up in Cantada

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#95

Post by markeroon »

JVIDEL wrote: post #58
akg_67 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Those are terrible news for me since we were considering moving to Toronto, and what you mention is exactly what I was afraid of. Now that nepotism sounds more like something that happens where I live, funny that there's the same cronyism over there.

As someone who works at a Toronto startup, I suggest that you consider more than one person's opinion. No city is perfect but there are tons of talented people here and there is substantial government funding available that, in my experience, has nothing to do with nepotism.

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#96

Post by tatsuke95 »

brc wrote: post #59
dquail wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's consistent with my experience. Not only onerous paperwork; but very poor advice wrt how to build a business. This is federal money not intended for high risk high reward opportunities. The advice I got was "you should focus more on a niche instead of a mass market. Your chances of success will be much higher"

Same experience for me when trying to access government funding programs. For one, the people you are talking to have zero experience in running a business, let alone a new one. They do have, however, extensive experience in drawing out meetings, death by powerpoint and producing forms in triplicate. The grants generally come with a lot of reporting and strings attached, and generally require very large investments t…

>"The grants generally come with a lot of reporting and strings attached, and generally require very large investments to be worthwhile. We can get R&D tax concessions"

I have a bit of experience with SRED in Ontario, and quite a bit with the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Grants are nicer for you (me), but tax credits are doing it right as far as the government is concerned. Canada wants you to create employment. If you have a business that is generating revenue and creating jobs, they'll "give back" money that equates to, sometimes, paying wages at 50 cents on the dollar.

Tax credits are an economically efficient way to distribute government funds.

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#97

Post by Phil_D »

j_mack wrote: post #94

Other than the Dragon's Den show that makes a mockery of early stage entrepreneurs, or "cockroaches" as one panelist likes to refer to them, Canada has failed miserably to participate in the tech scene. From a recent report by the Conference Board of Canada titled "Canada Fails to Put its Money Where its Ideas are—and it Shows in Poor Innovation Grade": "Ottawa, April 4, 2013—Canada ranks second-to-last among its pee…

would be funny if wasn't so true

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#98

Post by joelreymont »

brc wrote: post #59
dquail wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's consistent with my experience. Not only onerous paperwork; but very poor advice wrt how to build a business. This is federal money not intended for high risk high reward opportunities. The advice I got was "you should focus more on a niche instead of a mass market. Your chances of success will be much higher"

Same experience for me when trying to access government funding programs. For one, the people you are talking to have zero experience in running a business, let alone a new one. They do have, however, extensive experience in drawing out meetings, death by powerpoint and producing forms in triplicate. The grants generally come with a lot of reporting and strings attached, and generally require very large investments t…

http://www.zec.org, of course Europe is a whole different ball of wax.

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#99

Post by JVIDEL »

markeroon wrote: post #95
JVIDEL wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are terrible news for me since we were considering moving to Toronto, and what you mention is exactly what I was afraid of. Now that nepotism sounds more like something that happens where I live, funny that there's the same cronyism over there.

As someone who works at a Toronto startup, I suggest that you consider more than one person's opinion. No city is perfect but there are tons of talented people here and there is substantial government funding available that, in my experience, has nothing to do with nepotism.

I don't care a lot about government loans since those are a pain to get, I rather get a proper investor community, how is Toronto's?

Re: Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

#100

Post by gamechangr »

dquail wrote: post #57
ultrasaurus wrote: post #12

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…

I run an internship program placing Canadian interns in the valley, and have interviewed plenty of students from US schools. There's some amazing students coming out of Waterloo and UBC in particular. Waterloo grads are as competent and hungry as grads from MIT or Stanford. I've been amazed with them.

I don't buy that. MIT and Stanford are the undisputed best in the world. Waterloo would be closer to "University of Texas-Austin" which is still excellent.
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