

Ask HN: Victoria Startups - hluska

Does anyone know of any interesting Victoria, British Columbia based startups? My days in the hinterland are coming to an end and I'm moving west.<p>Does anyone know of some interesting startups that are looking for bodies? Technically speaking, I'm a generalist with a particular affinity for user experience, user analytics and front end code. I have a marketing degree (which is a dirty word around here - sorry). And I've been accused of being a pretty good hustler who can sell almost anything....<p>I'd appreciate any and all help you can provide! There's something immensely scary (but also exciting) about moving without an inkling of a gig...
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mock
While it's true that salaries are by default depressed, anyone who's a pretty
good hustler should be able to at least get within 5% of Vancouver. The real
problem is that you're competing with all the kids who get out of UVic, don't
want to leave the island, and are willing to work for peanuts.

On the other hand, if you're a high level/senior marketing, sales, or
developer, there are opportunities at more reasonable pay levels - assuming
you can find a position (it is after all, a relatively small community, and
senior spots don't crop up all that often). One of the primary annoyances is
that <http://www.viatec.ca/> (the local tech community group) is kinda
worthless for finding work - or for that matter, for finding talent when
you're hiring. My experience is that hiring tends to be by word of mouth or
via recruiter. Two of my last three Victoria jobs have been through
recruiters, one was through word of mouth, all were reasonably well paid (at
least as well as I did in Vancouver). There are strangely a fair number of
startups, mostly in the mobile advertising and sem/seo space - and all the
regular caveats about working for startups and startup wages apply as they do
anywhere else.

Since I'm a developer, I mostly keep an eye on who's hiring in that space.
Amongst non-startups, you might try perforce (I know they were looking for a
front end guy, they might not be any more), neverblue (definitely looking to
hire a couple of intermediate devs, probably a front end person too if the
right one came along), and abe books.

Hope that helps.

~~~
spitfire
No, the problem is that people think a kid fresh out of uvic and someone 15
years in are interchangeable. That inability to differentiate is endemic to
the area. Dunning-Kruger effect in the large. (There are always, of course,
exceptions)

Junior people can do things. senior people know what needs to be done (and can
do it).

Agreed that Viatec is a negative. When you put HP's computer repair service as
a #2 tech company in a city it's a very bad statement. Particularly if it's
multiple years running.

Funny thing, you'd think Victoria would have lots of health IT startups...

~~~
mock
I agree, there's definitely a problem with salary, and I don't dispute your
characterization of it. However, my observation is that you need to be able to
wait for the well paid senior positions to come available. If you need the
work, you're in the unfortunate position of having to look in the places that
can't tell the difference between fresh grads and senior devs. It gets better
if you mostly get work via word of mouth or recruiters. There are a few
developers that have ended up following me when I've moved jobs because they
know I only work for places that pay and have interesting work. Likewise, I
recommend them, because I've worked with them before, and I know they're good
senior developers who are worth the money.

I've been making noises about organizing some other developer focused thing to
make up for how crap viatec is... need to find sufficiently round tuits first.

As for health startups, it has at least one that I know about (and I'm not
talking about genologics).

~~~
spitfire
> As for health startups, it has at least one that I know about (and I'm not
> talking about genologics).

I was thinking more 3D printed walkers, canes and replacement hips...

I think the best thing for Victoria to do is be humble (Means shutting up
viatec's constant spouting). Make a deliberate effort to learn as a community
at the management, business and technical level. To grow the infrastructure
and gain sophistication at all of those levels. Not a flashy apps will save
the world sort of thing, but it'd lead to a confident viable niche.

As for the local angels, they're part of the problem. Not the solution. You
don't know the half of it. I've never taken funding of any sort though, so I
don't know the real depths of the issue. From my interactions I can just
imagine how deep they are.

~~~
mock
Derek over at <http://www.biospace.ca/> and <http://makerspace.ca> is trying
to do some of that sort of thing.

~~~
spitfire
Hah! and I was joking too. Given Victoria's demographics.

That's awesome. Good luck. The whole maker/3d printing stuff will be coming of
age over the next decade. Lots of people will make themselves nice niche
markets there.

------
spitfire
Don't come to Victoria. Go to Vancouver instead.

~~~
hluska
Thanks for the advice! Why do you say that?

~~~
spitfire
Cost of living is extremely high(some of the highest in Canada), while
salaries are unreasonably depressed.

If you're a skilled developer/bizdev/etc you'll be offered between 1/3rd and
1/2 of what you could earn in Vancouver. Victoria is a very conservative
culture - people are viewed as labour (In the economic sense, a cost to be
minimized). This isn't helped by the fact that the average age is 45.

I know of half a dozen developers who moved away and doubled or more their
salary.

~~~
pasbesoin
Were you the person who commented a while back on a few people heading off to
Courtenay? Not that that's necessarily recommended (200+ km up the coast,
pretty remote including culturally, and small potatoes IIRC), but to stay on
the island while avoiding Victoria's costs? And/or some people moving into the
island's interior?

My apology if not, but I seem to recall someone commenting on developers
relocating to different parts of Vancouver Island.

~~~
spitfire
I might have been, I'm not sure.

But I do know several people who have moved up island citing low salary, cost
of living and family lifestyle for the move.

HN ate one of my earlier comments. So I'll try and rewrite it here from
memory.

Developer salaries are very depressed here in Victoria. You will often see
"Senior" positions from $70K, more for large places like Abebooks (Amazon).
Those go unfilled for months at a time.

The friends I have that have moved upisland now earn > $140K by simply
computing once a week to Vancouver for facetime.

A recent sucessful immigrant friend from europe said to me (paraphrasing)
"Everyone here has a trust fund and spends all their time trying to screw each
other over". This is absolutely true.

I know of one guy who had a modest exit, and now views programmers as labour -
he treats them like shit and pays $30K for php/ruby developers. If you
interviewed with him, he would make comments about outsourcing to india.

As Patio11 might say, a pathological employer. But the point to be made is
that I'm not surprised by this behaviour - I've encountered it myself several
times. This is Victoria in a nutshell. It simply is not ready to respect
talent and pay it well in order to build thriving businesses and an ecosystem.

Sorry I'm so negative, but I'd like to see people succeed in the easiest
fashion possible.

Perhaps we need more meetups to start building networks of people building
things? Housing/office space will be cheap sooner now that the mortgage rules
are changing.

~~~
mock
Actually, that's another good point. There are a lot of people working
remotely here, as it's relatively quick to get to both Seattle and Vancouver
(under an hour by float plane, and float planes don't have bullshit security
lines). You can even give a little bit of a discount vs NYC or SV wages and
come out ahead of what you'd do locally. I did that for a while, and I have a
couple of friends doing it now for whom it's working out well. Once again,
it's a matter of waiting for the good opportunities - unlike bigger hubs,
there isn't the same sophistication in knowing who and how to hire in
employers, nor the same raw demand for talent that lets someone walk out the
door and be hired before they hit the street.

I'd definitely be interested in some sort of meetup, if such a thing were
going to happen...

Also, don't get me started on local angels (both Victoria and Vancouver)...
:-(

~~~
spitfire
Oh god how I love the float planes. As a pilot I love watching them (and the
smell of Jet-A at mocha house). As a passenger I love the relaxed experience.
It is honestly, Victoria t at its best.

You've hit the crux of it - sophistication. Or rather, having enough skill to
recognize ones flaws and correct for them. This is something Victoria as a
whole does not have.

We don't have enough skilled players in order to sustain an ecosystem at the
level needed to attract and retain that top level talent.

Try looking for a senior python developer. That'll be tough. Now try looking
for someone with machine learning, compiler design, mathematics or other hard
but very useful skill. You just won't find them.

So the companies in Victoria are stuck working on shallower problems. Usually
with many competitors and without an ability to build a moat. Which means the
people skilled in those hard skills move away to find employment, or do remote
work.

