
Vancouver Startup Hackathon Oct 8-10: cperciva & A Thinking Ape (YC W08) - arasakik
http://verev.com/vancouver-hackathon/
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scronin
Vancouver suffers from many problems but one really big one kills startups.
Primarily, risk adversity is a common trait in investors and founders here.
The Lean/MVP model does not lend itself to building BIG companies because its
a bit (not totally) absurd to think that a company that needs 10-30 MIT gold
standard engineers to conceive can be bootstrapped. Talking about the "startup
scene" is a waste of time until real efforts are put together to make real
companies that solve hard enterprise class problems or uncover 2-5 year
forward looking, undeveloped markets.

In America, as pointed out time and again by the upper echelon in the
Vancouver startup circles, people actually take these forward looking risks
because the payoff is just too sweet if it comes through. Bootup is notable
for pushing the boulder up the hill, Danny R and Co. are a scrappy fighters
thats for sure.

For instance, even a SR&ED/IRAP intensive startup with a potential BIG idea
(which is a stunning program @fiveo from the standpoint of the unemotional-
observational economist) meets the common phrases that investors in Vancouver
rely on to skate away. "its too early" "i need to see a working prototype
making profit with tons of traction" "its not scalable". And kudos to them,
they worked damn hard to build a life(style) here and don't want to burn their
precious money into cinders.

As a proven and skilled technician, I can say that I have met many talented
PhD's and engineers in Vancouver, now in Palo Alto. Someone with 2-5 years
success in technology is worth about 90k a year, and that wage is nigh
unachievable in B.C. Too often we leave for the states, myself included,
because their are too many tagalongs who don't actually understand the
minutiae involved in how specific technologies create value across
international markets. Too many evangelists and mentors, not enough mature
engineers who work with tenacity, intensity ,focus and audacity.

Perhaps this type of discussion can be better studied by a thought experiment.
How would you start a company like the awesome Palantir Inc in Vancouver? Give
us a thoughtful, unbiased analysis that spells out to investors the reduction
of risk and the chance to make a 10X exit in a _tough_ _hostile_ and _messy_
business environment. This is a good case study for MBA types.

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startupwiz
Startup Weekend Vancouver is the same weekend and I'm going. You should
combine. Hootsuite is sponsoring a big dinner. And the Startup Weekend network
is pretty sweet... access to a group that runs startup events across the
world. It's a pretty cool grassroots event. You can go to Startup Weekend for
around $50 total (Startup Digest discount) which includes food + everything.
Just curious, why did you plan an event the same time as they did--just to
save $50 so you can buy your own food? Why not work together?

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imack
I really want to attend this but why does it have to happen on the
thanksgiving long weekend? Or is that intentional since there will be a buffer
day between this and the normal work week?

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mikeyur
The primary reason is so we can have a lot of the space. Most tenants of the
space will clear out Friday and be back Tuesday (which also gives us time to
clean up after the event).

We wanted to do it the week before but the schedules didn't work out for the
people helping, the space, etc. Shoot me an email (m@mikeyur.com) if you just
want to drop in on one of the days.

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projectileboy
I've always loved cperciva's comments on this site. If he's involved, I can't
believe it won't be a valuable session. I'd go if I was in Vancouver.

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lucisferre
This looks great, though it's hard not to notice this is the same weekend as
Startup Weekend which is at Bootup. Just a coincidence?

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dannyrobinson
Startup Weekend Vancouver is coordinated by Shauna, Melody, Lyndi from
Seattle. They contacted us looking for space, and we said no problem. They're
volunteering to make something cool happen, and how could that not be great.
Actually, we're seeing more of that kind of thing happening in Vancouver,
including the Hackathon.

I wont be able to make it due to family commitments for Thanksgiving, but
there will be a bunch of people there and I hear they're making a turkey! If
you're in the same boat as me, let us know, and maybe we'll coordinate another
weekend where more of us can be available. - I've been hackin Ruby on Heroku,
and would like to show it off, so I'm in for sure.

Of course, there are advantages to working together, but it's not necessary.
The more of these events that happen the better and stronger our community is.

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lucisferre
I completely agree

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jamesshamenski
on a side note, is there anything good coming out of vancouver right now? I
haven't heard of anything since the bootup labs debacle.

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fiveo
There are a few startups in Vancouver: HootSuite, Kashoo, AdHack, Indicee,
EnergyPulse.

There are also a few acquired startups in the past 2-3 years. LayerBoom
(Joyent), Smallthought (Twitter).

Some solid companies such as: ElasticPath, VisionCritical, etc.

Despite the list of startups and "solid" companies. I wouldn't bet on their
balance sheet. I've been here since 2001 and while there are several key
buyouts in the networking/hardware/embedded industry (in the range of hundreds
of millions dollars) back then, things have been relatively slow and possibly
in declining state.

There has been a few lay-off within 2 years. EA closed their downtown office
and laid off 300. McKesson laid off 80 people. Nokia is full of management
engineers, bottom-lines are either outsource of contractors. One game studio
that shows big potential closed their door early 2009. A few mid-size
companies that used to grow 4-5 years ago are in hiring freeze. A few small
companies died quietly.

Most of my friends are leaving Vancouver to go to Ontario, Silicon Valley (or
US in general), or to Asia where mobile and IT are booming like mad (if you
know the channel).

Here's a few problems with Vancouver:

1) Laid back culture

Vancouverites are well-known for enjoying their life; rain or shine. They have
the "let's do it tomorrow" or "it's almost 5 PM on Friday" attitude. This
caused a hit on software quality. Almost anywhere you go in Vancouver, you'll
meet huge pile of technical debts with no plan to pay them. There is even a
health software company build their product around MS Access even until today.

2) SR&ED

SR&ED is a grant given by the government to hi-tech companies. The point of
having this is to attract people to build hi-tech industry in Vancouver. So
far it looks like it has been back-firing us: companies neither-living-nor-
dead. Some of them rely heavily on this grant since their business model isn't
strong or their sales are not hitting the target or a combination of both.
Their balance sheet with SR&ED will look positive but we all know that they're
lying to themselves. They should be toasted.

SR&ED also attracts the wrong kind of investors.

Because of this, workers aren't getting paid enough. I think in general, hi-
tech workers in Vancouver might get paid 30% below the average (by skill, by
age, by experience) compare to US or Ontario with no chance of increase or
bonus at all.

3) Competition is getting tougher and the culture of technology for technology
sake

It's hard to find a job in Vancouver without 4-5 years of .NET experience with
WCF, WPF, HTML, AJAX, CSS, SQL-Server 2005. Or 7-10 years of Java experience
with Oracle, XML, XQuery, XPath, XSLT, XSL, Spring, Struts2, Hibernate, JSF,
Seam, JBoss, WebSphere. There's one more choice though: LAMP + HTML, CSS,
jQuery but working for marketing companies. They too, usually are looking for
someone who has 3-5 years of experience. To some people this might be a good
sign: barrier to enter is high. But with code quality is so low, I can't and
won't understand this particular situation. Shouldn't you get better software
from senior/more experienced people? Apparently not.

4) The rise of Business Analyst

Instead of educating software developers/engineers in here, Vancouver rewards
Business Analyst more than the implementors. Schools have been offering
continuing studies toward BA diploma degree so they can be employable in some
enterprise/corporate with better pay, less work, more politics, and quite
possibly more vacations. This lure many people to join the wave.

5) Weather

While it's milder here but imagine 10 months of gloomy, raining, and cloudy.
It can affect your mood (according to scientific research).

It's a vicious cycle in here and it looks like it'll be worse. Kudos for
people who can be successful building and maintaining a solid company here.

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plainOldText
Do you think Toronto might be better for startups?

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fiveo
In general, there are far more opportunities in places with more people.
Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga, and Waterloo area are quite ideal because you
have a few good universities (such as UT and Waterloo), a few good companies
(Google, RIM, etc), and what seemingly might be a good startup city (Ottawa)
thanks to Nortell and a few big name hi-techs shut down.

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plainOldText
I've always asked myself how come big companies like Google, IBM,etc are on
the east side and not in Vancouver. I mean this clearly illustrates that there
might be more tech workforce in Ontario. So for a startup this could be an
advantage. It's just a educated guess and I don't have any facts yet.

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fiveo
On the other hand, there are tons of game companies in Vancouver ranging from
online game, MMORPG, PS3, NintendoDS, to online gambling.

There's MS here but they are here to act as a buffer for their engineers
pending H1-B.

Some hardware companies Broadcom, PMC-Sierra, Sierra Wireless.

There are IBM centers in Vancouver and Vancouver Island, but they do largely
government projects (consulting) instead of R&D like the ones in Markham area.

Speaking about Google, they seem to acquire a handful startups in the Montreal
to Ontario areas.

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startupwiz


