Not a whole lot. All of the money, culture, and innovation in technology is happening outside of our borders. With few notable exceptions you will find Canadian start ups tend to follow industry trends rather than make them. The salaries are rather anaemic and the jobs are not terribly interesting. On top of that most Canadian tech start-ups are forced to consider the first exit they can get by their conservative backers. Why would you even consider a Canadian company?
Canada is a bit of a backwater. Depending on your action plan, if you plan to unfold you product line at slower rate, it should be fine. Things here move alot slower...
And for when investing into you, I found that investors want more then commitment and the team. There is alot of money to be invested in Canada, but they don't go for same kinds of new technologies, as they do in U.S.
Most of tech shops in Canada are founded as outsource points for development support for startups south of the border.
Reason number one, start-ups aren't welcome here(as they are in U.S.), is that in Canada you need permission - for everything. You are sort of expected to get permission to do your own disruptive thing. Which kind of defeats core purpose and dynamics of a startup.
I can't help but disagree with the claim of how much it supposedly "kicks ass" to be a Canadian startup. I founded a Canadian company a few years ago (still going) and am friends with a few of the founders of those other startups listed there. We're mostly on the same page: we're started here because we lived here, but being in Canada isn't exactly a hub for innovation.
One thing Canadian tech companies are good at is growing to 20-30 employees and selling out to a US company. But that's very different - the innovation is sucked out in those circumstances.
I feel that the "Revenue? We'll worry about that later" attitude is somehow important for innovation. Investors in Canada are really not one for high risk, high returns.
I mean, it's not horrible here or anything, but I really don't think our startup environment holds a flame to the US.
The problem is not with "startups". The problem is with scaling - there is TONS of startup activity going on in the Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal, and Vancouver areas. If you look for it you'll see that it's thriving as more and more people consider startups to be viable career options.
Very few of these companies manage to break out and go big - when the dotcom bubble burst, all of our former giants like Nortel and Corel imploded, leaving only RIM to pick up the pieces in the tech sector.
There are reams of tech companies in the $1MM-$300MM space, a few in the $300MM-1B space, and basically one (RIM) in the $10B+ space.
Getting capital to scale aggressively is a huge problem - it's just not as easy or as free-flowing as in the USA. However, foreign financiers are starting to notice that they can get better returns on Canadian companies because of a paucity of funding, so I'm hoping that will improve things over time.
Otherwise, Canada is a fucking awesome place to start companies. We just need more people with the balls, the drive, and the unwillingness to accept no for an answer when it comes to raising money.
Hi there. While I agree with some of your points, i.e. issues with certain large companies being anti-competitive in the startup environment rather than being supportive, and the fact that the tax incentives offered could be better structured to be more accessible to technology startups, I still think Canada is a great place to build a company. Why? Well:
1. Canada does have great tech talent. Finding them is a bit more difficult, but talent retention is much better. And if you reward your employees well (i.e. competitively with any other company out there), you can attract world class talent.
2. Building a great company does not necessarily mean raising a huge VC round. In fact, if you can build a business that is growing quickly without the need for VC, they'll come looking for you. One thing that some people get hung up on is that you absolutely need to get funded to start a company. That's not true at all. Although, when the time does come to raise money, most US investors are actually comfortable with investing in Canadian companies.
There are a few things I do notice though. Canadian culture is a bit more conservative (i.e. less willing to take big risks, which also explains a bit of the lower valuation). It makes a bit of sense, since most of the larger industries are around 'traditional' sectors, like natural resources and finance. But this is changing. And as more and more successful tech companies emerge, the startup community will only get stronger.
Also, the tax incentives are well intentioned, however the way they're structure has been a 'one size fits all' approach. The rules put in place make sense for some industries (e.g. medical R&D), but make it a bit inaccessible to tech startups without a lot of effort.
The proximity to US market means many of the "best and brightest" workers + companies end up migrating south of the border, resulting in an overall lackluster tech environment when compared to any of the major US cities.
If you look at many SF and NYC startups, as well as Facebook, Yahoo, and Google's rosters, you will find many Canadian tech entrepreneurs - maybe even moreso than within Canada itself :)
There was also historically issues with Canadian startups getting foreign investment / selling to a foreign company, although that situation is now changing.
I've worked in Vancouver at a startup, and to me it seems that the goals of a Canadian startup are just more conservative. No one ever expected to become a Facebook, or a Google or even Nortel or RIM for that matter.
The philosophy has been mostly to create a profitable company, in the more traditional sense-- consistent revenue that can employ people. No one is looking for giant cash injections from VCs, nor are we throwing lavish parties and giving away Porsches at company picnics (cough Trilogy cough).
We aim smaller than 'murica so of course we don't have any mega tech companies. And we're happy for it, at least I know I am.
I can't see how doing a startup in Canada in general is a good idea. Policies there are a lot more restrictive than the states. It's a great place to visit, though.
Canadian tech scene is not bad given the small population and relatively recent investments in this area. That is, compared to EU where there's pretty much no tech other than Spotify, and any promising upstarts are getting preemptively destroyed by EU and local governments.
It takes decades to build Silicon Valley, and Canada's focus on foreign talent, business friendly regulation, and general North American enterprising culture might get it there over time.
Canada innovates quite a bit. American companies just keep buying the Canadian ones who do so before they get big. The whole Canadian tech sector is like an incubator for the USA in some ways.
Although… the government invests almost nothing in starting new Canadian companies too, and instead focuses on luring American companies to open offices here, or else on giving money to existing medium and large Canadian businesses to convince them to increase hiring. This is a pet peeve of mine. It’s very short sighted
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 dog) was working on a startup. Toronto and Vancouver don't compare.
5) I am very jaded by the govt influence on R&D. This attracts the wrong sort of people. e.g. I've heard of consulting firms that will write your proposal and greatly increase your odds of success - all you have to do is give them a 25% cut. Frankly, the cost of creating a startup is low enough that if you believe in your idea/revenue generation potential, you should not waste time writing proposals.
canada seems to be lagging in terms of new startups. Also google/amazon etc employees doesn't meant they are necessarily great. Canada needs startups and startups need all round devs, and large companies usually need specialised workers.
I've never hired anyone, so I can't offer much insight here. It sounds like Canada has less immigration issues than the US, but I imagine most startups aren't going to be paying for employees to relocate internationally so that's probably a moot point.
Canada has advantages for someone coming from the developing world. Better internet infrastructure than many countries, educated workforce, socialized health care, a culture very welcoming to immigrants, easy access to the US market, and proximity to Canadian and US investors (particularly Bay Area and Seattle).
It's also easier to get foreign workers, generally, into Canada, so you have your pick of the local workforce, as well as the rest of the world (even Americans!).
I've worked for a startup in Vancouver that took advantage of all the above. Vancouver is one of the best places to live in the world, period, and it's especially great for raising kids or if you're into outdoor sports. So it has its charms even if you already work in a startup hub like San Francisco. You could probably do something similar for Montreal or Toronto, although it would be a harder sell. And the startup would have to be pretty hot or pursuing a unique niche.
If opportunities were equal, there would be very little reason for a startup to choose Canada over the USA. However, since the USA seems determined to shut the door here, Canada can take advantage of that.
I'd be very interested in it too. I've heard lots of good things about Canada, but there aren't many tech jobs there (at least compared to the U.S, I might be wrong)
There are several reasons why you generally have a huge disadvantage when doing a startup in Canada, and it's not just about taxes and laws.
Want to use that cool new service (e.g., Stripe)? Sorry, not available in Canada.
Want to start a service that ships anything in the mail? Prohibitively expensive.
Want funds? Banks won't lend you anything and investors are very few and risk averse. $20-50K investments in web startups are rare and big news when they happen.
I love Canada and I'm not moving from it. But Canadian entrepreneurs have much lower chances of succeeding than American ones.
Can you make millions in Canada? Sure, but it's a much less likely occurrence. And if you do, it will generally be still less than what American startups can make.
This is why it makes no sense to start a company like Twitter in Canada. You can't sustain it. The best approach for Canadian startups is to bootstrap by charging money from day one.
So you can get a lot of nice "Italian restaurants on the web" doing SaaS and making good money, but don't expect groundbreaking innovation a la Google from Canada.
With that said, those who are already in Canada, like me, have no free pass. If you don't succeed, you can only blame yourself.
"In Silicon Valley they hand out money like candy" is not a good excuse for never achieving your dreams in Canada.
I currently run a technology company with VC backing. I've considered recently leaving the US and moving my business to Canada (specifically Toronto). I wonder if anyone here with experience in Canada's tech market has a short bullet list of pros and cons of Canada and Toronto specifically when it comes to that.
Also Canadians tend to be less ruthless (I'm not going to debate the right or wrong on this but seeing that the biggest and most successful companies are driven by ruthless people...)
Canada also has a small (but growing) market. There aren't too many big cities and big spenders.
Vancouver, while it's beautiful and nice and all that, the majority businesses tend to revolve around government agencies.
Every little bits definitely taxed startups chance to be successful.
Compare to Silicon Valley where people would almost definitely give try all-things-mobile or web2.0, Vancouverites prefer to hike, bike, enjoy foods.
All in all, Canada is still conservatives when it comes to technology.
Having said that, I was surprised to see big names in Computing technology born and bred in Canada but all moved and made it big in US. Kernighan, Gosling, Aho, Rob Pike, Rasmus Lerdorf, Kenneth Iverson, etc.
The payscale for computer professionals in Canada is 1/4 to 1/2 the salaries in the US. But the dollar is now par which helped a bit.
There is little venture capital available to computer/software startups. The few incubators in Canada have ridiculously terrible terms -- eg. 20% equity for a seed investment. Most Canadian startups look to the US for investment, or move to SV if possible.
The TSX and TSX Venture stock markets are entirely geared toward energy & alternative energy companies. If you intend to go public you'd probably have to move and re-incorporate in the US.
The Canadian government is generally not very supportive of (non-energy) technology companies. Most small business incentives are only for large-ish companies that want tax breaks for investing in solar & wind energy.
(disclosure: I work for a Canadian company.)
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