WHAT ENTREPRENEURS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT VANCOUVER BC

February 10th 2019 at 9:51pm Published by sharpshooteradmin

Vancouver is a great place to build a company and hire strong technical and design talent for much lower salaries than in the Valley. Many Vancouver-based startups like Clio, HootSuite, Indochino, or Unbounce have benefited from that and build really strong product teams.

Vancouver has a rare combination of outdoor living and city culture making it a truly great place to live, especially for young people starting their careers.  It’s one of the only places in the world where you can windsurf or ski during the day, go for great sushi or live music at night, all in a thriving city that supports career growth.

Here’s what entrepreneurs have to say about this beautiful city:

Brian Shuster, founder of the virtual reality platform Utherverse, says the skill level of software developers and artists in Vancouver is the best he has ever encountered–a pretty big statement considering the serial entrepreneur has operated several companies in Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe, and San Jose, including the website creation tool Webjump, which he sold in 1999 for $25 million to TheGlobe.com.

Kia Rahmani, co-founder and CEO of Optix, a Vancouver-based company that lets businesses all over the world rent unused office space to other firms, says the combined provincial and federal tax rate is 25 percent for small businesses that make up to $500,000 in profits a year.

“And in addition to this, a lot of start-ups and tech companies in Vancouver benefit from R&D rebates. In some cases they get up to 40 percent in rebates from the government,” he says.

Aaron Rallo, founder and CEO of TSO Logic, a Vancouver-based company that helps businesses reduce server farm and data center energy consumption, agrees.

“There is a culture here that’s ‘What can I do that’s cool and interesting’ and not necessarily ‘Who’s going to pay me the most money,'” Rallo says. “One of the things you have to give is empowerment so they really get input into what’s going on because people here do thrive off of that.”

Last year Mercer rated Vancouver No. 1 in the Americas and No. 5 in the world for quality of living.

Geoff Mair, CTO of Vancouver-based enterprise app store provider Partnerpedia can see why.

“Vancouver has a rare combination of outdoor living and city culture making it a truly great place to live, especially for young people starting their careers.  It’s one of the only places in the world where you can windsurf or ski during the day, go for great sushi or live music at night, all in a thriving city that supports career growth,” he says.

As the Vancouver ecosystem becomes increasingly attractive to international companies, the tech network will start to shift away from small, home-grown startups to a chequerboard of local and big brand businesses.