Ask HN: Victoria Startups | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Victoria Startups

4 pointshluska18 comments

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.

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....

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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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.

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...

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).

> 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.

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

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.

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

Thanks for the advice! Why do you say that?

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.

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.

I don't recall that particular comment, though I know that some people in Campbell River are trying hard to turn CR into something of a tech centre. There's a really great buzz on the island right now...

Campbell River sounds right. Google Maps updated their imagery, splatting a big bunch of cloud over CR so that I missed it, initially, while refreshing my memory.

I thought it might have been spitfire who commented to that effect. But that was some months ago; I guess I could wade back through history.

I liked Victoria's ambiance when I visited, but the friend I was visiting there (already half a decade ago) commented repeatedly to the effect of it being/becoming a retirement community. With lots of well-off retirees to bid up prices.

Does the island really have enough going on elsewhere to create a general buzz?

The retirement community aspect has shifted somewhat; downtown is now younger and a bit more vibrant with all the condos that have gone up (and continue to be built). $300k will get you a tiny condo - $500k will get you something you actually like. Houses within walking distance of downtown (north park, which isn't the best neighborhood, but isn't the worst either) go for around $600k. Most young families are buying in Langford or further out where money goes further than that.

Victoria is definitely doing more tech-wise that Campbell River or Courtenay, in that there are more tech companies, more startups, and more tech jobs. As with anywhere outside of a major hub, you're going to have to do a lot of leg work to find those jobs - and to find ones that pay well.

Victoria is absolutely beautiful. Bar none. But it's unofficial slogan is "Welcome to Victoria. For the newly wed and nearly dead!". Unfortunately, the newly wed can no longer afford 9x the average income to buy an average house. It is a very grey town.

As you've mentioned lots of well off individuals bidding up prices and a very conservative, risk averse climate.

As for the island creating a buzz? I don't think so, not in the competing with SV or NYC sense. I could certainly see the island serving a niche ecosystem though.

In fact, if the media could get over itself I think they could have a big part to play in growing that sort of environment.

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.

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)... :-(

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.

I can't thank you enough for this - thanks very much!!!

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