I am an Australian/British dual-citizen (born in Australia but lived and worked some ~3 years in London and ~1 year in Zurich) who now works in New York. I've had discussions with various people (mainly other engineers) on the topic of how one would go about starting a startup.
These discussions--largely theoretical--have centered around three problems:
1. Where?
2. The route to funding/profitability; and
3. Visa/residency issues.
(3) of course depends on (1) and the nationalities and residencies of the respective founders. As a UK citizen I luckily have the right to reside anywhere in the EU. For the US unfortunately I need a visa but Australians have access to the E3 visa, which has a lower bar to issuance than even the H1B (there is no need for the employer to "prove" they can't find someone local, which is essentially a legal circus) but there are issues in using work visas to found companies.
There are I believe many foreign engineers in the US in the same boat as me.
I've looked into the possibility of either situating in Canada or at least using it as a stepping stone. It could have a lot going for it, for example:
- Vancouver is relatively speaking close to Seattle and the Bay area;
- No health insurance problems (comparatively);
- Relatively low cost (compared to, say, San Francisco);
- English-speaking;
- Cultural similarities.
And here's where Canada really has an opportunity to attract fledgling companies: software patents. If Canada were to invalidate software patents then they'd essentially be providing a safe haven for small companies until they're large enough to defend themselves. Of course, trolls can still go after US operations (if, say, you hosted in the US) but you would be at least partially protected.
Sadly, the Canadian government seems to be just an inept when it comes to IP issues as other Western governments (and, worse, it seems to take its lead from the US).
But if you go look at the Canadian immigration sites you find out that:
- getting residency is relatively difficult; and
- engineers aren't even on the list of high-demand occupations (whereas restaurant managers are, for example).
Now Canadians could be concerned that if such a program existed people would use it until they could get to the US and I suspect that would happen a lot but I think that's fine because a certain percentage would stay. Some would employ Canadians, at least for a time. Some of those would go when the startup move. Some wouldn't.
That's how ecosystems form. It's not an exercise in being better than say Silicon Valley. Like so much else in life, it's simply an exercise in persistence and ultimately a numbers game.
Beyond those options I'm not sure where next someone in my shoes might otherwise go. London and Germany (I lived in Cologne for a time and loved it) are obvious choices.
In a bootstrapping scenario or even at a seed-funding level it would be ideal to keep costs low. Costs in the Bay Area for talent and even housing, etc are bordering nightmarish and I say this as someone who lives in Manhattan. Finding and retaining talent in SF/SV must be torture for new companies.
Personally I prefer New York but hey YMMV.
Anyway, back to Canada, it seems to have the same problem Australia does in a way: it's too focused in ripping stuff out of the ground and selling it than it is on tech. Oh well, their loss.
Context: I'm an Australian living in Western Canada working in the tech sector.
A lot of the points that are raised here are really valid - Canada has a lot going for it culturally and in quality of life.
But the infrastructure to help foster and grow companies simply isn't there. Surprisingly little is computerised - government, banking, even dealing with cellphone and internet companies (who are overpriced) almost always involves finding out that you can't do what you want online, or in any digital format, so you either need to send cheques and forms by mail or sit in an office somewhere while someone does the data entry of your form while you wait.
You don't even have a lot of the b2b services that you can get elsewhere. There's nothing like stripe, devpay, google checkout here, it's difficult/expensive to get your hands on mobile devices for testing, and even existing IT services all have the opaque "call us for pricing" bullshit that you get from services that don't have enough volume to be fair/transparent.
Canada seems to focus on one large tech company darling until it gets run into the ground for whatever reason, but along the way seems to ignore the small businesses that could turn into the next big-ish thing. Flickr, AbeBooks and PhoneGap all pretty much got sold under the radar, and companies that are still in Canada, like HootSuite, seem to be getting equally ignored.
Yeah, Canada's an awesome place to live, but in terms of a place for startups, it seems like it'd be much easier to move somewhere conducive to running your business.
engineers aren't even on the list of high-demand occupations
Probably because there is no demand. My local municipal government was recently looking for someone to maintain their website, which is little more than a simple blog. The job description essentially laid out the job as your basic, run of the mill CRUD application. The kind of stuff kids in high school do for fun.
When you read down to the requirements section though, they were asking for a CS degree and a bunch of other stuff you would normally expect to find from a $200K/year job at Google, not a mediocre pay, small government job. The fact that they can actually ask for such ridiculous requirements and fill the position speaks to there being far more supply than demand, at least from my point of view.
I attended an event in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in the summer with about 50 local developers. At the end they had an informal few minutes where people who are hiring can stand up and pitch. There were a half dozen people from medium to large companies (e.g. Electronic Arts was one of the large ones). They asked who was looking for work and not a single person raised their hand.
I call BS on this. From my experience in Toronto, there are many companies looking for developers and having a difficult time finding quality candidates.
Even if you are an engineer you want get to work as one in Canada. It's the closed-est closed shop outside the Vatican.
Any supervisor role in government/large industry needs a registered professional - ie a pEng, and they don't recognise any one elses engineers.
PhD rocket scientists on Canadarm are supervised by new electrical engineering graduates. There is a special exemption to allow university science profs to supervise PhD students but the engineering institute is campaigning against it.
It's a nice place to work in many ways, but it is like working in Britain in the 70s
That has mostly to do with the fact that the title Engineer isn't thrown around loosely—most of the engineering grads I know are employed under the title Technologist (or something similar on the impressiveness scale). Engineer is usually reserved for positions with attached professional liability, and yes, the iron ring is part of that deal.
The iron ring has nothing to do with the Professional Engineer title. The iron ring is run by alumni of various Canadian engineering schools, and is granted to all students graduating from an engineering class with a Bachelor of Applied Science or Engineering. It's a symbolic gesture to remind graduates of their responsibilities to society, etc.
The title of "Professional Engineer" (P.Eng.) is reserved by law to those who are granted that title by the self-governing engineering bodies of each province (e.g. Professional Engineers of Ontario). You can't legally represent yourself as an Engineer in Canada unless you are a registered P.Eng. The title does indeed attach professional liability, and is a method of ensuring responsibility and safety in engineering projects.
Eastern Canada has a vanishing tech sector, out here in Vancouver it's perfectly alive and well.
The issue with Vancouver is not software patents, but capital recycling. Most of our tech capital leaves Vancouver instead of staying to be reinvested, this is why mining works so well in Vancouver, there is a huge amount of capital recycling, similar to what you'd see in the bay area in tech. (Oddly enough SF also has a fairly large mining sector)
The big advantages to Canada that I see are SRED funding (70% of your dev salary could be paid by the feds), and CMF funding if you're doing a digital media project (75% of costs covered up to $500K for development, production and operations for a total of $1.5 mm)
Vancouver has a clusterfuck for the real estate market.
It is simply unaffordable. The prices has been inflated through speculation to insane levels, mostly driven by Asians dumping boatloads of US cash back into the North Am economy. Talked to a realtor lady few years ago - she would show 5-6 houses to a Chinese buyer (on a two day visit here) and he'd end up buying 4 of them, 1 mil a piece. Things gotten worse since then.
E3 visa, which has a lower bar to issuance than even the H1B (there is no need for the employer to "prove" they can't find someone local, which is essentially a legal circus)
There's no need to prove that for H1B; it's only needed then sponsoring for employment based green card.
I'm surprised you think New York or Vancouver are lower cost than SV. Externalities (housing, cost of living, etc.) are the same or higher than the other places. Talent may be more expensive but that's because that's (by and large) where the talent actually is.
"- Relatively low cost (compared to, say, San Francisco);"
That is true for most of Canada. Vancouver is expensive, but other cities are cheaper than SF. I have a 1 bedroom apartment in one of the nicest areas of Montreal for $650 per month.
I'm an American living in Australia right now (Adelaide) and wife and I are thinking of moving to Victoria on Vancouver Island. She's a GP and I'm a geek.
I know the home prices are going to be high, but tbh, it seems Australia is also quite high! If one was willing to live in the suburbs, a bit away from the city, is it really as bad as people say?
Canada is one of the few developed countries who hasn't seen their housing bubble burst yet, and the bubble is most pronounced in coastal BC and the Greater Toronto Area. Vancouver, for a time, was riding some of the highest housing prices in the world.
But that tide is turning, as it has everywhere else in the world. Sooner than later there will be deals to be had.
Good advice, thanks. I've been reading sites like greaterfool.ca and following the RE market in .ca quite closely.
Wife and I agree that we would rent for a while as the rents are quite low compared to mortgages and we would see what happens. Either way, IMO, when mortgages are 2x-3x higher than rents, it doesn't make much fiscal sense to buy.
What attracts you to Victoria? It's a vastly different climate, of course. It's a beautiful city in summer. You'd be in a corner for travel purposes. (I'll be leaving the Pacific Northwest mainly to get out of the corner.)
Mostly that it is close to Vancouver and Seattle, has really nice weather for .ca and Vancouver Island is an outdoor playland for someone like me.
I'm also a person who likes smaller places, but need to be close to an international airport (for work) so Victoria has that going for it.
My wife is a GP and likes to be in smaller communities so she can connect with the people more, so that is playing in her mind.
And we have kids and don't really want to raise them in a "city". That, and the schools in Victoria seem to be really good...and they have a good French immersion school. Our kids speak French, but neither my wife or I can properly teach them to read or write...so we wanted to send them to French school until about 8th grade.
Haven't kept tabs on it lately, but one resource for the Victoria tech scene is the Victoria Advanced Technology Council (VIATeC) site: http://www.viatec.ca
These discussions--largely theoretical--have centered around three problems:
1. Where?
2. The route to funding/profitability; and
3. Visa/residency issues.
(3) of course depends on (1) and the nationalities and residencies of the respective founders. As a UK citizen I luckily have the right to reside anywhere in the EU. For the US unfortunately I need a visa but Australians have access to the E3 visa, which has a lower bar to issuance than even the H1B (there is no need for the employer to "prove" they can't find someone local, which is essentially a legal circus) but there are issues in using work visas to found companies.
There are I believe many foreign engineers in the US in the same boat as me.
I've looked into the possibility of either situating in Canada or at least using it as a stepping stone. It could have a lot going for it, for example:
- Vancouver is relatively speaking close to Seattle and the Bay area;
- No health insurance problems (comparatively);
- Relatively low cost (compared to, say, San Francisco);
- English-speaking;
- Cultural similarities.
And here's where Canada really has an opportunity to attract fledgling companies: software patents. If Canada were to invalidate software patents then they'd essentially be providing a safe haven for small companies until they're large enough to defend themselves. Of course, trolls can still go after US operations (if, say, you hosted in the US) but you would be at least partially protected.
Sadly, the Canadian government seems to be just an inept when it comes to IP issues as other Western governments (and, worse, it seems to take its lead from the US).
But if you go look at the Canadian immigration sites you find out that:
- getting residency is relatively difficult; and
- engineers aren't even on the list of high-demand occupations (whereas restaurant managers are, for example).
Now Canadians could be concerned that if such a program existed people would use it until they could get to the US and I suspect that would happen a lot but I think that's fine because a certain percentage would stay. Some would employ Canadians, at least for a time. Some of those would go when the startup move. Some wouldn't.
That's how ecosystems form. It's not an exercise in being better than say Silicon Valley. Like so much else in life, it's simply an exercise in persistence and ultimately a numbers game.
Beyond those options I'm not sure where next someone in my shoes might otherwise go. London and Germany (I lived in Cologne for a time and loved it) are obvious choices.
In a bootstrapping scenario or even at a seed-funding level it would be ideal to keep costs low. Costs in the Bay Area for talent and even housing, etc are bordering nightmarish and I say this as someone who lives in Manhattan. Finding and retaining talent in SF/SV must be torture for new companies.
Personally I prefer New York but hey YMMV.
Anyway, back to Canada, it seems to have the same problem Australia does in a way: it's too focused in ripping stuff out of the ground and selling it than it is on tech. Oh well, their loss.