4 ms·

> Canadian tech is nonexistent because every Canadian pension fund, family office, and bank prefers to invest in American equities over Canadian equities. Off-

> Canadian tech is nonexistent because every Canadian pension fund, family office, and bank prefers to invest in American equities over Canadian equities. Off-topic but I suspect it's also that oil and gas and real estate are the "easy" money in Canada and that's where investment goes. Canadian investors are risk adverse because they can be. That and there's a colonial-descended cultural bias towards credentials and established players. But yeah, I'm furiously writing code for a product living off my savings, and would love to get investment to build a startup off of it, but every time I sniff around the Canadian "investor" scene it becomes clear to me that they'd have no time for somebody like me.

alephnerd 5mo ago
> it's also that oil and gas and real estate are the "easy" money in Canada and that's where investment goes Partially. The money made in ONG and Construction is then re-invested in American equities. And even provincial pension like Ontario Teachers and La Caisse funds prefer investing in American equities instead because their only incentive is pension solvency. The issue is Canada is simply a tiny country with an extremely loose confederation in a world that is returning to a "winner takes all" mindset dependent on hard unification. More tactically, using a Yozma-style approach to subsidize Canadian VC would help sow the seeds for a truly self sustaining ecosystem. > it becomes clear to me that they'd have no time for somebody like me Because they don't and never will. Anyone who has potential gets frustrated and leaves (ofc I've poached a couple as well).
glitchc 5mo ago
Canada definitely has a "first buyer problem" which makes it hard to get liftoff. A great many Canadian startups end up going to the US to get funding to get around this issue.
rangestransform 5mo ago
I have a (admittedly unevidenced) hypothesis that the US took off from other economies after ‘08 because real estate became a spectacularly shit investment overnight and investors had to invest in productive things for returns. Investors in Canada kept passing the same pieces of land between each other for no benefit to society. My pipe dream is that Canada grows the balls to annhilate property values
- kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago
  They kept selling residential property to foreign money launderers. In the US that activity is confined to major metros where it impacts the more distributed population density less significantly.
  - cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
    Don't worry, we have our own domestic money launderers as well. And whenever the gov't tries to close loopholes they riot. (Also half the gov't MPs are landlords, so ...)
- cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
  Even if real estate were to implode, Canada has a pretty much permanent sickness on account of being a "rip n' ship" resource exporter over everything else. Since confederation. It lends itself to a rentier capitalist model, and to oligarchies, and to a stagnant conservative investment class that just wants to coast off their proximity to resources. Real estate coasting is arguably even worse, but not by much. Notably the United States is actually trying to make this worse with their tariffs on us. Alberta oil and gas is tariff free while our value added manufacturing sectors are highly tariffed. It makes no sense to try to kill Quebec's aluminum sector since it's the most logical place to smelt aluminum on the whole continent, but they're trying to, anyways.
  - xp84 5mo ago
    American here, it makes me want to pull my hair out the way Trump confuses tariffs on inputs with tariffs on things we make here in the States. We have a ton of big (as in: employing tons of well-paid people) industries here that need to buy metals and comparatively few people employed in mining and smelting. A 5-year-old could correctly answer that we should then NOT try to make metals cost more because that screws our big industries while helping almost no Americans. But somehow our tariff policy is set by people with less sense than a small child.
    - 5mo ago
bruce511 5mo ago
>> But yeah, I'm furiously writing code for a product living off my savings, Probably not relevant to thus thread, and hopefully redundant to you, but writing the code is the easy part. If you have not already done so figure out your market and start marketing to them. Get deposits, build a mailing list of interested parties, build a presence where your customers hang out. Marketing is the hard part. Get that done first before writing code. Most ideas fail not because of bad product but because there's no market, it's too hard to reach the market, or you're solving a problem no one will spend money on. Before depleting all your savings, learn from all the threads in the "ask" section. Code counts for nothing without hod marketing. And marketing is the hard part, the code part is easy. As an aside, the startup which has a market and marketing sorted out is a lot more attractive to investors.
- cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
  Yes, all good advice. In reality what I need is probably a cofounder.
  - bruce511 5mo ago
    If you plan to let someone else lead the marketing (ie a co-founder) then stop coding now and make that your only task. Because your co-founder will almost certainly have input as to what you code. Indeed your current project may not be suitable at all. Seriously, until you gave all this sorted out you are really just on holiday, and when your savings run out you'll be back looking for a job. And in this job market that may not be fun. This is the hard part of starting a business. If you want a fun holiday then by all means continue coding. If you so much as open an IDE or run a compiler this week then at least admit to yourself that's what this is. If you really want to start a business then do the hard part while you have time. Find a market. Or a person. Until the market is found don't bother writing code. You are wasting time (which is in limited supply.) I know this sounds harsh, but I'm hoping you hear it. Perhaps you will. If not, you'll be following in the footsteps of the 95% who failed. Which doesn't make you a bad person. I'll close by saying that maybe you've romanticized what a startup is. Hint- it's not coding. That's maybe 10% of it. And you code what the customer wants not what you want. If what you really want is to code your hearts desire, then get a day job to pay the bills and code for fun after hours. Until you are ready to accept that the "code doesn't matter" then you have a hobby not a startup. I genuinely wish you all the best. Sorry if my words seem harsh.
Tiktaalik 5mo ago
I think there's a huge bias toward this "easy money" yea. I mean the Canadian government is in a bind with these tariff issues and what do they reflexively reach for? Pump more oil and gas. It's the easy fast, simple solution to problems and so every government returns to this well to the detriment of other industries that don't receive the same attention.

alephnerd 5mo ago

> it's also that oil and gas and real estate are the "easy" money in Canada and that's where investment goes Partially. The money made in ONG and Construction is then re-invested in American equities. And even provincial pension like Ontario Teachers and La Caisse funds prefer investing in American equities instead because their only incentive is pension solvency. The issue is Canada is simply a tiny country with an extremely loose confederation in a world that is returning to a "winner takes all" mindset dependent on hard unification. More tactically, using a Yozma-style approach to subsidize Canadian VC would help sow the seeds for a truly self sustaining ecosystem. > it becomes clear to me that they'd have no time for somebody like me Because they don't and never will. Anyone who has potential gets frustrated and leaves (ofc I've poached a couple as well).

glitchc 5mo ago

Canada definitely has a "first buyer problem" which makes it hard to get liftoff. A great many Canadian startups end up going to the US to get funding to get around this issue.

rangestransform 5mo ago

I have a (admittedly unevidenced) hypothesis that the US took off from other economies after ‘08 because real estate became a spectacularly shit investment overnight and investors had to invest in productive things for returns. Investors in Canada kept passing the same pieces of land between each other for no benefit to society. My pipe dream is that Canada grows the balls to annhilate property values

kevin_thibedeau 5mo ago
They kept selling residential property to foreign money launderers. In the US that activity is confined to major metros where it impacts the more distributed population density less significantly.
- cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
  Don't worry, we have our own domestic money launderers as well. And whenever the gov't tries to close loopholes they riot. (Also half the gov't MPs are landlords, so ...)
cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
Even if real estate were to implode, Canada has a pretty much permanent sickness on account of being a "rip n' ship" resource exporter over everything else. Since confederation. It lends itself to a rentier capitalist model, and to oligarchies, and to a stagnant conservative investment class that just wants to coast off their proximity to resources. Real estate coasting is arguably even worse, but not by much. Notably the United States is actually trying to make this worse with their tariffs on us. Alberta oil and gas is tariff free while our value added manufacturing sectors are highly tariffed. It makes no sense to try to kill Quebec's aluminum sector since it's the most logical place to smelt aluminum on the whole continent, but they're trying to, anyways.
- xp84 5mo ago
  American here, it makes me want to pull my hair out the way Trump confuses tariffs on inputs with tariffs on things we make here in the States. We have a ton of big (as in: employing tons of well-paid people) industries here that need to buy metals and comparatively few people employed in mining and smelting. A 5-year-old could correctly answer that we should then NOT try to make metals cost more because that screws our big industries while helping almost no Americans. But somehow our tariff policy is set by people with less sense than a small child.
  - 5mo ago

bruce511 5mo ago

>> But yeah, I'm furiously writing code for a product living off my savings, Probably not relevant to thus thread, and hopefully redundant to you, but writing the code is the easy part. If you have not already done so figure out your market and start marketing to them. Get deposits, build a mailing list of interested parties, build a presence where your customers hang out. Marketing is the hard part. Get that done first before writing code. Most ideas fail not because of bad product but because there's no market, it's too hard to reach the market, or you're solving a problem no one will spend money on. Before depleting all your savings, learn from all the threads in the "ask" section. Code counts for nothing without hod marketing. And marketing is the hard part, the code part is easy. As an aside, the startup which has a market and marketing sorted out is a lot more attractive to investors.

cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
Yes, all good advice. In reality what I need is probably a cofounder.
- bruce511 5mo ago
  If you plan to let someone else lead the marketing (ie a co-founder) then stop coding now and make that your only task. Because your co-founder will almost certainly have input as to what you code. Indeed your current project may not be suitable at all. Seriously, until you gave all this sorted out you are really just on holiday, and when your savings run out you'll be back looking for a job. And in this job market that may not be fun. This is the hard part of starting a business. If you want a fun holiday then by all means continue coding. If you so much as open an IDE or run a compiler this week then at least admit to yourself that's what this is. If you really want to start a business then do the hard part while you have time. Find a market. Or a person. Until the market is found don't bother writing code. You are wasting time (which is in limited supply.) I know this sounds harsh, but I'm hoping you hear it. Perhaps you will. If not, you'll be following in the footsteps of the 95% who failed. Which doesn't make you a bad person. I'll close by saying that maybe you've romanticized what a startup is. Hint- it's not coding. That's maybe 10% of it. And you code what the customer wants not what you want. If what you really want is to code your hearts desire, then get a day job to pay the bills and code for fun after hours. Until you are ready to accept that the "code doesn't matter" then you have a hobby not a startup. I genuinely wish you all the best. Sorry if my words seem harsh.

Tiktaalik 5mo ago

I think there's a huge bias toward this "easy money" yea. I mean the Canadian government is in a bind with these tariff issues and what do they reflexively reach for? Pump more oil and gas. It's the easy fast, simple solution to problems and so every government returns to this well to the detriment of other industries that don't receive the same attention.