Ask HN: Victoria Startups

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4358929

by hluska • 14 years ago

4 18 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

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...

spitfire8• 14 years ago

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

hluska3• 14 years ago

Thanks for the advice! Why do you say that?

spitfire8• 14 years ago

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.

mock5• 14 years ago

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.

spitfire8• 14 years ago

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...

mock5• 14 years ago

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).

Ask HN: Victoria Startups

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