Mark Evans, who pens the “A Canadian on Tech” blog states: Canada Needs a Peter Thiel. He’s right, but the problem is, Canada does not deserve it. I’m a proud Montrealer and Canadian, I’ve had the honor and privilege of working at two of the more successful Canadian-started consumer media Internet companies of the past 10 years. But there’s a reason why I wake up and think global and downplay the Canadian factor: Montreal and Canada offer great advantages for businesses, making it a great place to start a company, but is this a place one can scale a company? Nope. Not even close.
Remember when Chris Rock would mock some of his “fellow brothers” for “keeping it real” (as in being ignorant)? Well, sometimes, I wonder if being ambitious and working hard is a sin. In Canada, it is. Canadians have to keep it real by downplaying their drive, basically. We want to win in hockey, basically, anything else, “we want to participate”.
In 2003, I was trying to keep Major League Baseball’s Montreal Expos in the city and approached the usual suspects.
Amongst others, I approached eBay President Jeff Skoll, he had no interest. I also tried to approach Jeff Mallett (a Canadian and former Yahoo! executive) but found out he had invested in the SF Giants. What does that say?
Montreal and Canada are pretty minor league, and we don’t do anything to shatter that perception. We have a bunch of people patting one another in the back, but doing very little to change the conditions on the ground.
In fact, entrepreneurs who show boldness and ambition are actually shun by the chummy club who manage the purse strings, but that’s for another post. Much like in Silicon Valley, the existing investors invest in their inner circle. But in California, there is so much money that there is a trickle-down effect. Here? Nonsense.
Anyway… I know, the Expos were a lousy investment, granted… but financing in Canada is pretty lame. By the time Canadian entrepreneurs strike it big, they have given up and forgotten about Canada because when they needed help from the financing community, the moneymen were nowhere to be seen. It becomes a vicious circle, because the best and boldest entrepreneurs understand this and bolt before sticking it out in Montreal (think Skoll, Mallett, etc. - though Mallett is from BC, which is on the West Coast, while Montreal and Toronto are on the East Coast).
I sincerely wish Mark Evans is right, that from the shadows steps in a white knight who will catapult entrepreneurs to deliver on their big dreams… but I doubt it. I have given up on Canada because I refuse to think small. I’m not the first one to realize this, be it in entertainment, business, etc., remaining in Canada is a one-way ticket guaranteed to remain, well, a “participant” instead of a winner.
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