We can't sell you the mountains

Going to the Web Summit Vancouver last year, I tried to be enterprising and see what my communities can sell to the visitors of my city. So I asked any conference attendee I met: "why did you choose Vancouver?" Their response: "Oh, the mountains! They're so beautiful!" I kept thinking to myself "we can't sell you the mountains."

Every major city in the world wants to be known as the hub of innovation and (almost) every government has it on its agenda to be the champion of that. So naturally, they look at the technology center of the world, Silicon Valley, and try to replicate that environment.

Canada is no exception. For about 15 years we have been trying. Just search for "insert Canadian city name is Silicon Valley of the north". Select the top search and read the first article. It's a bingo card of "up-and-coming", "innovation corridor", and "escape velocity". Can we work towards NOT being whatever these articles tout?

Not only is copycatting uninspiring — leaving us with only the mountains — but the Silicon Valley model also causes a lot of harm to Canadian innovation. It:

1. contributes to brain-drain.
2. encodes a boom-bust cycle into public policy.
3. does not help establishing new markets.

Brain drain

Search LinkedIn for founders who rage quit Canada to move to the US and you will find plenty of examples. It's not their fault. They've been taught how to make Silicon Valley companies. Just as water wants to flow back into the ocean, the founders feel the pull to go south. Silicon Valley pays more than anywhere else to be that kind of a founder, so why stay here?

The kicker is that aspiring founders don't set out to build Silicon Valley companies. Yet, we spend Canadian public money in the billions, compelling them to do so. A founder emerges wanting to make better climbing shoes. The first thing they learn in an accelerator is not to do that and instead work on a pitch deck. They have no time attending the local climbing gym because that wouldn't get them on Shark Tank.

The founder didn't come up with any of these ideas. They are just following what our system tells them is the common wisdom(!) They look around them and see their fellows and mentors preaching the method, not realizing they are all the continuation of a broken cycle. "Where are all the successful people?" asks the founder. "They all must be elsewhere," they conclude.

In reality, when you look past the Silicon Valley model, Canada is teeming with truly innovative businesses that signal the future. I feel lucky that I realized that before getting sucked into the Silicon Valley model. Recently, the Globe and Mail published an article on Properate that I think captures the benefits very well.

Boom and bust

"Never let a good crisis go to waste," says Silicon Valley. The culture of pushing to the max and sparing no resources has had its harms but the good times have more than made up for those. Industries emerge on a whim and get flooded with money. They overstay their welcome and go through aggressive corrections, yet the players are happy because they got to leave a lasting mark. It's truly incredible how mere ideas create so much value in that culture.

Then there is Canada. Sitting thousands of kilometers away with a pair of binoculars, observing the trends. Sometimes, those trends are the echoes of technology and talent originating from Canada itself, but by the time they are in the public discourse, the trend-setters are ready to cash out. Meanwhile, Canadian public policy, the big banks, private equity, all gather to empower domestic rehashing of the trend, only to experience the downturn.

The trend-setters rode the trend all the way up. The Canadians took it from there. The issue is not Canada, it's looking for innovation elsewhere.

Establishing new markets

There is a simple rule to compete with big players: Do something that the big player can't do or won't do. There is one thing Silicon Valley does not have and that's patience. That's why there have been countless startups aiming to disrupt construction in various ways and none have managed to meet that goal.

To create a new innovation model we need to focus on what we are good at; patiently developing new enterprises while ignoring trends.

A good, and sad, example of what this could have been is the Passive House. The movement finds its origins in Canada where the Saskatchewan Conservation House was decades ahead of its time. But in those decades that other places got to catch up, Canada's entire contribution was some top-down government programs that didn't manage to create a self-sustaining market.

Today, the benefits of high-performance building are clear. Those keep people safe in extreme events, and conserve energy. So the building codes mandate high standards for even basic new buildings. To meet those standards a Canadian builder needs to get European adhesive membranes because the Europeans persisted and developed the market.

It's time to shift our thinking towards a more native model of innovation -- One that lets founders stay here and execute effectively. This starts by revamping what is being thought in the startup schools. The continuation of the effort is by betting on ourselves, stopping the chase for the elusive "Silicon Valley of the North", and instead creating a unique identity for our communities.

Do these things and the innovators will come here for more than the mountains.