Vantage points: Josh Nilson thinks BC should focus on its sector strengths

Josh Nilson sees BC as Canada’s blind spot: last on the clock, last in line for votes, and until yesterday, without a government.

For Nilson, an entrepreneur and angel investor, this sense of being overlooked has given BC founders a unique brand of grit.

“We think pressure makes diamonds, so we have to work with less, and that’s the way it’s always been.”

“We’re almost like our own little thing over here, so I think entrepreneurs are different here,” he said to a packed theatre at BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver last week.

“We think pressure makes diamonds, so we have to work with less, and that’s the way it’s always been.”

BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver gathered BC’s tech leaders to take the pulse of the local ecosystem. During the evening’s Vantage Points panel, Nilson weighed in on the province’s “do more with less” mentality and what he thinks the community needs next.

Not one to take himself too seriously, Nilson told BetaKit before the event, “I don’t know why people think I have the answers. I made a marijuana game.” But when a founder who bootstrapped to a $159-million exit speaks, people listen.

With roots in a blue-collar town in northern BC, Nilson is used to doing more with less. In 2011, he launched East Side Games without outside funding, and sold it to LEAF in 2021. Today, he brings this approach to supporting Indigenous entrepreneurs through Maskwa Investments and his roles on the Indigenous Tech Leaders C-Council and the Indigenous Tech Circle board.

From Nilson’s vantage point, BC’s tech ecosystem is “just kind of getting there. We’re not there yet.” Companies are scaling, and a handful have exited, but for many new startups, he believes BC remains a tough place to break in.

He attributes this challenge partly to a lack of support for fledgling businesses, saying BC does a “shit job” at helping startups just starting, or making the ecosystem inclusive to young and underrepresented entrepreneurs.

“If you’re just starting out, I think it’s really hard to get those small amounts to be able to start out, to even get to pre-seed, to meet somebody, whereas in other places, it’s not so hard,” he added.

Nilson believes BC has an identity problem, comparing the province to eastern neighbour Alberta, which has built a strong tech ecosystem around two mid-sized cities. He said BC’s narrowed focus on its largest city leaves much of its province’s potential unrecognized.

“This is BC, not just Vancouver,” he argued. “We need to make sure we’re really using our biggest resources, which is all of BC.”

For Nilson, this shift in perspective also means focusing on industry clusters where BC already has global strength, like gaming and climate technology. “If we were our own country, we’d still be in the top 10, maybe top 15, in the world in terms of just GDP output,” he said of the gaming sector, adding that the province should do more to concentrate efforts on high-potential clusters that could accelerate BC’s growth as an ecosystem.

Branding BC as Canada’s “forgotten stepchild,” the province remains, in his view, the best place to build a tech company. Now working on a ‘stealth’ venture in Vancouver, Nilson believes it’s time for the province’s tech voices to reach beyond its borders.

“I think we need to tell more of our stories and get out there and show them what BC work ethic can do.”

Photo courtesy Eric Ennis from Renovo Agency for BetaKit.

On October 22, BetaKit Town Hall: Vancouver continued the pulse check on Canadian innovation, policy, and optimism.

Please enjoy this selection of highlights and insights from the town hall: