You Can Do That Here

How many creative geniuses can you name off the top of your head? Let's see, there are the classics Money, Rembrandt, Michelangelo. There are more modern day rock stars like the Lennons, McCartneys, Jaggers, Jacksons and Cobains. There are the creative entreprelebrities like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. Yes we all know the frontmen, the creators, the stars. Now let's look behind the scenes. How many of the paintbrush makers, guitar builders and coders can you name? Probably none right?

For every star, there is a network of behind the scenes people creating the tools to allow the creators genius to shine through and get to another level.

Based out of Nelson, BC Alan Van Arden is one of those behind the scenes builders. He's the guy you go to when your company wants to add a digital component, a new software service, product or application. Yes he's the guy that helps turn your ideas and dreams into a digital reality. Indeed he's perhaps a more rare breed of entrepreneur who prefers to enable others success, rather than be the frontman himself.

If you have or have ever thought of a new app idea, or developing software as part of your business, Alan is the man with the plan to make it work for you.

I sat down with Alan in the Kootenay Coop Radio Studios in Nelson to talk about his unique approach to business, and the two key things every business needs to know before developing that app or software idea.

Retreat. What does it mean to you?

The first thing that came to mind for me was an army general on the back of a horse yelling retreat as his men took off running away from the war. We often hear about corporate retreats these days, where fellow employees and managers get out of the office to get to know one another better, and to work on solving problems. We're heard of vacation retreats, getting away from the daily grind for some rest and relaxation. The common bond between them all of course is not just getting away from your current situation, but getting away to preserve oneself, and reset oneself before returning to the daily battle. Whether that battle is an oncoming enemy line, and overflowing email inbox, busting your ass for every dollar launching a new startup or even fighting an illness, the ability to retreat for however long you can is a time tested way to ultimately move further forward.

Think of it as a couple of steps back in order to make a big leap forward. Whether an NFL kicker lining up the game winning kick, or a start-up entrepreneur attempting to cross the chasm, taking anything from a few steps backward and a deep breath, to a weeklong yoga trip in the Andes, is critical to staying true to our vision and following our paths to success.

Cameron Wenaus of Nelson, BC and his brother have been regular practices of retreats as Buddhists. As fate and seeing the opportunity would have it, they ended up working with retreat centers building websites. Getting to know that industry inside and out over a decade they learned their customers needs and wants. It was during a period of retreat with his brother that the idea hit them and they launched forward with Retreat.guru as both the one stop shop for anyone in the world looking to take a retreat, as well as the backend reservation software used by the retreat centers themselves.

Do yourself a favour for the next 30 minutes, and take a brief retreat with Cameron and take in his story and the wisdom of a uniquely combined young, creative go getting entrepreneur, as well as a centered, mindful Buddhist.

I connected with Cameron on our most international interview yet. I was sitting in my car in my parent’s condo garage at Big White, BC. Cameron was in a hotel in Bogota, Columbia. His story was perhaps our most inspiring episode yet.

If you could take the Kootenays and bottle it, what would the ingredients be?
The first thing that coms to mind is immense natural beauty, stunning vistas, mountains, fields, rivers, lakes, wide open spaces, dotted with small friendly towns. It's an open accepting warm hug from one friend to another whether a brother, mother, lover or some other. It's an entrepreneurial spirit. A built in DIY mindset born from adversity in our founders and maintained in the pursuit of sustainability today. It's a young family settling and living off the land, creating a living and a life for themselves. It's a desire to change the world, not through in your face unfortunate truths, but through a quiet peaceful demonstration of just how good life can really be. Yes for me that is really the Kootenay spirit.

There is another family in the region that embodies that sentiment and pours it into their own Kootenay spirits. Kevin and Lora Goodwin, originally from the Montana side of the Kootenays have now settled in Winlaw. DIY entrepreneurs by nature as a direct result of living and loving rural settings, they have been organic strawberry farmers and run a construction company whose last job was constructing a brand new craft distillery on their land in the Slocan Valley. Their path from idea to pouring their first vodka was four expensive years full of challenges of all sorts. Going all in and giving everything they have to the project in a labour of love the result has been truly impressive, not to mention delicious.

I sat down with Kevin and Lora in their new tasting room, one year after officially launching. Selling out all they can produce while simultaneously working to write and rewrite the laws and regulations, the couple appears closer and happier than ever, still beaming about their new operation.

As you'll learn they truly are living and bottling the Kootenay spirit.

Their story is so good and the couple so charming, I couldn't help but turn this into a two part episode. Here is part one.

Imagine, after year of hard work expensive bills, research, preparation and pure grunt labour, you've been able to make a fantastic new product. Now imagine that to sell that product through the sales system set up by the government meant you actually lost money for every product you sold. It seems crazy right? Governments making more money off of entrepreneur’s products than the entrepreneurs themselves?  That is exactly part of the battle the Kevin and Lora of Kootenay Country Craft Distillery have been facing and overcoming.

With the craft distillery market being so new in BC, those venturing forth into uncharted waters have found a host of prohibtionary laws left over that no longer make much sense in today’s market. Gathering together with other spirit makers around BC, Kevin and Lora are rewriting many of the rules as they go.

As we'll learn, one of the keys to their success has been the love and support of a good spouse. Drinking their spirits cold and pure, following their passion, business is looking up and bottling whiskey is just around the corner.

Now let’s catch back up as Kevin gets off the phone with the provincial Minister for liquor control.

It's a bird. It's a plane. No it's.......Superdrone? You mean those things we see on the news peering into high rise windows? Those unmanned vehicles that became famous over the last decade and a half of war? Or do you mean those little helicopters capturing killer footage for the latest ski or bike film?

Well, none of, and all of the above at once. Truth be told, during times of heightened military action, like the world has experienced post 9/11, innovation gets to feast on a heavy diet of government dollars. Yes a scenario where you've got an all but blank cheque, with the only caveat being to make the biggest, best, smallest, stealthiest, most awesome technology to help beat the bad guys. Hmmm maybe there’s an economic development model there, minus the war....OK that's another show.

What happens when that time of heightened military action that drove an innovation boom begins slowing down? Just like any business, when one market starts to die out, you work to find others to feed your growth and fill the gap. One of the biggest sectors that made a huge leap forward in innovation and technology that has now been moving into the mainstream commercial markets in a big way is unmanned aerial vehicles....otherwise known as Drones.

The proliferation of small, recreational drones has been enormous as prices have plummeted. Every homemade ski video has drone footage it seems these days. The capabilities of drones however are just beginning to be explored, expanded and perfected.

Two Nelson BC based entrepreneurs have come together and made a big move into the drone world. Rob Simmerling has several decades of precision measurement experience behind him through two past and existing businesses. Peter LeCouffe is an army reserve veteran, and in his mid-twenties is also a young and up and coming entrepreneur. The two have teamed up to launch Harrier Aerial Surveys. Utilizing two high end aircraft, one a fixed wing, the other a multi-rotor, outfitted with the best digital surveying equipment. The end result is being able to gather precision measurements at a far higher accuracy than a survey crew could, while going into terrain a survey crew couldn't get to or maneuver in, then turning that out into a series of 3D models, imagery and survey data for a seemingly limitless set of purposes.

I sat down with Rob and Peter in the Kootenay Coop Radio Studios in Nelson, six months after their launch to check in with them on how they're opening up a new market with emergent technology.

 On today’s show, we’re going to try something new. With the first 20 episode season of the You can do that here! podcast winding down and as we gear up for season two we are going back into the vaults to bring you some of the best answers from season one. This week we’re talking books with the first episode of the You can do that here! Entrepreneur's Book Club.

Yes a book can be many things to the entrepreneur. It can be a close friend on a long trip, an inspiring mentor, an eye opening game changer, a childhood inspiration, or as we’ll hear from some, nothing but an antiquated form and something entrepreneurs don’t have time for anyway. We’ll see about that last point.

Now let’s open the first chapter of the Entrepreneur’s Book Club. 

It should be no surprise that two organic based businesses in Nelson are hooked on a book that preaches an organic approach to starting a new business.

Velvet Kavanagh Endless Harvest and Jon Meyer of Oso Negro both reccomend "Growing a business," by Paul Hawken. 

Often books we read as children have had long lasting affects in opening up our minds to new ways of living and doing business.

Fiona Richards of Cartolina had her artistic fire set alight by the "Something to do," book by David Lucas

Brad Steele of Backcountry Skiing Canada was inspired by the human inspired exploits of the hero in his favourite tale Beyond the Horizons by Colin Angus.

Customer service is the name of the business game. One book that inspired Kelly Acheson of Adventure Engine to offer the best service possible came from a small mid-western American deli called "Zingermans guide to great service."

You've had an idea, perhaps several ideas, that in your mind are potential million dollar ideas. The best of the best ideas you've hung onto for years, always wondering what if, but never making the leap. What is it that is holding you back? Is it a lack of time/resources? a fear of failure? Or maybe you haven't pursued that idea because it is in a field you've never studied, or to build such a product or service would require skills you are not an expert at, or may not possess at all? All of those are good reasons not to pursue your brilliant idea right?

Well, not exactly. The best of the best entrepreneurs out there often find themselves pursuing ideas that may or not be in their perceived wheelhouse. The common bond across the board however among these folks, is a built in sense of curiosity, an inability to let a good idea rest, and the doggedness and business sense to pursue even the wildest ideas. Those who know it know it as the curse of the entrepreneur. Just when you thought you could rest, when you could relax, along comes another great idea and the true entrepreneur really has no choice but to pursue it.

Rob Barden, of the Rossland Binding Company is just such a character. At 14 he had a paper route, by 19 he had started a construction company with three employees, and then sent nearly 30 years setting up businesses within the office equipment sector. Although a prairie kid at heart, Rob is a passionate skier. Having just sold his office equipment company and moving into retirement, it was that love of skiing, in tune with his entrepreneurial spirit that helped launch his next venture. Putting together an international team of talent, he moved with them to Rossland and started a new Research and Development company seeking to build a better ski binding.

I sat down with Rob in their Rossland offices to talk about why Rossland is the best place to be for a ski industry R&D company, how he went from office equipment to developing designing new bindings, and how he's making that happen without an engineering/design background.

Entrepreneur - Webster’s Dictionary and common understanding describes it as: One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. Taking a wider look however, and going back to the original French word entreprendre, it simply means "To undertake."

In that sense it is very possible to be an entrepreneur (one who starts a business), but not be entrepreneurial (one who undertakes tasks). At the same time you could well be entrepreneurial, but not an entrepreneur.

Kevin Driedger of Nelson BC falls into that latter class. An engineer by trade, he has that natural built-in, inner entrepreneurial voice, longing to be the leader and seeing better ways of doing things. After a move to Nelson and a stint developing new products for Pacific Insight, he went out on his own and launched his own company. The results ultimately fell flat as he realized, he was very entrepreneurial, but not as much an entrepreneur. Those key lessons learned which Kevin shared with us in our interview were critical for him and any entrepreneur looking to find their way. Tapping into his faith to help him contain and utilize his inner entrepreneurial spirit, within the confines of an employee within a larger company has helped him find the right fit.

Now the director of Engineering at Pacific Insight, I sat down with Kevin to learn how he has put his entrepreneurial spirit to work, how others can learn from his experience, and how he is developing products for one of the world's biggest automakers, from Nelson, BC.

"I could do this better!" Have you ever sat back at work and had that thought about your bosses or the company you work for? Have you ever found yourself daydreaming at that job you disliked, imagining your bosses running the company into the ground, only for you to return as the shining hero, saving the company and the town in the process?

Ok, perhaps that's a little over dramatic, and it certainly doesn't describe the thoughts Kevin Dowkes of Grand Forks had while working for Interior Mill Equipment in Grand Forks, BC. in his early 20's. He did however get the chance somewhat to play the role of the prodigal son returning to glory where previously there was loss. Following the closure of Kootenay Mill Equipment, the small steel fabricator where Kevin had ran the sales and marketing, Kevin took the opportunity to do some travelling, and headed out around the world.

Nearing the end of his trip, on a fateful flight from Hawaii, he figured it out. He wanted to be an entrepreneur. He wanted to run, and grow a company of his own. While he was off travelling, unbeknownst to him a group of workers from Interior Mill Equipment were putting the plans in place to reopen the shop. They wanted him back, and he wasn't sure he was ready to commit to small town living. Ultimately he did come back, took up the reins of what was now called Unifab, and ultimately returned to the same office he occupied before, only this time as majority shareholder.

I sat down with Kevin at the mill in Grand Forks to learn how over the course of the last 15 years he has put the mill back on stable footing, through steady, continuous improvement and giving back to the town he now calls home.

Right brain, left brain, introvert, extrovert. No it's not an early throw away draft from Dr. Seuss's writing desk, but rather a question? Which one describes the ideal entrepreneur, and which one describes you?

We've all seen the black turtle neck wearing, tell us about just one more thing, enigmatic entrepreneur. We all hear about the kids who started with a paper route, and grew it into a multi-national world dominating company. We're familiar with the noble grand vision types with their long hair flowing in the wind behind their jet skis… But what about the others? Do you have to be the visionary mission leader to be successful entrepreneur? Or can you come at it from the other side?

For every flashy creative CEO, there are probably ten more nose-to-the-grind-stone, detail oriented team builders getting it done step by step with great success. Doing solid planning and research, understanding your markets customers and the factors at play, and being adaptable and ready for rapid change is perhaps even the more successful route to business success. The truth is that neither is right, or wrong, and that it's a matter of matching your business style to your strengths as a person, giving it your all, building a strong team, paying attention to detail, and being ready for anything.

Kelly Acheson of Rossland, BC falls into this category. This Gen Xer wasn't the lemonade stand kid, and had no initial intentions of going down the entrepreneurial route. That's not to say she wasn't entrepreneurial. In fact her ability to react to change and flow with serendipity is what lead her to co-founding Adventure Engine, a revolutionary cloud based reservation management system for adventure travel companies.

I sat down with Kelly in Rossland, to talk about her story, how she did it, and what others can learn from her success.