You Can Do That Here

Jeff saw the light when it came to building his own new home. He wanted his home to reflect his environmental sustainability values. The first step was moving to a warmer climate in BC from Saskatchewan. Phase two involved tireless research and building of his own efficient home.

While we would all like to have efficient, green homes, many of us are scare off from the build or the renovation based on the perceived high cost of going green. As Jeff explains in this episode, the big, sexy silver bullets are not the best way to spend your home efficiency dollars. Have a listen and hear the top two things you can do to build efficiently without spending the big bucks.

Water. It's at the very core of life itself. We need it to sustain our bodies, minds and environment. Wildlife needs it, and our City is obligated to both deliver clean water to our doors and take away our dirty water on the way out. It's safe to say we can't live without it, and working with it as a City can be both expensive and challenging to the local environment. What if there was a way to clean up our water, create healthy habitat for ourselves and wildlife, and reduce the City's cost to manage our water as well?

Rachel Roussin and Eva Cameron of Rossland took up that challenge. What started as a weekend workshop became a beautiful pilot project on what can be done to better manage the water in our City environment.

Using energy, passion and a grant these two citizens pulled off a great project all on their own. Learn how they did it and how you can too.

Broadband, Fibre, High Speed Internet. Whatever you call it, it is to the present and future economy what roads, rail and power were to the industries of the past. In the past, the Kootenay region could not have flourished if they didn't have the roads to get the gold, silver and timber out. Just the same, the economies of today and tomorrow cannot flourish if we can't get data in and out of the region. Following the great recession it was Roosevelt who started the often imitated economic development stimulus of building roads and infrastructure required to get the economy moving. As recently as the great economic crash of 2008 onward we saw vast billions of dollars going into roads and bridges. Those in the know however understand that to stimulate the economy going forward that money could be better spent installing data highways of fibre optic networks throughout the region.

Dan Salekin knows this better than most. He has been involved in greater than a dozen IT start-ups, including the raising of a billion dollars to build the first coast to coast fibre network. Moving back to his home of Castlegar he pushed the Columbia Basin Network to consider putting money into connecting the Basin with Fibre. Several years later that has begun happening and Dan's own company Columbia Networks is offering the service in his home region that he's been selling to big centers across western Canada for years.
 
I sat down with Dan in his Castlegar office to hear his inspiring backstory and learn just how important broadband is to the region, and how to make it happen.

The exit.  It’s the dream that every tech entrepreneur dreams of. That magical day where someone decides that idea you’ve come up with, nurtured and grown is worth something to them, and they write a fat cheque to buy it from you. Whether selling the next big thing to Google for billions of dollars or simply selling your shares for a decent profit, the Exit is what we’re all working towards. Few businesses survive however and even less have that big exit. What does it take to get there? Once you get there how do you execute and sell that business?

Brian Fry of Rossland, BC has launched, run and sold several big tech companies throughout his career. In Part one we learned how he transformed from a downhill ski racer to a tech entrepreneur, from selling computers to fellow students in the 80’s to building the largest cloud provider in the nation. In Part two we look at the second half of the picture, selling the businesses he worked hard to help create. I sat down with Brian at his home office in Rossland, BC to dig under the surface of his companies sales to learn how he did it.

Go faster. Look ahead. Visualize yourself on the podium and get to the finish line as fast as possible.

All of these pieces of advice are perfect for the ski racer standing in the start gate of a gnarly downhill course. They could also be the personal mantra of an entrepreneur seeking to stay at the forefront of technology and dominate a new sector.

Brian Fry played both of those parts at various times in his life. Starting out as a downhill racing Crazy Canuck from Rossland, BC, injuries lead him to seek out a new field. The trend of going faster continued as he shifted into the technology industry. From selling computers to fellow students in the mid 80’s, Brian went on to co-found the largest cloud provider in Canada. In this episode we’ll hear his tale from start gates to Bill Gates, and how a couple of guys launched the biggest cloud network in the country.

Investors. They are the beings out there amongst us that with the wave of a wand and the signing of a cheque have the magical ability to help turn ideas into companies, and companies into even bigger companies, when everything comes together. One of the biggest most challenging questions in the business world, is "How the heck do I find my perfect investor?" and "When I find them, how do I convince them to write me a big fat cheque? The simple answer is often a lot of hard work, trying, failing, learning, and trying again until you match the perfect pitch with the perfect investor. That's not always the case though.

Jim Firstbrook and Dave Macleod of Thoughtexchange have been running a tech company out of the Kootenays for a number of years now, and have done so successfully. With millions of dollars in revenue and a broad base of clients for their software things look to be going very well. No true entrepreneur is ever happy to settle though, and so Jim and Dave made some critical changes at the company, and went out for investment to keep growing toward their billion dollar company goal. The end result was a $7 million dollar investment at a $50 million dollar valuation and nine out of eleven pitches proving successful. How did they do it, and what's coming next? We sat down in AZcreative's Rossland studio to find out.

Technology. It’s everywhere, and in every part of our lives these days. As much as reading and writing it’s becoming a critical part of our education system. As much as natural resources and tourism it’s becoming a critical and growing part of our economy. But can a thriving technology sector and economy really take hold in the wilds of the West Kootenay? If so, how do you get it started and accelerate it forward?

Just like with any sector, a key piece to growing a thriving community is getting people together of like mind and passion to share ideas, thoughts, projects and more. In an industry like technology where the need to actually get together with other humans is perhaps less than most others, actually getting real people together in a physical space together can be a challenge.

Brad Pommen has taken up that challenge. Moving to Nelson several years ago, he was keen to get to know the people and culture in the area, as well as find other tech-geeks like himself. With an aim to find new work and friends, what began as chats over a pint in the local pub, quickly grew into the largest technology club in Canada, and is fast fostering a growth in the community amongst all ages.

Lawyers. They are the butt of many jokes, often considered expensive, and not typically an aspect of people’s business or lives that they enjoy working with. On the other hand, law touches every aspect of our lives from marriage to death and everything in between, including the businesses we launch and run. Indeed the perception of lawyers being expensive may well be incorrect, and rather a good lawyer will save many hours of heartache and grief as well as money if used wisely. Yes a good lawyer will help set that foundation for your business, put in place the rules that keep you and your partners happy and functioning well, or separating cleanly if that’s the case. So is that lawyer expensive, or is it perhaps the best money you’ve ever spent as an entrepreneur?

Leon Pigott of Pigott &Co. in Nelson BC is a strong example of the type of lawyer that can be that wise investment of your early startup cash. As an entrepreneur himself, having been lured in by Nelson’s lifestyle siren song from bigger centers, he decided to launch his own firm with a specific focus on working with up and helping up and coming entrepreneurs lead the Kootenays into the next generation of business success.

I caught up with Leon at the Kootenay Coop Studios to talk about his own entrepreneurial journey as well as the two tips that every entrepreneur needs to know about the law and how and when lawyers can be a great investment in your business.

What were you doing when you were 8 years old? Probably going to school, and playing with your friends I would imagine. How about at 13? More of the same perhaps? Maybe having the first idea of wanting to get a job? In your teenage years you were free of responsibility for the most part. You didn’t have a mortgage to pay, you didn’t have kids to feed, and you were free to play as you wished.

Now let’s think about some of the reasons we don’t start businesses when we’re older. Fear is the number one thing blocking most people. That fear stems often from the very real responsibility we pick up as we get older. Those mortgages that need paying and kids that need feeding.

Knowing that, it would seem that there is really no better time in our lives to take risks, go after what we love, and start our own business than when we’re in our teen years. Of course to do that one would need whole lot of focus and drive not often found until later in life.

Maxwell Nicholson is an anomaly in this case. He had that focus, drive and determination from a young age. It started by winning sales competitions at eight years old and continued on into launching his first business at the age of 13. Now in business school at UVIC, he’s also a recent winner of the Junior Dragon’s Den Contest and on his way to making big things happen. Yes this now 18 year old from Grand Forks, BC is wise beyond his years and there is much that any entrepreneur of any age can and should learn from him. I connected with Maxwell via Skype to hear his inspiring tale and learn how we can all up our games to keep up with this teenager on the road to success.

What is the first thing any person does when they get an award, achieve something great or succeed in their pursuits? Ok probably they say thank you first to whoever gave them award, but immediately after they tend to heap gratitude upon those who help them get there. Successful people, among many others are, are often the first to admit that they couldn’t have done whatever they did to succeed without the help and guidance of others. Yes, whether an athlete, an entrepreneur, or simply someone wanting to make the most of life, coaching is a critical element to realizing your full potential.

There is an ever growing trend, and it is a trend that podcasting has ridden in a major way of people seeking advice, tips, and how tos from others who have made it in their chosen field. Indeed the self-help industry has perhaps never been bigger than it is today. It seems many of us are looking for others who have done it to tell us how they have done it in such a way that we can simply follow their success manual and reproduce what others have done. Yes there is a massive market searching for, and indeed a very wealthy industry providing answers. Answers. Are answers really what we need though?

A great coach is a person who has the ability to help someone be the best they can be, not by giving them answers but by asking the right questions. Yes questions are the key to great coaching, and coaching is the key to great success. So the true path to success lies not in discovering answers, but in seeking the right questions to unlock your ability to be the best you possible.

In today’s podcast, I sat down with Lesley Beatson, a coaching expert from Rossland, BC. Through asking the right questions she has helped coach numerous athletes to high performance, CEO to business success and average everyday people to a better, happier place. Lesley walks u through what she loves about coaching, and provides a few tips, questions, not answers, that we can all use right now to help self-coach ourselves to being the best us we can be.