These three serial tech entrepreneurs love Ottawa — what keeps them here?

Techopia interviewed three serial tech entrepreneurs who have each had more than one local startup success to find out why they chose to stay in Ottawa rather than seek new tech ecosystems to apply their expertise.

Ottawa has long been recognized as fertile ground for tech startups. Often referred to as “Silicon Valley North” because of its concentration of successful startups and established tech businesses, it is known for attracting talented people with entrepreneurial spirit.  Techopia interviewed three serial tech entrepreneurs who have each had more than one local startup success to find out why they chose to stay in Ottawa rather than seek new tech ecosystems to apply their expertise.

Mike Weider

“There is a great culture here of very loyal people that enjoy working for startups.”  That’s the view of Mike Weider, a partner and co-founder of Ottawa-based Fundfire, a seed funding venture that invests in early stage tech startups.  “They hang in there. I think people here have a greater sense of commitment and loyalty to the projects they’re working on than in other tech ecosystems, which is a unique feature of our market.” Weider has ample experience as a local entrepreneur, having co-founded his first start-up, Watchfire, a software security company, in 1996.  “(Watchfire) developed tools to automate the detection of security vulnerabilities in applications. It was acquired by IBM and integrated into a larger software development tooling offering that they had,” he explains. In 2010, Weider co-founded Blaze Software, a web performance optimization business that developed software to make websites faster. Blaze was subsequently acquired by Akamai Technologies, a large content delivery and Internet infrastructure company. Weider also co-founded Fundfire in 2010. “Our partners were doing individual angel investing, so we decided to form a partnership together to invest as one entity, versus as separate individual angels. We finance using our own internal capital. We pool the funds and invest in startups together,” Weider says. In addition to local tech entrepreneurs having a strong base of technical talent to draw on, Weider notes that Ottawa provides a strong market for the other specialists necessary to build a successful tech startup, including sales and marketing professionals and finance and legal people, among others.  Weider, who sits on the board of Invest Ottawa to help coach startups, praises that organization for its work in assisting many local companies through all stages of their respective business life cycles.  Furthermore, “A lot of people in the community share that ethos. They want Ottawa companies to succeed, and so when someone reaches out for assistance, they are extremely generous with their time,” he says. When Weider started out, he recalls, “The principal ecosystem was around telecommunications. When that took a downturn, there was, maybe, a bit of a dip in the overall strength of our community, but then it came back strongly and much more diversified.” Today, he notes, there are many excellent companies in many different disciplines, including software, life sciences, cybersecurity, cleantech, e-commerce, and smart mobility. Like many other entrepreneurs who have chosen to remain in Ottawa, Weider is bullish on the lifestyle the city offers.  “We raised our three children here. It’s been a great place to live as well as to work,” he says.

Marc Gingras

Ask Marc Gingras, and he’ll tell you that Ottawa offers “all the amenities that you want for a really good lifestyle.”  The co-founder and CEO of Bloks says, “It is just the right size of city. You’re close to nature, there is Gatineau Park. When you have a family, Ottawa is a great place to be.” Founded in 2021, Bloks has developed software designed to brief and prepare employees for upcoming meetings, and even tailor that briefing depending on who the interaction is with.  “For example, if it’s a first-time meeting, we’ll give more information on the people you’re about to meet, including their background. If it’s with people you meet often, it will be more about giving you context about your last few conversations, the action items and what you should be talking about in this conversation,” says Gingras. Gingras previously co-founded Foko Retail in 2014, which developed software for retailers.  “If you’re a retailer managing multiple stores, you need a tool to help communicate with all the store associates for the things you need to get done, whether it’s changing merchandising displays, changing pricing, or for recurring tasks that need to happen. So we brought in this two-way real-time communication between the store associates and the headquarters,” he says.  In addition to the local lifestyle attractions, Gingras says he remains in Ottawa to pursue his entrepreneurial endeavours because of the quality of talent available.  Employees are technically savvy and the city has good universities that train students well on different technology stacks, Gingras says, noting that he has hired students from the University of Ottawa’s co-op program. This affords him the opportunity to vet potential future employees that he might hire full-time upon graduation. The local entrepreneurial spirit also thrives, he says, noting how some of that originated from the large tech companies of the past, such as Mitel and Nortel, as well as from those of the present, like Shopify, with former employees of those companies contributing to the growth of Ottawa’s tech ecosystem by “spinning out several great companies.” That talent and spirit is fuelled by community support, says Gingras, who praises the efforts of Invest Ottawa. He says its experienced staff members have an immediate and positive impact on helping technology startups.

Aydin Mirzaee

“Everything that you need to build a company exists in Ottawa,” says Aydin Mirzaee, the co-founder and CEO of Fellow.app, “I also think it’s the best place to live. That combination is, I think, the magic that you need to thrive.  “My co-founders and I love living here and so this is the headquarters of the company. You get really good bang for your buck in terms of the quality of life that you can have living in Ottawa,” adds Mirzaee.  Founded in 2017, Fellow has developed a software product that works alongside Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet.  “It does everything from helping people prepare for meetings, taking action items and decisions during meetings, and managing workflows coming out of meetings,” explains Mirzaee. “Our mission is to help companies everywhere spend less time in meetings and make meeting times productive and effective,” he adds.  Mirzaee was also the co-founder and CEO of Fluidware. That company, founded in 2008, developed a product to create online surveys, then distribute them and analyze the results. Fluidware was subsequently acquired by SurveyMonkey, a leading global online survey platform. Ottawa has a lot going for it as a tech ecosystem, says Mirzaee, who notes that success stories like Shopify have “really put Ottawa on the map” and provided confidence to local entrepreneurs that they can also succeed here.  Furthermore, as a result of recent technological advancements, particularly those emanating from the COVID pandemic as people were forced to work remotely, geography is no longer the barrier it once was. Local entrepreneurs have been able to raise a lot of money and also hire people both in and outside of Ottawa, he adds. “We started in Ottawa as an in-person company, but now we have employees throughout Canada,” says Mirzaee. A community willing to lend a helping hand is another positive attribute propelling Ottawa’s tech ecosystem. Many local entrepreneurs who have enjoyed success are giving back, providing sage advice and also contributing on the financing side as angel investors, says Mirzaee.  He praises Invest Ottawa as “an incredible resource” that serves as a hub to bring people together and ensure that founders and CEOs are able to build relationships and continue to help each other locally. “As long as we make Ottawa a great place to live we’re going to attract people who will do what they love here. For entrepreneurs it will be building businesses,” Mirzaee says. https://issuu.com/greatrivermedia/docs/techopia_insights_2024