Some observers would say that Ottawa’s tech community has lost its “swagger.” Depending on who you talk to, that can be a good thing or a bad thing.
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When Nortel collapsed in 2009, it left a scar across a city that thought of itself as “Silicon Valley North.”
Almost two decades later, Ottawa is home to the greatest concentration of world-class tech companies per capita in North America, according to Invest Ottawa. And, the city boasts startups in everything from quantum computing and AI to health-tech and SaaS. Yet some observers would say that the tech community has lost its “swagger.”
Depending on who you talk to, that can be a good thing or a bad thing.
“We got so big and toyed with swagger, but then paid such a long price of hangover,” explains Ottawa tech executive Sacha Gera in an interview with Techopia. “I think it almost created a whole generation of conservatism.”
So what is swagger, and does Ottawa’s tech sector need it?
The corner office and beyond
Some argue that swagger starts in the corner office, with a CEO who is the personification of the company. That leader embodies the mission, turns strategy into a story and gives investors and staff a reason to believe. Think Steve Jobs and Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg and Satya Nadella.
In Ottawa, the tone is different, Gera suggests. Part of that might be due to the city’s identity as a government town. The culture of the public service values stability and process. This bleeds into the business community.
“Most of us have a partner or some family in the government,” Gera notes. “That makes us more reserved by nature. We don’t beat our hands on our chest and be loud and proud. It’s quite the opposite.”
Also, when it comes to tech, Gera draws a distinction between founder CEOs, who tend to project vision, and professional managers, who excel at operations but not bravado.
“The founder has that swagger because they lived through the early struggle,” Gera says. “When you bring in a professional CEO, their job is to steady the ship. That usually means less risk, less personality.”
But swagger isn’t only about the person at the top. It’s also in the way a company tells its story to the world. Few Ottawa tech firms embrace the Silicon Valley ethos of “move fast and break things.”
“Ottawa is excellent at building great companies,” Gera says. “What we don’t do is tell the story. We don’t put it on billboards, we don’t shout about it every day.”
In fact, Gera argues that the very thing Ottawa founders often celebrate can also hold them back.
“We love to talk about being capital-efficient,” he explains. “But that mindset doesn’t always scale. Sometimes you need to think bigger, spend bigger and tell the world you’re here.”
Ottawa receives less venture capital than other Canadian tech hubs, at just four per cent of the national total in recent years, according to CPE Analytics, causing it to slip from sixth to eighth among Canadian tech hubs. Reports from CBRE also suggest that talent growth has lagged when compared to cities such as Toronto and Vancouver. This has created a distinct culture in the city’s tech sector and a unique leader archetype.
Nick Quain, vice-president of venture development at Invest Ottawa, calls it “bootstrap city,” where founders are forced to be disciplined and relentless.
“It’s not about creating this blitz-scaling opportunity of raising a ton of capital right at the beginning and then pounding your chest,” Quain explains. “Instead, they build methodically. Shopify bootstrapped for six years.
“We don’t see how good we really are,” he acknowledges. “Ottawa founders build with this quiet confidence, but they don’t posture. They’re relentless and deliberate and the result is billion-dollar companies like Shopify, Fullscript, Solace, Assent — all built here.
“But because our style isn’t loud or performative,” he continues, “it doesn’t always get recognized.”
This means Ottawa isn’t always top-of-mind for investors looking for the next best thing or graduates weighing job offers. Even with the city’s strong tech ecosystem, Quain admits, achievements don’t get the spotlight they deserve.
“We punch above our weight class,” he says, “but we don’t tell that story enough.”
We don’t have swagger, we have aura
If swagger isn’t showing up in branding or company culture, then where should it be?
“Ottawa founders have a more quiet confidence to them,” Quain explains. “Instead of swagger, I’d say it’s aura. You know, they walk into a room and they’re not the loudest, but when they speak, they’re listened to the most.”
He points to founders such as Kyle Braatz and Tobi Lütke, who carry a quiet confidence that has been built over time.
“They know they can build something and it’s not about getting the most clicks on LinkedIn,” he says. “It’s not about chasing the spotlight. They’re sort of quiet and deliberate and relentless.”
Welbi founder Elizabeth Audette-Bourdeau agrees. She recalls seeing Andrew Waitman, who scaled Assent to a valuation of more than $1 billion, sitting at a recent event, “chatting with other CEOs, contributing,” she recalls. “People are just so involved, they’re down to earth,” she adds.
Audette-Bourdeau says she chose to build Welbi in Ottawa because of the humble and collaborative environment.
“A lot of our VCs that joined us were very, very impressed with the fact that the numbers we were sharing were the real ones,” she notes. “Because I'm not trying to brag or to inflate my numbers. And I'm super excited, because the numbers that we put forward at the beginning of the year, we're going to hit them.”
Aura can also manifest as a culture of vulnerability. Rewind CEO Mike Potter has been lauded for openly discussing his business challenges on social media, creating a culture where it’s safe for his team to fail and iterate.
But a quiet aura is not without risks.
“Look at Shopify, they’re not here anymore, and the only thing we can say is that they started here,” says Alok Ahuja, founder and CEO of Trexity, a tech platform helping small businesses with same-day deliveries. “I think the only impact it'll have is that it's just going to be another name on that list of great companies that started here but ultimately ended somewhere else. And that, to me, is the curse of a bootstrap city.”
Gera agrees. “We don’t celebrate our successes enough. Our tech workforce has barely grown and investment is actually down in the city.”
So, what’s the answer? A new marketing alliance called Ottawa Unlimited was recently formed to tell the city’s story. Gera has even floated the idea of plastering “Made in Ottawa” success stories on digital billboards along Highway 417.
But ultimately it’s up to the tech community to define what swagger means. For Audette-Bourdeau, it’s about defining strengths.
“Sticking to our values, sharing, being humble,” she says. “And that this type of ecosystem becomes the success of Ottawa.”
Quain puts it this way: “The foundation takes longer to build, but when (companies) are ready to scale, they completely take off.” 
