Building the BC Innovation Ecosystem - an interview with Angie Schick from New Ventures BC
Steven Forth is co-founder and managing partner at Ibbaka. See his skill profile here.
Angie Schick plays an important role in the British Columbia innovation economy as the Executive Director of New Ventures BC.
She is the first point of contact for many people with new ideas and the dream of turning them into a company. New Ventures BC helps in many ways, one of the most visible being its annual new venture competition.
See the 20th anniversary celebration video!
We spoke with Angie late in 2020.
Ibbaka: Tell us something about your background and how you came to play the role you play in the Vancouver ecology?
Angie: I’ve had a long fascination with technology, particularly technology’s role in society. I went to Simon Fraser University and did my undergraduate and master’s degree at the school of communication. My supervisor there at the time was Dr. Richard Smith. His wife, Deborah Kirby, was actually the very first executive director at New Ventures BC. So, I was introduced through them and learned about the competition.
I began by helping out on various administrative and research tasks, as I was a student at the time. I was fascinated by the process from the get-go. But, you grow up, you finish school and move on, so I did that and went into the video game industry for five years. After Deborah departed New Ventures BC, Dr. Ernie Love, who was the chairman at the time, contacted me and asked if I could help out. He and I worked on operating the Competition with Bob de Wit, who then became executive director and I worked and learned from him. Eventually, I became executive director myself.
New Ventures BC celebrates before the Pandemic!
Ibbaka: Can you give us the short version of what New Ventures BC is?
Angie: New Ventures BC got started 20 years ago, initiated by Wal van Lierop, who is the founder of Chrysalix Venture Capital here in Vancouver. Over the last 20 years, the mandate has been to recognize, encourage, and develop entrepreneurship and innovation in B.C.’s start-up technology.
By support, we mean a few things. First, we want to provide a bit of leveling up of education and networking, to help companies learn lessons faster, meet the right people sooner, get them to understand how and what it takes to build a company.
We also want to provide recognition and do this with the New Ventures BC competition. We get about 200 entries every year and there are $250,000 in cash and prizes, primarily from Innovate BC but also corporate sponsors. The winners of our competition become ventures to watch.
Over the last five years we’ve added to our programming with an online venture acceleration program, which includes online mentorship. In the last three years, we’ve also administered the Innovator Skills Initiative job grant program with Innovate BC, which is a grant that companies can use to hire a student for a tech or business role. We are at the $3,000,000 mark with paying out grants.
Ibbaka: We frequently talk about the innovation community, is that a real thing? Do you experience innovation in Vancouver or BC as a community, or is this just hyperbole that we are using?
Angie: I experience it as a community, absolutely. We are a community of different organizations and people coming together for a common goal of innovation. New Ventures BC is a community with a lot of offshoots and connections to other communities.
The competition itself wouldn’t happen without volunteers. We have so many amazing people who have done this before and who offer their time and expertise as mentors and judges. They are the ones that are in it to support these new companies and together we have created an interesting start-up community.
I’m always amazed when we hold events by how diverse the community is. We get a good cross-section of past companies that have been in our programs, new start-ups, volunteers, and also sponsors, government and service providers. Everyone’s time is valuable, and they are all getting value out of the connections and opportunities. There is a lot of inspiration one gets from working with early-stage entrepreneurs because they have this type of energy that is hard to replicate. It is definitely a community to me.
Ibbaka: You interact with a lot of early-stage companies, is there a way to tell early on if the company is likely to make it or not?
Angie: Yes and no. If a company doesn’t get past a round, I often say it could be due to the information presented, not necessarily the overall venture or technology. That said, coachable companies that are extremely focused on the problem they’re trying to solve and the overall market opportunity are the ones that succeed.
Ibbaka: What are some skills early-stage companies need that are not that common or different from the skills you need in a more established organization?
Angie: First is coachability and a desire to improve. For the most part, there isn’t a roadmap laid out for you or directions on what to do. You need to be flexible and have the ability to know what you need.
We sometimes meet people that want to do it all, which is great, but at the end of the day you have to figure out what you are good at and what is best for the company.
The most successful teams are those where the founders are all on the same page. They communicate with each other and have ways to deal with conflict.
You really need to have that quick, agile mentality. We were just talking to a bunch of companies in our sales accelerator and four out of five said they had to pivot based on market forces.
The ability to be super analytical, to be open to knowing what you don’t know, to be able to read how your team works are all critical. Soft skills are very important.
Ibbaka: Can you expand on what you mean by soft skills?
Angie: Of course, technology is the core, but so are customers and revenue.
To sell and make progress, you need to tap into other skills.
Soft skills can be anything from closing a sale, to negotiating with a team member or founder, or deciding when to pivot and what that means. You have to really be able to think from an emotional and technical standpoint.
Ibbaka: There is some criticism that the innovation community isn’t diverse, do you think that criticism is fair and if so, what are some things we can do as a community to address it?
Angie: It is fair in the sense that if you look at the representation of the innovation community today. Is it representative of the population at large? I don’t know that I could say it is. In terms of how we address it, I feel the innovation community has been very proactive in addressing this and taking it on as something important.
I’ve talked about this with many organizations and have gotten a lot of inspiration from entrepreneurship@UBC on this. I’ve also taken some great education workshops on this with VIATeC in Victoria.
From the New Ventures BC standpoint, it is our responsibility to make sure we have a representative panel of speakers, opinions, judges, mentors, and volunteers. It enriches the feedback you get and is a benefit to the entrepreneurs. It’s a requirement. I’m also on the board of the Vancouver Entrepreneurs Forum and it is an important priority for them as well.
We need to constantly ask ourselves if we present ourselves as a community that is providing opportunities for everyone.
This is still a work in progress. I’d say the innovation community is making good strides, but it is a journey we are still on and will be for a while. I’m encouraged.
Ibbaka: There is a similar criticism that the innovation economy is more of an urban thing and not helping people outside of Greater Vancouver. Is that a fair comment and can we and should we be doing something about it?
Angie: I don’t think it is a fair comment, but I can understand it. There is more going on in the regions that some realize. Take the Kootenays for example. It’s a huge region and they have Thoughtexchange, Traction on Demand and others with a community of people who are successful entrepreneurs. I think they are a really good example for an underrated area. We are part of Innovate BC’s BC Acceleration Network, a group of ten technology organizations across the Province providing support.
aDolus Technology won the 2020 Competition. This is the first company to win from Nanaimo, BC.
With our ISI job grant program we toured the province to promote it. We received great feedback from people who were eager to chat and learn about the program.
New Ventures BC has always had a BC-wide focus reaching out as far across BC as we can. That includes access, offering programs and recording them, and giving mentorship options. It has become easier as network connectivity has improved, compared to 20 years or even 5 years ago.
It is still something we have to actively work on because it can be hard to reach the companies. You can’t take the Vancouver plan, put it in a region and assume it’ll work. That’s probably the worst thing you could try. It is about acknowledging what makes each part of BC unique, learning about each region, and figuring out who in the region is there who understands innovation so that we can figure out the best way to support them together.
Ibbaka: What are you doing to thrive during the pandemic?
Angie: From an innovation community standpoint, we typically open the competition for entries in March and this year we went completely virtual. Typically, we get anywhere from 100-180 applications and this year we received about 240. All of our seminar events were all online and had record attendance which is great.
I think when we hit September, that’s when people started missing each other. While we can do a lot in terms of education, connections, and mentorship, it needs to be more purposeful. All of that intangible connection that you get when at an event, that is harder to replicate online and has been a challenge. However, I think it has been a heartening experience for me as we’ve had such a great response from the community.
It’s important to have these events and to keep our community going. Even though we can’t see each other in person, we can still connect in meaningful ways. It isn’t the same, but it is still something. It’s been gratifying in that respect.
Skill Innovation
Angie has developed many skills as she grew New Ventures BC. We put this interview through Ibbaka’s skill extraction AI (part of the Ibbaka Talent Platform) and this is what we found. This is an experimental use of the platform, but it shows that one can get useful insights into a person’s skills from many different sources.
