“The best minds of our generation are wasted optimizing clicks on the web and creating complex financial derivative products. This is unfortunate.” A Silicon Valley veteran recently made that statement.
Often, the most talented workers choose the best paying career paths. In Quebec, we place great value on professionals like doctors, lawyers, accountants and management consultants. These are noble and well-paying careers.
It’s high time that we placed similar esteem on more entrepreneurial career paths.
If an extraterrestrial landed on Earth today, it would see that much is in dire need of improvement, especially when it comes to areas like the environment, healthcare, education, transportation, infrastructure, nutrition, etc. Entrepreneurs can play a major role in all of these areas. They build organizations, give life to ideas and bring to market the necessary products and services.
The most stimulating careers today are in start-ups, in particular because of the flexibility and independence they provide and the freedom to create your own work environment, but especially because of the size of the challenges and their potential impact on society.
In Montreal, start-up business Provender connects local farmers to restaurant chefs through an online platform that gives them access to the freshest ingredients, which improves the quality of the food supply for thousands of Montrealers. Transit App, another Montreal start-up, has created an app that provides public bus schedules, facilitating the use of public transport for citizens in hundreds of cities. Social entrepreneur Fabrice Vil left his profession as a lawyer to leverage basketball in the fight against school dropout rates with his project Pour 3 points (For 3 points). Christine Renaud,who holds a Master’s of Education degree from Harvard, launched E-180, a business platform that connects people with skills they wish to share with others who are eager to learn them.
Indeed, an entrepreneurial career if more risky. That said, it’s not necessary to start a business to follow an entrepreneurial path. In fact, it is often preferable to first work for an emerging start-up before launching your own business.
Instead of taking “the big leap”, why not take many small steps? Many new Montreal businesses now offer stimulating positions with annual salaries ranging from $50,000 to $100,000.
So where is a good place to start learning about the start-up ecosystem? In Montreal there is an incredible richness of organizations and events.Recently, Real Ventures hosted a conference at the Notman House called Breaking into Startups, which dealt specifically with the transition from a professional career to the entrepreneurial world. At the end of October, the start-up community will organize its second annual Open House, a meet and greet where you can visit more than 50 high potential companies. Last year, more than 1300 Montrealers attended it. Both Montreal New Tech and Startup Drinks also organize well-attended monthly activities to unite the community. On the university side, there are increasingly more options to support young student entrepreneurs, such as District 3 (Concordia), MES (McGill), the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Poly-UdeM (Université de Montréal) and Next 36 (pan-canadian).
Our ecosystem currently lacks many kinds of talent, first and foremost in the technical field. We need tens of thousands of web developers and software engineers. Then, we must retain our best university students, including graduates, who all too often leave Quebec to look abroad for well-paying, stimulating work. In addition, our ecosystem without a doubt needs many more female entrepreneurs and engineers. Finally, our doors must be more open to high-end talent from outside Canada. Without these talents, our Quebec entrepreneurs will take longer to complete their projects.
These entrepreneurs who take risks with their careers and who will work for almost nothing at the beginning in order to make an impact in the world — these are my peers and my friends. They are often also my heroes.
For this reason, and for the good of Quebec society, I profoundly hope that the most dynamic, brilliant and passionate people join them in their quest to change the world. Let’s encourage our best talents to pursue entrepreneurial routes and to join entrepreneurial ventures.
[Note: This article was originally published as a guest editorial in La Presse.]
Read the other articles in this 4-part series: