The legendary Gary Bizzo from The Bizzo Management Group and Vancouverentrepreneur.ca provides you with The BC Weekly Business Report.  On what’s going on in our Province. Every week we bring you all up to date with new ventures, investment opportunities, start ups, technology, business activities and who’s doing what when it comes highlighting local BC entrepreneurs. All this great weekly business news will inform or may even inspire you to get involved, contact, network or even expand or start your own business. Enjoy the show!Episode #18 Vancouver Entrepreneur:
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1) Last week we mentioned Keuretsu, Seattle-based Angel Investor group. My bud Rob, here, suggested we look at the Seattle/Vancouver corridor because we are almost like sister cities since we are only 118 miles apart and very close philosophically and economically.

2) Considering the exchange rate and the wealth in Seattle, Vancouver is a natural choice for investment in hitech. The high-tech industry accounts for 22% of Washington’s GDP; its contribution to British Columbia’s smaller economy is just 7%. Venture-capital firms invest five times more in Seattle than they do in Vancouver.

3) We are going to spend more time in later segment on this corridor but for now lets get to some BC companies. We’ve talked about Shoes.com but I just wanted to tell you that they have had a 7400% increase in sales in the past 2 years up to $250M in sales and they have 550 employees. Phew! Shoes and the next couple are on a list of the Top 50 startups to watch in Canada, Shoes being number 1.

4) A company to watch in 2016 has been Rove Concepts, a design/retail business making Scandinavian style furniture. The cool thing is they have a sustainability mission statement and work with WeForest, are small batch artisans who source the material in North America and fabricate the products in China to their specs. With 300% increase in the last 2 years they export 70% of their furniture.

5) We are seeing lots of hitech companies but this one is the opposite of hitech- trading. Adroit Overseas exports 95% of its products in the areas of agro commodities, metal scrap and timber. To put it in perspective last year they did $20M with 4 employees.

6) Black Hills CEO Glenn Fawcett was in Vancouver last month to promote the release of the 2014 vintage of his celebrated Nota Bene wine. Glenn is a marketing whiz and actually got Jason Priestly to help market it. Priestly was so impressed he invested and sits on the Board of Directors. Black Hills has been known for years for producing a Bordeaux-style blend Nota Bene which is one of B.C.’s most esteemed red wines. He’s been known to sell thousands of cases in an hour. You’re most likely only able to get it in a VQA liquor store though. The winery is in an unusual situation in that 75% of its wine sales are direct to consumer. That’s the most profitable sales channel for any B.C. winery because a lower percentage of the retail price goes toward taxes to the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch.

7) You may have heard of the bee crisis in the world. Oldooz Pooyanfar of SFU Surrey’s mechatronics systems engineering department has combined forces with B.C.’s largest honey producer to develop better hive metrics. SFU and Honey view Farm, are developing new technology they hope can improve bee colony management by finding less intrusive ways to track bee health.

8) Vanish, a mobile messaging application involving no central servers allows users to control their information ­not only off their phones, but off the phones of everyone they have sent the information too as well. It’s gaining traction amongst millennials. What inspired the idea was a problem of Snapchat -the pictures on Snapchat don’t really disappear. There’s no way you as a user can know if the picture is really gone. Over time, users will understand that.”Vanish is giving you the power to truly delete messages at any point in time. Encrypted, forward secrecy, and a decentralized network. Unlike other apps, Vanish will not have a central server with all users information that is vulnerable for attack. Other features include group audio messaging, group video messaging, and sharing files. Vanish is giving users full control of their information.

9)Skynation got my attention because they said their goal was to employee 1 million people.At Sky Nation Systems Inc. they provide robust and user-friendly tools for businesses and individuals though software. It seems their focus is mainly digital Africa but like some hitech co’s we reviewed in the past I have no clear idea what they do from their website. They got the attention of Small Business BC and made the top 5 in the Emerging startups in BC.

This Week in Events:

1) Double Your Income by Turning Customers Into Raving Fans, with Bert TerHartTuesday, October 25, 20166:00 PM to 9:15 PMG&F Financial Group105-4191 Hastings Street, Burnaby, BCTuesday evening, October 25 learn from Bert TerHart the exact steps you’ll need to launch a fully automated, 24/7 marketing machine that needs no additional traffic to your website, no additional advertising and zero search engine optimization. Case studies reveal increases in revenues of 236% and more – All made possible by turning existing customers into rabid, loyal fans using a simple, time-honored and proven strategy.

2) Small Business Information Expo in NanaimoLocation: Vancouver Island Conference Centre101 Gordon Street, Nanaimo, V9R 5J8, CanadaDate/Time: Thursday, October 20th 2016 | 10:00am – 3:00pmPosition your business as a leader in your industry and build confidence in your prospects with this cost effective face-to-face opportunity to complement your marketing activities. Public Works Canada features 20+ booths with information and connections to government business support programs.

3) Building Employee Skills: How to access the Canada-BC Job GrantThursday, October 20, 201610:30 am to 12:00 pmSmall Business BC54 – 601 West Cordova StreetWaterfront StationVancouver, BC V6B 1G1CanadaFind out how the grant can help offset the cost of skills training and professional development for your employees. You could be eligible for up to $10,000 per employee in grant funding or $15,000 if you are hiring an unemployed person.Canada-B.C. Job Grant Education Advisors will be on hand to book follow up advisory appointments, or you can book an appointment anytime by contacting us: [email protected]Presented By: Dylan Hrycyshen, Small Business BC.