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By William Johnson in VANCOUVER TECH —

Can we turn our little tech into Big Tech?

Without selling it.

Can we turn our little tech into Big Tech?

Last week, I had the pleasure of hosting the New Ventures BC Awards, the grand finale for B.C.'s biggest and longest-running startup competition.

Now, to kick off the show, I shared an anecdote I’d been saving for this exact audience—entrepreneurs, investors, bureaucrats, politicians—the whole startup ecosystem. A few days earlier, I’d been down in San Francisco and had a chance to chat with Bobbi Jania, CMO of Salesforce's marketing platform. Here's the scene: we’re sitting in the Dreamforce media lounge at the Moscone Center, surrounded by the buzz of tech giants and startup hopefuls, diving into topics like AI, customer-driven marketing, and whatever other buzzwords you can throw into the mix.

Our conversation was fascinating for a few reasons. First, because of all the cutting-edge innovation Salesforce is working on. But also because, as it turns out, a lot of Salesforce's products have deep roots right here in Vancouver. I got schooled by Jania on their latest AI-driven tools—and then turned the tables by telling him about all the YVR connections Salesforce has that he might not have known about.

I took him through a little history lesson, and later, I shared that same story with the New Ventures BC crowd. It starts with Phil Calvin, an entrepreneur who sold his startup Sitemasher to Salesforce back in 2010. Fast forward a decade, and Salesforce snaps up Mobify, a B.C.-based mobile e-commerce startup founded by two SFU students, Igor Faletski and John Boxall, along with P.J. McLachlan.

And here’s where it gets interesting. Salesforce’s Vancouver office? It’s just a 10-minute walk from the offices of Tableau, the Seattle-based data and analytics company they scooped up for a cool $15.3 billion in 2019. Tableau’s had a Vancouver presence since 2015, and now, thanks to that acquisition, it’s practically another Salesforce outpost.

Then came Traction on Demand, another B.C. success story that Salesforce acquired in 2020. Oh, and shortly after, Salesforce Ventures co-led a $79 million Series B round in Klue, a local competitive enablement platform. And I couldn’t forget Salesforce largest acquisition ever: Vancouver-founded Slack.

For Bobbi Jania, my storytelling was probably just a little bit of showing off, with a dash of local pride thrown in. But for the New Ventures BC community, it was more than that. It was a reminder that Vancouver is brimming with people capable of building world-class products and companies.

The real question now is: Can we stop selling them? Can we build the next Salesforce, instead of just becoming the next acquisition target? That’s the challenge. That’s the goal.

Anyway, let's talk about this IRL. Here's where you can find me over the next few weeks...

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