25
01/08
2:32 pm
New York has the best companies, Montreal far behind
I sometimes keep an eye out for interesting work opportunities in my area (Montreal, Quebec). Most of the time, there is nothing exciting.
On the other hand, without any effort, I am constantly seeing job ads for amazing companies in New York.
Here are a few examples: Web Developer @ Squidoo and System Administrator @ Fog Creek.
California, Seattle, and Chicago also have some of the most amazing companies. Even Vancouver has some really cool companies like Habañeros and Lululemon. But in my opinion New York seems to be the ultimate spot.
Montreal on the other hand… how sad… sure there are some cool new companies like StandoutJobs, and older ones like Ubisoft, but for the most part, it’s the same old uninteresting corps.
This raises the question: Why? Why aren’t Montreal companies as cool as New York companies? Do they lack funding? Do they lack talent? Is the government getting in the way? Do they actually exist but have no visibility?
I enjoy working as a freelancer, but I plan on building my own corp in the future. Are Montrealers doomed from the start? Do we need to move to New York, not just to be cool, but also successful? These guys might not think so. I’ll need some convincing.
Lots of questions, and I expect lots of answers. Please write your comments and opinions below.
John Stokes
February 11, 2008
10:58 am
Hey Alex,
“These guys” think that there is a hell of a lot of cool stuff going on in Montreal but the truth is your very unlikely to find it in a newspaper.
In the past 6 months we have probably met with at least 50 companies and I’d say about 20% fit into the cool category. You can find some interesting stuff at Montreal Barcamp and Democamp but your more likely to just meet people there who will know about other interesting stuff going on.
One other thing to check out – there are a cool bunch of (predominantly) front end focussed guys operating out of Station-C (www.station-c.com), a co-working space for freelancers – a great place for hearing about the latest projects and start-ups.
Alex
February 11, 2008
12:29 pm
Hi John,
Thanks for commenting. You’re probably right about cool things happening behind the scenes, and I think that’s the problem. We don’t hear enough about the cool things/companies in Montreal.
I’ve been following Station-C’s development for quite some time through Patrick’s blog and it seems like a great project.
It’s fun to see startups abandoning old models and trying new ways to improve people’s lives. In my opinion if it stays that way, and if we keep spreading the word on the efforts produced by these startups, older businesses in Montreal will be in a lot of trouble.