Why Blackberry is bad for the Canadian Startup Ecosystem
The story has been told ad nausem. Blackberry was Canada’s greatest consumer technology success story. We get it. They were awesome. Waterloo, Ontario was globally known as a technology leading city. Tens of thousands of jobs were created. And then in an instance, everything changed. The world moved on. Yet, many Canadians did not.
To this day, Canadians undoubtedly represent the greatest number of Blackberry users by percentage. I wish I had a lovely Benedict Evans style graph to empirically illustrate this notion, but this data visualization of mobile device penetration based on twitter usage provides a glimpse of this epidemic in Southern Ontario. Anecdotally, I can state that after a week in New York, I did not see one Blackberry — until I saw a sea of them at the Air Canada lounge in LaGuardia.
So why does this pain me so? Why do I believe that Blackberry has had a negative impact on so many Canadian startups? I believe that Blackberry has left a hangover which has paralyzed the Canadian technology consumer, hindering their adoption of disruptive consumer technology products. Thus, making it tougher for homegrown startups to foster a user base of early adopters efficiently.
The costs of starting a software company are at their lowest ever. It has never been easier or quicker to develop an app, and naturally, the myriad of consumer technology products have put user acquisition and distribution tactics at a premium. Sure, one can build locally and distribute globally, but person to person interactions are often the most effective method of developing early users. The first people that say yes, do so based on relationships not growth hacks. Paul Graham,has eloquently suggested that startups must Do Things that Don’t Scale in order to succeed. Conversely, rent and travel costs have not changed. It costs a lot of money for a company to employ on the ground user acquisition tactics outside of its home city. This paradigm puts Canadian startups in a precarious position. How does a startup find early adopters in a country represented by people in the late majority ,or even or laggards? Can we really blame Blackberry for this?
I’m not suggesting that Blackberry is solely responsible in defining the culture of Canadian technology consumers. One could easily argue that Canadians are not early adopters in many industries not specific to technology, characterized by a “me-too” society always peering down at our forward thinking neighbours to the south. But,it would be naive to suggest that Blackberry has not exacerbated this notion when it comes to consumer technology. Canadians have been slow to adopt smartphones (iPhone/Android), and in turn, have been slower to welcome new applications. When we think “mobile first”, a lot of us think: “I just got an iPhone, and Instagram is fun.” Many Canadians are blind to the super computers that exist in their pocket, and when talented Canadian engineers build tools to power these marvellous devices they are left without an audience in their backyard, adding to the many obstacles one must face in starting a company.
Blackberry is not dead (yet). The company is still pooling millions of dollars into marketing in Canada, evidenced by countless advertisements and sponsorships. The company has handed out free phones to leading agencies and VCs, hoping for first hand endorsements from local technology leaders. But Blackberry is undoubtedly a company on its last leg. Its future is dim. Yet its messaging to Canadians has never been louder. This messaging, and continued Blackberry adoption, pollutes Canadian startups’ ability to distribute their products efficiently to those nearest to them. Moreover, it stunts Canadians growth to the mobile revolution taking place around the world. I hope collectively we, Canadian startups and Canadian consumers, can overcome this noise and become more forward thinking. The reality is that Blackberry has made it much harder for us to do so.
