With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1490198
( the informer ) G O F I G U R E Above and Beyond As students at Burnaby's SFU campus strap-hang on sleet- slowed buses and dream of gondolas to come, we check out a few plans to get BCers up and over it, no skis required by Melissa Edwards Estimated number of urban transit ropeways currently operating globally: 80 The now-greenlit Burnaby Mountain gondola is expected to be transporting up to 3,100 people per hour in each direction by 2035 faster than current transit commutes up the hill lower operating costs than bus service Total estimated capital cost: $210 million Transit gondolas can operate in winds up to 100 km/hour Other proposed non-ski gondola projects in B.C. include: OKANAGAN GONDOLA HIGH POINT: 317 metres over Kalamalka Lake STATIONS: 3 FOOTPRINT: 285 acres ESTIMATED ANNUAL VISITATION: 100,000–200,000 ESTIMATED COST: $50 million CASCADE SKYLINE HIGH POINT: 1,200 metres from a base point near Bridal Falls RIDE LENGTH: 15 minutes CABIN CAPACITY: 8 ESTIMATED COST: $80 million TOP: KAI JACOBSON; GO FIGURE: ISTOCK 16 BCBUSINESS.CA JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 50% 30% READ THIS Ever cross one of B.C.'s bridges and wonder how, when and why it came into existence? And, um, how incredibly scary it would be to be to build it? Maybe that's just us on the last one, but in any case, renowned White Rock- based author Derek Hayes will keep you thinking with his latest coffee table effort, Incredible Crossings: The History and Art of the Bridges, Tunnels and Inland Ferries That Connect British Columbia. The book goes into the background behind our province's throughfares with stunning detail and is supported by a litany of impressive photographs, both old and new. Harbour Publishing 322 pages, hardcover, $46.95 £ executive who has served in leadership roles with companies like Lululemon and Kit and Ace and who co- founded performance- engineered clothing brand Aedelhard. "Judgment is our currency," Kopke explains. "One of the top three things these founders—many who have their PhDs—can do to accelerate their ventures in the next eight weeks is re- ceive meaningful judgment. Only about 50 percent of the ventures graduate from the CDL, and many get funded be- cause the mentors often write cheques." On the conference floor, the ventures and experts engage in what's essentially an infor- mation-packed speed dating exercise before the founders take centre stage. But the main event isn't what you might expect. Instead of the found- ers getting a chance to further argue their company's mission or scalability, they simply get to air a short pitch video before hearing what the experts in the audience have to say. And they'll want to listen. In the room are some of B.C. and North America's most well- known movers and shakers, from Snack CEO Kim Kaplan and BuildDirect co-founder Jeff Booth to venture capitalists like Chris Neumann and Ali Pejman. As you might expect, there isn't much time wasting. Sitting right in front of the en- trepreneurs who have worked for months to get here and, likely, for years on the ventures themselves, these experts are brutally honest. "It sounds unbelievable; it seems to violate the laws of physics," says Booth to the founder of a cleantech startup. He knows a thing or two about the subject matter in question, given that he currently sits on the boards of well-known ag- tech companies Terramera and CubicFarm Systems. Another expert tells the founder of a battery startup: "I'm still skeptical you can even do this." Then, the founders are asked to leave the room and "deliberations" officially begin. Things get even more honest as Kopke, who is moderating the session, calls out the name of each company and asks whether any- one would like to take it on as a mentor. "That was a disaster up there," says an ex- pert about one venture. "I don't know if the CEO is receptive to feed- back," says another. Some companies get hands raised quickly, while others take a little bit lon- ger. The majority of ventures see at least two mentors join on, but CDL isn't for everyone. A few ventures that the men- tors deem to be successful may still not be the right fit for anyone to take on. "It's a niche, family business, not a scalable venture," says Marty Reed, a former Silicon Valley exec who launched Vancouver-based Evok Innovations, about an innovator in the plastic bottle space. "It's a great local busi- ness. But we're trying to create something massive." The following day, the ven- ture founders will get an email explaining whether they've been approved to keep partici- pating in the program for the next eight weeks (after which comes another examination on whether they've met the goals that were set), or if they've been dropped. In either case, judgment has been delivered. £ JUDGMENT CALL UBC Sauder's Darrell Kopke thinks Creative Destruction Lab helps founders and mentors