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/526329
16 BCBusiness JULY 2015 Portrait: adam bLasberg In this month's issue, we offer a tale of two economies. One is the economy represented in this year's Top 100 package (the full list, with analysis, starts on page 79). By and large, these are the corporate stalwarts that you know and love: companies like Teck, Telus or BC Hydro, which have been around, in some form or another, for a hundred years. They employ thousands of people and pump billions of dollars into the provincial econ- omy. Combined, total revenues for B.C.'s Top 100 companies grew 6.5 per cent last year. And while some (Telus: up 5.2 per cent from 2013) did bet- ter than others (Teck: down 8.3 per cent), on the whole these giants are helping B.C. lead the nation in economic growth in 2015. Then there is that "other" economy—the one represented by disruptive commercial forces. In many cases, these companies are too small to find their way onto the list; in other cases, they're companies that aren't even based in B.C. Either way, they're upending their industry by throwing convention on its head— and creating new markets and new opportunities along the way. And arguably there's no bigger disrupters in B.C. today than Roger Hardy. Hardy is the man behind Clearly Contacts. The now-45-year-old entrepre- neur decided to take on the hidebound world of corrective eyewear back in 1999. After working for a medical prod- ucts franchise and seeing the inefficient and expensive means by which contact lenses were sold, Hardy decided to go straight to the consumer and sell online. Optometrists told him it couldn't be done—people wouldn't buy online—but last year, Hardy sold Clearly to French lens manufacturing giant Essilor for $435 million. In just 15 years, he revolu- tionized the way we buy lenses. Writer Marcie Good had the chance to hang out with Hardy both here and in Los Angeles. Her profile ("Roger.me," p.66) is an intimate and insightful look into an entrepre- neur who has made disruption a life's calling; having sold Clearly Contacts last year, Hardy has turned his attention to Shoeme.ca and a series of other online retailers he's invested in that, combined, promise to upend the even more (literally) hidebound shoe business. I asked Marcie for a takeaway observation from her time with Hardy. "The thing that struck me was how much money a young busi- ness needs to grow and succeed," she said. "It's like a beast that constantly needs to be fed. I think the story is actually about the experience and knowledge and wealth generated by that one company—and how all of that has grown other ventures." The disrupters of today, in short, are building the economy of tomorrow. C O N T R I B U T O R S Matt O'Grady, Editor-in-Chief mogrady@canadawide.com / @bCbusiness In "Watching the Detectives" (p.58), Vancouver-based science writer Anne Casselman digs into the troubling reality behind B.C.'s salmon industry and uncovers a highly self-regulated resource sector that needs fixing. "After hearing some of the stories that I did, I have less faith in the environmental assessment process than I did before I started researching this piece, " she says. Visual journalist and Toronto native Tonia Cowan is known for her illustrations at major news organizations that include Newsweek, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. To illustrate "Watching the Detectives" (p.58), Cowan drew from B.C.'s natural beauty and says that "the Skeena River itself became like a real character in the story." The Power of Disruption editor's desk In AUGUST From Uber to Airbnb, a look at how the disruptive sharing economy is affecting B.C.