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/813780
MAY 2017 BCBUSINESS 69 TANYA GOEHRING WEEKEND WARRIOR I grew up in a small town, Kiti- mat, and my fiancée grew up in a smaller town, Harrison Hot Springs. We lived in downtown Vancouver for close to seven years. In 2013, we had sold the company, Marilynjean, and moved out to Coquitlam. We bought a house right on top of a mountain, and every single day I'd be walking out and I would see a bear or a doe or birds I've never seen before. I thought I'd try to capture that by taking photos. Then I said, "Why don't I try and paint some of this?" I started off watching Bob Ross YouTube videos. Being an entrepreneur, you're kind of OCD, so I wanted to get started right away. I had Amazon Prime ship me the Bob Ross painting kit, which was my first set of brushes and oil paints, went to the local art store and got a few canvases and started going at it. I really embraced the remote work lifestyle—being able to build companies globally but still be in a place where you're inspired locally. The creative process about painting is similar to that of building a company. It takes a lot of time to think through how you're going to build a picture. We were in Nova Scotia a few summers ago, and I took a picture of the coast. This was a really intricate photo, and the Bob Ross YouTube videos weren't going to cut it in terms of allowing me to think through how I was going to develop that painting. Similar to developing businesses, starting off with business plans and marketing plans and financial plans and trying to understand data, I had to figure out how I was going to build such an intricate paint- ing. So I watched even more sophisticated YouTube videos that were actually painting in real time. The sooner that a person becomes creative or tries to be creative, the more they realize that there are no boundaries to doing whatever it is they want in the world. I think that the form of expression through paint is what I find the most compelling about it. Just like an entrepreneurship, there are no limits, so that's where I see the connection between the two. —as told to Felicity Stone ENTERTAINMENT / The new 98-seat Hendricks Resto- Lounge occupies the Westin Grand hotel's upper lobby overlooking Library Square in downtown Vancouver. What's a resto-lounge? It's a 1,300-square- foot space with a cocktail bar and a full-service restaurant, plus live music or a DJ twice a week. RETAIL / Vancouver's Nordstrom Pacific Centre now has an incubator project to show- case and support new designers. Called the Lab, it's one of only two in Canada and five worldwide. DINING / Botanist, Fairmont Pacific Rim's new restaurant in Vancouver, also includes a lab–for developing cocktails–along with a bar, dining room, champagne lounge and garden, all inspired by botanical principles. The second- floor space, expected to open last month, replaces Oru. TRAVEL / Guests at the Opus Hotel in Vancouver's Yaletown can now get a taste of B.C. without leaving their room. Minibars offer a selection of local beers, spirits, spiked coffee and other goodies. GEAR / Founded and run by a group of avid cyclists, 7mesh Inc. in Squamish has produced a new Oro Gore-Tex jacket that is not just light to wear–93 grams for size medium–but thin enough to stuff in a pocket until needed. EDUCATION / B.C. has a new place of learning. Yorkville University, previously online only, has opened its first physical campus, located on West Georgia Street in Vancouver. Fredericton- based Yorkville, which offers a bachelor of business administra- tion for working adults, has nearly 2,000 alumni across Canada. –F.S. The latest in the world of lifestyle— from retail to travel (and more!) NATURAL TALENT Carvalho draws creative inspiration from the trees near his Coquitlam home Jason Carvalho launched and sold two online enterprises before starting his latest ventures. Carvalho Capital is a socially conscious early-stage angel capital firm that invests in purpose- driven startups, while his R&D company, Carvalho Interactive Inc., develops technologies to identify trends and create companies whose products improve society—like online mentorship through AI chatbots. NEW + IMPROVED WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT Big-Picture Thinker Startup entrepreneur Jason Carvalho compares the creative process in painting to building a company