ORIGINEER / INSIGHTS
Ideas for people
who build.
Occasional notes on technology, operations, capital and building durable companies from British Columbia.
Inside the Investment Decision
A Fair Deal Must Survive the Next Round
Investment terms should preserve founder motivation, future financing and proportional risk after the first cheque is gone.
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What Would Make Us Change Our Mind?
A disciplined decision states the evidence, milestone or structural change that could reverse it.
What Must Be True for This Investment to Work?
An investment case becomes clearer when its essential assumptions are written as statements that can be tested.
BC’s Industrial Opportunity Is Hiding in Plain Sight
Manufacturing, ports, resources and small businesses create a large field for automation, cybersecurity and industrial software.
The Okanagan Is More Than a Lifestyle Economy
Agriculture, tourism, water, logistics, manufacturing and technology make the Okanagan a practical place to build and test companies.
A Pacific Gateway Is Not a Strategy
British Columbia’s geography creates access. Companies still have to build the products, relationships and distribution that turn access into advantage.
Growth Can Hide a Broken Operating Model
Revenue can rise while implementation delays, working-capital needs and customer dissatisfaction rise faster.
Customization Feels Like Revenue Until It Becomes the Product
Bespoke work can win early customers. Without clear boundaries, it can also turn a product company into a collection of unfinished projects.
The Customer Is Not One Person
In a complex sale, the user, buyer, security team, procurement group and executive sponsor are solving different problems.
Equity Is Expensive When the Problem Is Temporary
Permanent ownership is often a poor match for a short-lived gap in inventory, receivables, equipment or timing.
Before You Sell Equity, Build More Ways to Get Cash
Financial optionality means understanding every credible source of cash—and the cost, obligation and control attached to each one.
How Much Should a Company Raise?
The right financing is large enough to reach a meaningful proof point, with room for the ordinary friction between a plan and reality.
A Good Company Can Still Be a Bad Investment
The business was profitable, useful and capable of becoming more valuable. What it could not do was turn additional capital into venture-scale growth.
British Columbia Builds the Inputs. It Should Own More of the Outcome.
Natural resources should provide more than immediate income. They should help finance the companies, capabilities and productive assets that British Columbia can continue to own.
A Pilot Is Not the Same as Adoption
A pilot becomes meaningful when it resolves a commercial uncertainty and establishes what happens next.
Does Capital Change the Company’s Trajectory?
Capital is most useful when it removes a constraint, purchases evidence and changes what a company can do next.
