Building a Tech Ecosystem

John J. Schaub

Oct 19 , 2024

For those that do not know the ProductBC conference which was held yesterday is an event put together each year by ProductBC a volunteer driven organization with thousands of members dedicated to developing the craft of Product Management in British Columbia. ProductBC offers a few services in addition to the annual conference including a formal mentoring program, a leadership roundtable and a scholarship program. I am very biased in that I founded the organization over a decade ago but I think it is fair to say that ProductBC is one of if not the most successful industry org in BC and a pillar of the local tech ecosystem. Given there has been a lot of well justified handwringing recently about the quality and scale of the BC tech ecosystem I thought I would pull together a few thoughts about what has made ProductBC successful and how other groups can do something similar.

The first ProductBC Meetup held at HootSuite in 2013. Photo by Andrew Clements

Get a venue and a sponsor - When I founded the Vancouver Product Manager Meetup which became ProductBC I was working at Hootsuite which was very open to hosting community events. Numerous Hootsuite staff had similar meetup style events that took over the lunchroom or a conference room after hours and Hootsuite was kind enough to supply both the venue and a staffer or two to help out free of charge. This is not a huge cost of course but it is so critical to getting a group like this going to have a place to meet so these sort of platform companies are invaluable. Finding other sponsors was similarly easy because frankly hiring is expensive and a company would much rather spend $300 on pizza and beer to pitch a job opening to 50 potential applicants then pay $30,000 to a recruiter. The big point here is it is often shocking what you can get just by asking if you have a real value proposition. This leads directly into the next point.

Offer a real value proposition for both community and sponsors - The area where a lot of ecosystem building efforts fall flat is they start with a notion like 'there should be X' so we should get the government to fund X. The founding team then runs off and submits a grant application and waits for the government to send the money. This is a very Canadian approach and it can occasionally work but it is far from the best way to build a tech ecosystem and often results in short-lived organizations throwing some exciting events but accomplishing essentially nothing before fading away. In very simple and maybe too blunt terms if you find that you need government funding to make a project work you are either going way too big too early or you are not delivering actual value that stakeholders are willing to support.

Keep the costs low - This should not need to be said but sadly it does. Far too many organizations end up growing too fast with no cash reserve and end up in trouble. In the early days pulling a hundred out of your pocket to cover the cost of pizza is easy enough but once you start getting real costs that will not be possible. Organizations need to always keep some cash in the bank account to allow the organization to survive what is always going to be a somewhat intermittent revenue stream.

Diversify funding sources - One of the smarter things I did in the early days was bounce around between different venues and sponsors to avoid becoming overly reliant on any particular company. This also had the benefit of bringing in different crowds and helping the group grow organically. The risk with tying yourself too closely to a single funder is twofold. First because from the sponsor companies perspective these ecosystem orgs exist for recruiting, brand building and maybe government relations purposes if they find they cannot access your org they will start their own and now you have competition. Second companies come and go and tying yourself to a single sponsor is a recipe for disaster when the companies fortunes change. This second point applies equally to government funding which is likely to dry up as soon as the party in power changes. Beyond sponsors and government one of the very smart things the ProductBC board has done is move to a paid membership model which provides a steady source of revenue.

An early ProductBC Meetup hosted by Plenty of Fish. Photo credit Derek Pettigrew

Get community volunteers - Within a few months of starting the meetup it was obvious that I needed additional people to help out. A smarter person would have lined up a few volunteers before starting but in my case finding a half dozen people to help out was easy enough. Honestly calling for a half dozen volunteers is a great litmus test of wither or not your idea is worth pursuing, if you cannot find six people willing to give a few hours of free labor you do not have the community support needed to build what you are envisioning.

Grow beyond the founders - I have a very hands off management style and as such I was all too eager to hand off responsibility to others and step back myself but this is an area where a lot of people stumble. By keeping too much control in the hands of one person or small group of people it very quickly becomes an organization controlled by that group which discourages new people from stepping up. Eventually the founders burn out or lose interest and the organization fails. It might sound counter intuitive but if you want to build an organization that lasts you need to put in place the systems to allow you to step away from it and then do so.

Formalize leadership transitions - When I stepped back from the meetup I handed off control to an informal board of directors that I had chosen. To their credit the first board very quickly moved to a formalized process where the board of directors is elected by the members. By doing this they set the stage for the organization to continue to grow and adapt to the community. This sort of formal leadership transition is absolutely critical if the org is going to survive. In the intervening years the leadership has changed over multiple times and the organization is still going strong.

Lock down the mission - While the leadership will change the mission rarely if ever should. Fairly early in the life of an organization a formal mission statement needs to be decided on. When deciding on the mission you need to be quite focused. Simply put a very broad 'fix all the worlds problems' mission is a great way to accomplish nothing.

Formalize the finances - Up until I handed off control to the first board and for a short while after the finances were very informal. As a small org with no significant revenue or expenses and really only one person making decisions this was fine but as soon as you start dealing in bigger amounts with multiple people in the leadership team you need a bank account and some process around finances. The first board did the work to get the organization registered as a non profit society which allowed them to open a bank account and move to proper financial controls.

Make people commit - Early on in the history of the org I experimented with paid events and I was shocked at how well they worked. One of the early boards took this a step further and moved to a formal paid membership model. Paid memberships are not just important because they provide much needed revenue but by charging even a small amount you are forcing people to value the organization and more importantly you are sending a message to potential partners and sponsors that the organization is serious. The only caveat here is you need to deliver value first before asking people to pay to join. I've seen a few organizations fall flat when they tried to implement paid membership too soon.

Build Global Connections - One of the major issues faced by Vancouver and Canada in general is a dogged insistence on staying local. Your goal should always be to go global and because of Vancouver's international population that is vastly easier to do here than many other places. In building the meetup I had the opportunity to attend events in both London UK and New York which was an incredible opportunity and helped me significantly later in my career.

Product Meetup organizers meetup in London UK 2015 - Product Managers from 13 countries in attendance

Do not be afraid to pivot - During my time at the helm and during the tenure of the early boards I was more familiar with there were multiple mis-steps. These things happen, the key is to be very comfortable with failure and pivot when something does not work out.

I hope this provides a bit of value and if you are considering starting an org similar to ProductBC feel free to reach out to chat. I will end by saying the process of building ProductBC was hugely valuable for me, I got to meet literally hundreds of people, travel to Product events in multiple countries and build connections I still rely on more than a decade later. If you are thinking of trying something similar it is likely a good idea.