3
The investor who told me to skip Ottawa in 2019 was dead wrong
Back in 2019, before launching my SaaS for small construction crews, an angel investor from Toronto told me to focus everything on Toronto and Vancouver and not bother with Ottawa. He said the capital market there was too sleepy and the buyers would be too slow. I took his advice and spent 18 months grinding in the GTA with lukewarm results. Then a buddy in Ottawa begged me to do a demo for his brother's plumbing company, and that one call led to three more referrals within two weeks. Turns out Ottawa has a tight network of trade businesses that actually talk to each other, and they're hungry for simple tools. I've now got 14 paying clients there, which is almost half my revenue. Has anyone else ignored confident advice from a big-city investor and wished they'd trusted their gut earlier?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
ellis.diana10d ago
14 clients in Ottawa is great and I get why you're happy about it, but Toronto is a way bigger pool if you can crack it. I've seen startups burn a whole year chasing referrals in smaller markets and then hit a wall once the network is tapped out. Your Toronto numbers might have been lukewarm but at least that market scales, Ottawa just can't match that ceiling. Maybe that investor was wrong for your specific case, but the logic behind his advice wasn't totally crazy.
5