Since 2017, North Bank Innovations has been on a mission to foster and energize the startup community in Vancouver, one coffee break or happy hour at a time.
Founder Dave Barcos believes in the power of human connection to “make people more successful and just to make the scene thrive.” His nonprofit, which sponsors monthly happy hours and coffee meetups, has recently launched another monthly event that features speakers from Vancouver’s tech and startup sectors.
Barcos himself is a serial entrepreneur who is currently the director of business development for Formos, a Vancouver-based web developer. Barcos began working in the field in California, which led him first to Portland and then to Vancouver. In Portland he organized meetups, including in conjunction with 1 Million Cups, an organization that supports entrepreneurship nationally.
In the three years he’s been with Formos, Barcos said the focus has shifted from larger, established clients including ZoomInfo and JH Kelly, to a roster of smaller businesses. Formos has grown about 200 percent over the last three years, with the smaller, newer clients meshing with his goals for North Bank.
In shifting his attention to Vancouver, Barcos “started talking to people up here in economic development in Vancouver and Clark County, and they were talking about the scene that was going on up here that nobody was shedding light on.”
As a humorous acknowledgement that people don’t necessarily think of Vancouver as cutting edge, he named his tech-focused meetup series “Vantechy,” playing on one of the city’s unflattering nicknames, Vantucky.
“We decided we were just going to lean into it,” said Barcos.
He explained, “Clark County is really different from Portland in a lot of different ways. It’s quieter, it’s more subdued, but also, you find amazing companies up here that are doing national, and international business, you never would have known it, they’re just really hidden.”
The community is still in a rebuilding phase. Happy hours that drew 40 people pre-Covid are drawing closer to 20 now, but seem to be on the upswing, Barcos said.
Nathan Stahlman, a founder of video game studio Noctua Interactive, said North Bank’s gatherings have drawn more attendees over the year he’s attended. Stahlman will speak at a North Bank sponsored series dubbed Startup Conversations in the Couve on April 10.
Stahlman founded Noctua in October of 2023 with his wife, Rachel Stahlman. It is their fourth startup together, and they have a joined with a third founder, Ric Neil, with whom they connected through the North Bank Innovations community.
At North Bank events, Stahlman said, “The energy’s great ...I like being able to pass along some hints and tips from other ventures that I’ve done. There’s a lot of interest, a lot of diversity in companies that show up, which is intriguing.”
Stahlman grew up in Vancouver and sees its advantages, including the proximity to nature and the airport, and the absence of income tax.
“I wanted to build our next company here and be a part of the community,” he said, “instead of in it and not a part of it.”
But, he said, most of his funding continues to come from the East Coast, adding, “The only thing I struggle with is the area still doesn’t really have a good financial grasp of tech.”
Barcos makes it very clear that he’s looking for people who are open to pure networking, not sales pitches.
“This is not a place to search for leads,” he said. “Because of that we have some really genuine conversations about people that are struggling, people that are looking for co-founders. The organization is ready to roll up its sleeves to help the founders that are coming in and that we’re finding and that we’re working with.”
Sometimes that might mean offering a reality check.
“We just talk about the reality of startups,” he said. “People chasing this Shark Tank effect, ‘I have an idea and someone needs to pay me a million dollars so I can build it,’ it doesn’t benefit us to perpetuate that, and it doesn’t help them.”
North Bank is also involved at the city level, and plans to be part of the conversation as the city grows, creating physical spaces that match up with a startup ecosystem.
“As the region changes, I think we’ll really want to see physical space that starts to become a showcase for the region," Barcos said.
