Vancouver's startup scene has a reputation for being talented but scattered — brilliant founders building incredible things a few blocks from each other without ever crossing paths. That's the gap BC Founders Day was built to close.

On August 20, the event returns for another edition, this time trading the Vancouver Convention Centre for an outdoor setting at South Flats, next to Emily Carr University — a shift organizer Chris Neumann hopes will give the day more of a festival energy than a conference one. The format stays true to its roots: a founders-only morning of panels and "office hours," where nearly 100 experienced founders and investors wander the venue wearing bright Hawaiian leis so up-and-coming builders can spot them and ask questions, followed by an afternoon that opens up to the wider ecosystem.

This year's theme — "What does exceptional look like?" — brings in leaders from breakout BC companies like Clio, Koho, Moment Energy, and Soma Energy, alongside outside investors weighing in on why they backed BC over Silicon Valley. The day wraps with a debate tackling the question every local founder eventually asks themselves: build here, or move south?

We caught up with Neumann ahead of the event to talk about how Founders Day started, why the leis work, and what he's hoping the event becomes.

Chris: Founders Day very much started on a whim. Vancouver has always had a unique challenge in terms of how fragmented our startup ecosystem is. Many founders here don't actually know each other. That dynamic became even more pronounced post-Covid, which brought with it a new challenge: up-and-coming founders didn't know who the experienced founders were, so they didn't know where to go for help.

Boris Wertz and I were chatting about this one day and started talking about whether or not we could do something about it. Being the instigator I am, the next day I emailed a bunch of experienced local founders and asked if they'd be willing to spend a morning with up-and-coming founders if I organized a meetup. Vancouver is far more of a pay-it-forward culture than many people realize. Every single one of the people I reached out to responded in one of two ways: "hell yes!" or "I'm out of town that week."

A few days later, I posted a link to a Luma registration on my LinkedIn page and we had almost 500 people register on the first day! Suffice to say that set off a logistics scramble. But thanks to a lot of help from a lot of people, we managed to pull off something amazing.

This year, we're really focused on trying to evolve Founders Day from a "really big meetup" into something that feels a bit more established (at least, from a logistical perspective). We want it to really feel like a celebration of the BC startup community while continuing to deliver on its core premise of connecting founders.

Chris: The last couple of years, we've held Founders Day at the Vancouver Convention Centre. It's a fantastic venue, but we wanted see if we could give Founders Day a more celebratory feel this year. Vancouver is so beautiful in the summer, could we do more to take advantage of that? If you've ever been to Startupfest in Montreal or RiseUp in Cairo, having a startup event outdoors gives a completely different energy — almost a festival feel — to the day.

Chris: Every successful event has to have a primary objective. It's raison d'être. For Founders Day, it's providing founders of product companies with opportunities to meet other founders and build genuine relationships with them. We've all been to startup events filled with recruiters and salespeople and consultants and other non-founders trying to sell startups stuff. That's just not an environment that's conducive to founders letting down their guard and building relationships.

So we started off with a simple premise: a significant portion of the day would only be open to verified founders of product companies. All attendees have to submit their LinkedIn profile and our team reviews every single person who purchases a "Founder" ticket to make sure that they are actually a current, active founder of a product company. Not a founder of an consulting shop or an agency. Not a founder of a PR company or an advisor. But a founder of an actual product company. For the first half of the day, the only people allowed into the event are founders, mentors and speakers (plus a small number of sponsors).

Of course, we don't want to be entirely exclusionary, as there are many others in the ecosystem who can benefit from both the content at Founders Day and the opportunity to meet and interact with the ecosystem, so after lunch we open things up with general admission tickets that include the afternoon keynotes, panels and the onsite networking afterparty. We've also added student tickets this year to try to get more future founders into the mix.

Chris: I think the leis are one of the coolest parts of Founders Day. At almost every conference, the people who are most in-demand hide from the public in speakers lounges and investor lounges and VIP rooms and what have you. We're trying to flip that dynamic on its head. We have nearly 100 experienced founders and investors (including all of the speakers) who have opted in to being visible. They walk around the venue all day wearing a bright Hawaiian lei so founders can easily identify them. Every single one of these incredible people wants to give back to the community and wants to help up-and-coming founders, so we're making them as visible as possible!

So many great interactions have happened over the years. I absolutely love watching the energy and enthusiasm in all of these conversations (not only from the founders but also the mentors). It's such a good day.

Chris: Every year we have a theme and we select speakers who can help us provide perspectives on that theme.

The first year, we started with the theme, "You can do this from BC." Our modest goal was simply to show up-and-coming founders examples of some of the incredible companies that had been built in BC over the years and talk about how their founders had overcome various challenges.

Last year, we dove into the opportunities and challenges that were emerging as a result of AI. Everything from how companies were being built to how investors, governments and founder communities were changing.

This year's theme is "What does exceptional look like?" We all know the locally famous companies and we've heard their stories countless times, but what does a company that reaches escape velocity and becomes globally impactful look like? We're showcasing the founders of some of BC's fastest growing companies, like Clio, Koho, Moment Energy and Soma Energy. But we're also bringing up investors from Silicon Valley and elsewhere to talk about what they saw in these founders that made them invest in BC over opportunities anywhere else in the world.

We're going to end the day by directly tackling the question of building in BC vs. moving to Silicon Valley with a no-holds-barred debate.

Chris: Yes!

This event is all about founders meeting other founders. As I said earlier, one of the biggest challenges that our startup ecosystem has is it's so fragmented. Founders oftentimes have no idea how many other people are working on the same problems they are, or in the same spaces they are locally. There's some much opportunity for learning and leadership and lessons just from making those connections. That's really what Founders Day is all about.

Chris: Talk to as many people as you possibly can. Come prepared with 2 or 3 pressing questions you have, walk up to people wearing Hawaiian leis and ask them. Treat it like school office hours. Everyone is there to help.

Chris: I would love to see Founders Day really establish itself as a signature event in Vancouver's startup calendar. An event that founders look forward to each year as an opportunity to learn, connect and reconnect.