Web Summit Vancouver was a landmark moment for the city’s tech ecosystem. It brought global attention, 15,000 attendees, 400+ media outlets, countless stories and mentions, and a slew of packed side events.

It wasn’t the first time, but it was probably the biggest time that the world saw what we’ve known all along: Vancouver is home to world-class founders, talent, and ideas. Web Summit validated not just that the city can play on the world stage, but that it already is.

The vision in helping to bring Web Summit to Vancouver was never just about filling a convention centre, but instead about creating collisions, unlocking capital pathways, and shining a global spotlight on Canadian innovation. With the Vancity Innovation House, we modeled what a collaborative, future-facing ecosystem looks like: one where founders, investors, creatives, media, and policy leaders share a room and a mission.

What we built together last week was a microcosm of what Vancouver’s innovation economy could be with the right support. Let’s start with what worked.

For our part at the Vancity Innovation House, there were lines out the door and over 2,000 people came through to witness things like the $20,000 pitch competition, or to connect, invest, and create. Startups like Rootd, Bía Neuroscience, Chroma Link Collective, and others showed what’s possible when innovation meets purpose. I think many other community events could boast about a similar energy.

Our event didn’t succeed because it was branded, it succeeded because it was built by people with heart who live in the ecosystem every day and want to see our startups thrive, make Canada wealthier, and solve the world’s biggest and most difficult problems.

As Erin Gee reported in VTJ, “the vibe shift is real.” Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave “called Vancouver a ‘world-class city’ with the tech chops to host [the event] for the next three years,” and people are really feeling excited to keep building.

This energy will no doubt linger for a while, we should seize the opportunity of the spotlight to continue to showcase our innovative companies and Vancouver’s unique attributes that make it so great for tech.

A US-based investor remarked on the outsized number of female founders and women-led startups at Web Summit, so many of them local–something that I think bodes very well for the future of our ecosystem.

Of course, one event cannot be a breakthrough moment in every dimension. The incredible energy from startups, founders, and teams in Vancouver, now boosted by hosting the world in our city, is a great foundation to build on. We still need to work on attracting and developing more homegrown risk capital, for instance.

There will be more Web Summits to come, but for this momentum to last, we need more than one-offs and ribbon cuttings. Events like these are a spark, not a system-in-a-box to be bought and deployed.

At Frontier Collective our work continues. We’re heading to New York City this month for Beyond the Frontier, bringing Canadian innovation into a global summit with leaders from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and more.

As for BC investing in itself? I’ll be speaking at SXSW London on innovation ecosystem building if you are in town and want to hear more, but here are my quick recommendations for how we can build on what happened last week.

First, physical spaces for innovation still matter, and they need investment. Successful hubs like Silicon Valley in tech or NYC in finance (and tech) work in large part thanks to people’s physical proximity and the connection and innovation that spurs. We must foster this dynamic here, IRL.

Second, invest in founder-first platforms that already have community trust, in lieu of complex arm’s-length organizations that favour established players and interests. In so many cases, rules and processes favour those with the resources to navigate them, not those who could better use the help.

Third, federal and provincial governments can gird firms’ certainty with multi-year capital and policy commitments. We’ve seen the wreckage tariffs are causing; as a business you simply can’t plan or invest amidst constant goalpost-moving.

For a few days, we brought the world to Vancouver. Now it’s time to build a city that keeps the world coming back.

Dan Burgar is CEO and co-founder of the Frontier Collective.