Last updated: August 19, 2016
D:\anon\Documents\entrep\centre\caseinterviews\LighthouseLabsCaseStudy_Formatted_Final.docx
Lighthouse Labs W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia Case number: SC-1601 Date: July 2016
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 2
The case study gives a glimpse of the history and evolution of Lighthouse Labs, a coding
bootcamp that started in Vancouver and is now expanding across Canada. Through the
eyes and words of one of its founders, Khurram Virani, students will be able to learn how
the company started thriving by introducing itself into the vibrant milieu of tech
incubators, accelerators, VC firms and coworking spaces of the Vancouver, Canada
innovation ecosystem.1
“Our goal is to become Canada-wide, not only the largest but the most reputable bootcamp,”
– Khurram Virani, co-founder and Head of Education of Lighthouse Labs.
It’s 9 a.m. and the corner of Hastings and Cambie is a turmoil of honks, shouts, people on their
cellphones, hard rock leaking out of headphones, and “got-some-change?”-requests. The air is
a mix of coffee, smog, and pot. In other words, it is just a regular morning in Vancouver’s
Downtown Eastside.
But inside 128 West Hastings everything is different. There’s silence; there’s tidiness; there are
young people staring at their laptops.
As he enters the second floor and passes by the entrance to Launch Academy, Khurram Virani
remembers how his startup began on one of the many desks in this incubator “for entrepreneurs
by entrepreneurs.” He also remembers how, at some point, it was growing so fast that he, his
colleagues and his “clients” were occupying most of the tables and, eventually, had to move out.
But they didn’t go too far. They just rented the office space next door.
As he continues walking and enters Lighthouse Labs, a proud smile appears on his face. Then
again, everyone who visits this school for the first time chuckles when they see the reception
desk filled with toys such as a Chewbacca mask, a lighthouse (of course), and a rubber duck.
The Galaga stickers that decorate the wall behind the desk also elicit a giggle or two.
There’s a couch and a TV set, a standing white table, and a series of white doors with signs that
read ‘ideation’ or ‘MVP room.’ But don’t let the Google-like environment fool you. Behind those
doors, the rustic brick walls of this 117-year old building are exposed.
1 Valentina Ruiz Leotaud prepared this case as a basis for class discussion. The W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship
and Venture Capital Research at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia provided funding for the development of the case. No funding was provided by the organization. The case is not intended to illustrate effective or ineffective leadership, nor serve as an endorsement or source of data.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 3
A round table, two chairs, a couple of coffee mugs. Khurram sits against the reddish wall,
thinking about what he loves the most: tech ed and the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Lighthouse Labs has come a long way quickly and the future, while filled with many strategic
choices, seems bright.
Khurram Virani, Lighthouse Labs’ co-founder and Head of Education. Photo by Valentina Ruiz Leotaud (2016).
LIGHTHOUSE LABS IN A NUTSHELL
“This is a space for developers by developers.”
– Khurram Virani, co-founder and Head of Education of Lighthouse Labs.
In short, LL is a coding bootcamp where people from different backgrounds spend between a
month and a half and two months learning about web or iOS development. However, not
everything is zeros and ones. Khurram’s goal is to teach people to become “real” developers by
introducing them to coding --of course--, but also to problem solving and critical thinking.
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Although Lighthouse Labs offers six-week intro courses on both iOS and web development, its
core programs are two eight-week bootcamps that focus in depth on those same two areas of
study.2
The intensive, hands-on curricula includes training in Ruby on Rails, Javascript, HTML/CSS,
popular APIs, software architecture, responsive design, test driven development, AngularJS,
and Node.js.
But not everybody gets in. Particularly those who want to join just because becoming a
developer is ‘the next hot thing’ get rejected. Depending on the person, the answer might not be
a definitive no, though. If they see some potential, LL’s mentors invite that individual to join part
time classes for inspiration and understanding of what it means to be a developer, without the
intensity or commitment of a bootcamp.
“We look for grit, which is that perseverance, that wanting-that-goal mindset, not just ‘teach me,
I’m here to learn,’ it’s ‘I want to learn, you are just going to help me learn and give me some
structure, but I’m also going to put a lot of my own energy’,” Khurram always says.
Talented self-learners who have at least looked at online resources are more likely to get
accepted into full-time programs. Before going in, they have to take an SAT-like logic test, do
some homework on JavaScript, attend a multi-step technical interview, and then they get a
decision on their applications.
When they finally enroll in the bootcamps, students have to prepare four weeks in advance by
doing a remote prep course. Once they get to attend real-life sessions, they spend 12-hour --or
longer-- days receiving mentorship and working by themselves at understanding code logic, as
well as building applications and/or software from scratch.
A PRACTICAL APPROACH
Lighthouse Labs’ fundamental belief is that it shouldn’t take years and years to become a
developer because they understand software development as a craft, as opposed to a just
science. Therefore, they work with an apprenticeship-kind-of-approach where students’ paths to
be considered professionals start with becoming apprentices and getting mentored.
LL’s founders are also convinced that developers get 80 percent of their training on the job.
Thus, the idea is to give their students tools to think critically and understand problem solving,
so they can effectively contribute when they are assigned their first professional project. At the
2 Lighthouse Labs, Programs Retrieved from https://www.lighthouselabs.ca/. Accessed on June 4, 2016.
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same time, they want them to be conscious that, regardless of what it is, the first position they
land is an extension of their training.
With a 7:1 student-mentor ratio, pupils receive guidance from any of the 104 mentors available
for them at any given time. These tutors are full-time developers that teach part-time.
The idea is that, on top of embracing the complexities of the world of coding, students start
building a network of colleagues. Khurram calls it “community-driven education.”
Lighthouse Labs relies on both its alumni and developers from all spectrums of the tech world to
teach. People from Food.ee, Bench, Gastown Labs and other companies3 are always willing to
share their knowledge either in one-on-one meetings or in any of the guest talks organized by
the school every two weeks.
Many times, these industry leaders also become LL’s hiring partners. When they visit the
school, they address subject matters that are not included in the curriculum. The topics they
discuss include leadership, product development, design, UI, UX, what it means to be a CTO or
a senior developer, what they look for in a junior developer, and so on. The idea is to give
students a space where they can get inspired and be educated on things beyond just code.
This “progressive approach to education,” as Khurram himself describes it, has yielded
impressive results from the get go. One-hundred percent of the students in Lighthouse Labs’
first cohort found employment within 90 days of graduation. Even though the maximum class
size is 24 people, they’ve already graduated 362 developers since 2013. Of this grand total, 344
found work just four months after getting their diplomas.
Moreover, 98 percent of Lighthouse Labs grads were working in their field of specialization. Of
those, 33 percent found full-time jobs, while 31 percent accepted apprenticeship-style
employment that became full-time positions with the same employer.
The breakdown continues as follows:
● 25 percent accepted just apprenticeship-style employment (without any further
compromise from their employers).
● 10 percent are currently completing their initial apprenticeship.
● 1 percent accepted a part-time position.
3 Lighthouse Labs, Community Retrieved from https://www.lighthouselabs.ca/community. Accessed on
June 25, 2016.
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In terms of earnings, the average starting salary for students who accept full-time positions is
$50,000, but the range goes up to $85,000 per year.
These charts from LL’s Student Outcome Report4 provide more detail:
Employment Status of Lighthouse Labs graduates:
Graduates’ career objectives:
Timeframe for accepting employment:
4 Lighthouse Labs, Lighthouse Labs Student Outcomes Report (Vancouver, B.C.: online, 2015).
Retrieved from https://lighthouselabs.ca/lighthouse_labs_student_outcomes_report.pdf Accessed on June 6, 2016.
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These results are in sync with the industry’s appetite for skilled workers.
According to the report Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond5, prepared by the Information
and Communications Technology Council, one of the reasons why Canada lags behind other
developed countries when it comes to the adoption of new technologies in different segments of
the market, is because there is a lack of professionals who can assess and implement
technological innovations as soon as they are hired. “This is particularly vital for small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that acutely need skilled digital talent, but have limited means
to train or find a job-ready workforce to respond to the fast changing reality of the global
economic landscape,” the study reads.
THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND LL
So, Lighthouse Labs’ method is working.
Khurram says that, after reviewing his own educational experience, he was convinced of the
effectiveness of this new practical and intense teaching style.
He has said, “I found that 80 percent of what I learnt in the classroom was very much academic.
Instead of learning how to work with databases and build apps that work with databases, we
were learning relational algebra which never ever did I use in my career.”
Around 2013, Khurram had the opportunity to teach at Bitmaker6, one of Canada’s first coding
bootcamps, now rebranded as a ‘tech skills accelerator.’ After helping them build their
curriculum, he saw the same positive results he’s now witnessing at Lighthouse Labs.
As he got involved with the newer generation of developers in the Toronto tech scene, Khurram
knew he wanted to continue helping people reach their full potential when it comes to both
coding and entering the labour market through the right door.
He started to rediscover his love for teaching, that same fervor he used to feel many moons ago
when he was just a kid back in Pakistan. Yes, you read it right, just a kid.
Being one of the few children in his neighbourhood who owned a computer, Khurram was
always interested in knowing what circuits and commands made his video games work. Thus,
5 Information and Communications Technology Council, Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond
(Ottawa, O.N.: Government of Canada, 2016). Retrieved from http://www.ictc-ctic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICTC_DigitalTalent2020_ENGLISH_FINAL_March2016.pdf Accessed on July 12, 2016. 6 Bitmaker, About, Retrieved from https://bitmaker.co/. Accessed on June 25, 2016.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 8
he began to educate himself in the basics of programming. He even ended up volunteering at
the local community centre, teaching people DOS and how to use computers and word
processing software. He was only eight years old and the youngest among the teachers and
volunteers.
Five years later, he moved with his family to Canada. Once he overcame the typical early
adaptation barriers, he was able to resume his mentoring path. His Mississauga high school had
-what he calls- “a decent computer science program,” but it wasn’t enough. So, Khurram
decided to take matters into his own hands.
Since his teacher was overworked and didn’t have time to learn the most current programming
languages, the five feet three inches tall teenager read a whole book on Java and created the
curriculum for the class.
Once he completed his secondary education, he went into computer science. By that time, he
already knew how important it was to match theoretical learning with practice, so he took a four-
year program with a co-op component at University of Guelph. The academic setting allowed
him to build a good network of like-minded people, while the co-op gave him real-world
experience.
During his internships at both Sybase and Environment Canada, Khurram was able to
familiarize himself with all the aspects of business, from technical tasks to dealing with clients.
He was getting paid while, at the same time, receiving mentorship and being allowed to make
mistakes and learn from them.
The now entrepreneur realized this was the best way of getting trained for the real world and he
knew that, eventually, he wanted other people to have the same experience as his.
SO, HOW DID LIGHTHOUSE LABS COME TO BE?
As any recent graduate, Khurram needed to work for others to both learn more about the
business, and pay off his student debt.
As a junior developer, he worked for NutraCore and MDialog. Then he moved to Soft Gravity,
where he landed a spot as a senior developer. This role allowed him to unleash his full potential,
as he helped the company go from one to 10 employees and from revenue of zero to $1 million
in the first year.
Once he had discovered the secrets of business, Khurram decided it was time to launch his own
venture. He partnered with his long-time friend, Josh Borts, and together they created
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Functional Imperative in 2012. The company does consulting and software development with a
focus on the legal, healthcare and education realms.
Khurram was doing well. He was having success. But, he was struggling with a couple of
issues.
First, he was having trouble finding good developers who were well trained at the junior level out
of university. The people he was hiring had good problem solving and theory skills, but they
were not able to hit the ground running. They had to be trained from the ground up in modern
technology, web technology, and best practices.
Second, even though he enjoyed teaching and consulting part-time at Bitmaker Labs, he felt he
wasn’t doing enough to help form the next generation of developers. He didn’t want people to go
through what he went through in the early days of his career.
Convinced in the effectiveness of immersive-progressive education and having learnt from BL’s
successes and mistakes, Khurram decided Vancouver was the right place to open one of
Western Canada’s first coding bootcamps. At that time, CodeCore Bootcamp7 was also
emerging in the city.
“I find that bootcamps really educate students not just about coding, not just about becoming a developer, but also what that means and what that means for their future, what kind of jobs there are out there, what kind of skills they need to acquire afterwards, so a lot more real-world,”
– Khurram Virani, co-founder and Head of Education of Lighthouse Labs.
When he decided to move out west, the entrepreneur was also at a point in his life where he
needed a change of air. Vancouver’s rainy days and offshore winds sounded exactly like what
he was looking for, so he convinced his partners at Functional Imperative that investing in this
bootcamp made sense. In October of 2013 they landed at Launch Academy.
With a small amount of money and no outside investors, they joined LA’s five-week Lean
Entrepreneur Accelerator Program8. They were offered desks, fibre optic internet, office hours
with resident mentors, perks such as $100,000 Google Cloud credits, in-class sessions, and
practical know-how to build a startup reducing the risk of failure and the risk of running out of
cash.
7 CodeCore, About Retrieved from https://codecore.ca/about. Accessed on June 25, 2016.
8 Launch Academy, Lean Entrepreneur Accelerator Program Retrieved from
http://leap.launchacademy.ca/. Accessed on June 26, 2016.
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They didn’t have a long runway, but the approach they took was that they were going to get
revenue from day one by collecting tuition and building the curriculum on demand. In other
words, the plan was to launch the business before investing in it.
Launch Academy also gave them the opportunity to connect with other people involved in the
tech world, from CTOs, to lead developers, to marketers. The result was a constant exchange of
resources, in the sense that many people within LA have become mentors at LL and many
startups also end up recruiting Lighthouse Labs’ recent graduates. Both companies recognize
that their routes to success are deeply connected.
VANCOUVER’S INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM
Khurram thought that starting Lighthouse Labs in Vancouver made sense because of a big
boom of technical ecosystem growth.
According to the Vancouver Economic Commission9, out of the 101,000 tech professionals that
work in British Columbia, 75,000 do so in Vancouver, with wages that are 60 percent higher10
than B.C.’s industrial average.
Official data also reveals that there are more than 9,000 tech companies in the province,
including giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce, Sony Pictures
Imageworks, Hootsuite and more. Combined, all of these companies generate approximately
6.5 percent of the provincial GDP11 and, back in 2013 (most recent data), contributed $12.5
billion12 to Canada’s GDP, behind Ontario ($45.8 billion), Quebec ($24.9 billion), and Alberta
($17.7 billion).
Khurram is aware of these figures and he is convinced that having a healthy tech sector benefits
his business, because the software development community is all about collaboration, sharing
and growing together.
9 Vancouver Economic Commision, Technology (Vancouver, B.C.: VEC, 2016) Retrieved from
http://www.vancouvereconomic.com/focus/technology/ Accessed on July 12, 2016. 10
B.C. Government, The #BCTech Strategy 2016 (Victoria, B.C.: Government of British Columbia, 2016) Retrieved from https://bctechstrategy.gov.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/BCTech_Strategy.pdf Accessed on July 12, 2016. 11
Dan Schrier, Lillian Hallin, Profile of the British Columbia High Technology Sector: 2014 Edition (Victoria, B.C.: Province of British Columbia, 2015) Retrieved from http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/StatisticsBySubject/BusinessIndustry/HighTechnology.aspx Accessed on July 12, 2016. 12
Ibid.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 11
Source: Province of British Columbia (2015). Profile of the British Columbia. High Technology Sector: 2014 Edition. Retrieved from
http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/StatisticsBySubject/BusinessIndustry/HighTechnology.aspx Accessed on July 12, 2016.
According to Lighthouse Labs’ co-founder, the city hosts at least three weekly meetups around
web, technology, industry trends, how to solve specific problems, and so on. In fact, on the
social networking website Meetup, as of the middle of the year, there were 103 tech-related
events scheduled for 2016.
This means that students are doing the bootcamps and, afterwards, they’re going to these
forums and conferences.
As a result, LL’s graduates end up growing their network and getting hired by tech companies
such as Mobify, Unbounce, Hootsuite, or non-tech companies facing tech challenges such as
Telus, MEC, Lululemon, or Nike.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 12
“Without a community, there’s no bootcamp as far as I’m concerned,”
– Khurram Virani, cofounder and Head of Education of Lighthouse Labs.
THE ALLIES
At Lighthouse Labs they talk about two types of partners: Community Partners13 and Hiring
Partners14.
Community Partners are organizations such Microsoft, the BC Innovation Council, Futurpreneur
Canada, among others, that support demo days, meetups, learn-to-code initiatives, hackathons,
guest speakers and digital literacy events organized by Lighthouse Labs.
Hiring Partners are companies that are directly connected to LL’s career services and that seek
people to fill their vacancies. There are 160 of these and, of course, some of them also take part
in the bootcamp’s learning initiatives as Community Partners.
Without charging any fees to either the hiring partner or the student, Lighthouse Labs acts as a
matchmaker. Employers can get an idea of junior developers’ skills by joining Demo Day, which
is similar to a thesis symposium but presentations are pressure-less and a networking event
follows. They also have the option of asking for people with specific skills and backgrounds, and
receiving a curated list of candidates from the staff. Finally, if they want to have an advantage
ahead of graduation day, employers can ask for a ‘speed dating’ service and interview students
before they finish school.
On top of the companies already mentioned, Latergramme, Vancouver Canucks, BlueBat
Games, Wishpond, Electronic Arts, and many others have employed Lighthouse Labs’
graduates.
But it wasn’t always this easy. Khurram remembers that it took them a few months to rally
different companies in the Lower Mainland. ‘You don’t turn into a developer in eight weeks. It
takes four years,’ was the type of skeptical resistance he was getting.
Once those companies started noticing that LL’s graduates had the correct mindset, the
willingness to learn as well as the core skills to be able to add value from day one, then they
began mentoring and hiring them.
13
Lighthouse Labs, Community Retrieved from https://www.lighthouselabs.ca/community. Accessed on
June 25, 2016. 14
Ibid.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 13
There are other reasons why companies, even international big names, are hiring in Vancouver.
One of those reasons is that they get to pay lower salaries than they would have to pay in other
Canadian provinces or in California.
Source: Province of British Columbia (2015). Profile of the British Columbia. High Technology Sector: 2014 Edition. Retrieved from
http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/StatisticsBySubject/BusinessIndustry/HighTechnology.aspx Accessed on July 12, 2016.
Even though developers’ wages are above the industrial average, they rise at a very slow pace.
In 2013, wages for tech workers15 in B.C. rose just 1.7 percent compared to 2.8 percent across
all industries.
Average earnings in the high tech sector in the province are about $66,720 CAD per year,
compared to $117,600 USD in California. Thirty-seven other U.S. states also report higher pay
than B.C.
Given that development is cheaper in Vancouver, even smaller companies are making their way
up north. According to Khurram, San Francisco-based investors are telling their newly invested
companies, ‘it’s too expensive and competitive to be in the Valley. Go launch your startup
elsewhere in the United States or in Canada.’ Thus, they raise money in the Valley and then
they bring that money into Canada and spend it on Canadian developers.
15
Dan Schrier, Lillian Hallin, Profile of the British Columbia High Technology Sector: 2014 Edition
(Victoria, B.C.: Province of British Columbia, 2015) Retrieved from http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/StatisticsBySubject/BusinessIndustry/HighTechnology.aspx Accessed on July 12, 2016.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 14
Source: Province of British Columbia (2015). Profile of the British Columbia. High Technology Sector: 2014 Edition. Retrieved from
http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/StatisticsBySubject/BusinessIndustry/HighTechnology.aspx Accessed on July 12, 2016.
Low wages may be beneficial for employers but that’s not the case for employees, especially
taking into account that Vancouver is the third least-affordable city worldwide16 when it comes to
housing, after Sydney and Hong Kong.
Vancouver is experiencing a brain drain - particularly towards the United States.
However, some people like Khurram are sorting out these challenges because they want to stay
in the city and be part of its innovation ecosystem. Aside from those who start their own
ventures, many developers are now working remotely for U.S. companies and receiving larger
salaries. This scenario, of course, is not ideal because the latter are not helping Canadian
startups and tech firms grow. Yet, some would argue that it is still better than them moving
away.
This state of affairs creates another side effect. That is that many small, local IT companies
have trouble recruiting because they cannot afford to pay as much as the U.S. giants.
16
Wendell Cox, Hugh Pavletich, 12th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2016 Rating Middle-Income Housing Affordability (Belleville, Illinois: Demographia, 2015) Retrieved from http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf Accessed on July 12, 2016.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 15
Partially due to the above reasons, Vancouver ranked 18th in the 2015 Compass Startup
Ecosystem Report17 – much lower than one might expect for such a desirable setting with two
major research universities, a stable legal environment, and large immigrant communities.
Source: Startup Compass Inc., The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 (San Francisco, California: Startup Compass Inc.,
2015).
WHAT’S AHEAD
The Information and Communications Technology Council estimates that more than 14,000 tech
jobs will be created in B.C. by 2019. But, given the aforementioned context, there might not be
enough people to fill those positions.
“It is projected that the availability of homegrown ICT talent will not be sufficient to meet these
hiring requirements. Combined with replacement demand due to retirements and other exits,
17
Startup Compass Inc., The Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 (San Francisco, California: Startup Compass Inc., 2015).
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British Columbia would have to fill 20,900 ICT positions over the next five years,” the ICTC
Labour Market 2015-2019 Outlook18 reads.
Overall, Canada has 877,470 ICT workers, but by 2019 the country will need 182,000 people to
fill in vacancies in the sector, says the Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond report by the
ICTC.
Source: Information and Communications Technology Council, Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond Retrieved from
http://www.ictc-ctic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICTC_DigitalTalent2020_ENGLISH_FINAL_March2016.pdf Accessed on July
12, 2016.
18
The Information and Communications Technology Council, The Smart Economy Reshaping Canada’s Workforce: Labour Market Outlook 2015-2019 (Ottawa, ON: ICTC, 2015) Retrieved from http://www.digcompass.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Labour-Market-Outlook-2015-2019-FINAL.pdf Accessed on July 12, 2016.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 17
This forecast worries Khurram a little bit. He wonders how many of those positions can be filled
with junior developers, like the ones graduating from Lighthouse Labs. He’s sure that there’s a
certain appetite and a certain marketplace for junior openings, but he says that if the market
gets saturated with too many people and they do not find opportunities right away, that could
become an issue for the bootcamp’s paradigm of hands-on experience.
Khurram and his team are currently trying to find ways to support LL alumni, so they can reach
intermediate/senior level positions quickly. “It’s not going to be an immersive format, because
they need to be working while they are learning more. So, is it mentorship support on call? Is it
basically Skype calls and check-ins and giving them homework and then we check in on that?
What should the pricing look like for something like that?” he broods.
This situation has led Lighthouse Labs to avoid exponential growth in Vancouver. But that
doesn’t mean they are not growing at all; they’re just diversifying and looking at other
communities both in urban and rural areas.
It all started with the HTML500 annual event that Lighthouse Labs launched in February of
2014. According to their website, it is “Canada’s largest learn to code event,” where 500
newbies are taught for free by experts from 50 of Vancouver’s top companies.
Given its high profile, the press usually provides substantial coverage of the HTML500 and that
exposure has helped Lighthouse Labs create its first spin-off. In May of 2015, the Yukon
government approached them saying that they wanted to increase and ignite the territory’s
innovation ecosystem.
Initially, Premier Darrell Pasloski’s office thought about another HTML500, but the idea didn’t
sink in. Since students from Whitehorse had been coming to Vancouver to take the full program,
Khurram and his partners decided that doing a satellite bootcamp there made sense. The five-
student pilot turned out to be a success.
That first experience inspired LL to open pop-up satellite locations where they offer the Intro to
Web Development course and the Web Development Bootcamp, usually in coworking spaces
where students can interact with tech startups, designers, and businesses.
In Kelowna, they partnered with co+Lab coworking space, the tech accelerator Accelerate
Okanagan, and FreshGrade, a company that provides a suite of apps to enable communication
and increase engagement between teachers, students, and parents.
In Victoria, space is provided by the Victoria Innovation, Advanced Technology and
Entrepreneurship Council, while lessons are supported by Metalab, a firm that builds all kinds of
digital products; Ladies Learning Code, a nonprofit that teaches women and youth to become
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 18
tech builders; and Emplomacy, a company that focuses on recruiting talent for growth-stage
technology businesses.
In Calgary, Assembly Coworking Space is their main partner.
In Montreal, they built alliances with the accelerator District 3, the coworking space Crew
Collective, and Notman House, which is a non-profit organization that supports the development
of startup ecosystems across Canada.
In London, Ont., TechAlliance MVP Lab offered them a space to work in.
In Halifax, the incubator VoltaLabs is their main ally.
In all of these locations, students go to a classroom --usually a coworking-type of space--,
practice from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., interact with local mentors and, at the same time, receive remote
support through one-on-one discussions on ScreenHero, ‘attending’ live-streamed seminars
held in Vancouver, raising questions on Slack and Perch, and reviewing recorded lectures and
slides on Compass, the Learning Management System they use.
Although it all sounds pretty straightforward, there are important challenges Lighthouse Labs
still has to overcome. First, there’s the issue of the transitory nature of the pop-up bootcamps,
which hampers the possibility of providing students with the same experience that they would
get in Vancouver.
This situation has clearly created some discomfort. Reviews from students in remote cities or
towns have not been as positive as expected. Thus, LL’s staff is working internally to build
software tools able to reduce friction.
The second challenge that subsidiaries face relates to the job market. Khurram says that there
is not a network of employers being built across Canada, so bootcamps have to deal with a
chicken and egg problem: they need developers to start building a community, but they also
need companies that are able to hire those developers. In other words, training developers in
nascent innovation ecosystems creates a placement challenge for graduates.
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“The best thing you can do is bring a bootcamp that is very close to the community and that is all about starting that community,”
– Khurram Virani, co-founder and Head of Education of Lighthouse Labs.
AN EXCEPTION
There’s only one place where the tech ed advocates have not run into any of the
aforementioned issues: Toronto.
A year and a half after landing in Vancouver, Lighthouse Labs’ team headed back to Toronto to
open a second campus.
HIGHLINE, a pre-seed venture capital firm whose Vancouver offices are across the hall from
Lighthouse Labs, offered them space in its downtown Toronto headquarters as well as ongoing
entrepreneurial advice and consultation. “After seeing how seriously the Lighthouse Labs team
takes computer programming education and their dedication to preparing students for jobs, our
partnership became an obvious strategic alignment to form to accelerate growth nationally,”
Marcus Daniels, the company’s founder and CEO said in a press release19 at the time.
Drawing from the collaborative philosophy they learnt at Launch Academy, and given the fact
that they couldn’t find anything similar in Toronto, they transformed the space into Devhub, a
coworking centre where a collective of developers from all spectrums of the tech world get
together to work and learn. Even Functional Imperative’s staff works from there.
In Toronto, Lighthouse Labs offers its four core programs.
Beyond student demand, Lighthouse Labs’ expansion reflects its founders’ forward-thinking
approach when it comes to addressing trends in the tech workforce. They believe that in the
next 10 to 20 years improvements in connectivity and virtual reality are going to foster a global
distributed mindset, different from the current ‘our headquarters are here, this is where all our
developers are.’
Their predictions are in line with what experts say is going to happen. According to International
Data Corporation, Canada’s mobile worker population20 must be around 13.4 million or 73
19
Bianca Bartz, Helping Canada’s Premier Dev Bootcamp Expand Across Canada (Vancouver, B.C.: HIGHLINE, 2015) Retrieved from http://www.highline.vc/articles/highline-lighthouse-labs/. Accessed on June 26, 2016.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 20
percent of the workforce. The research firm expects this number to rise21 to at least 14 million by
2018, while the U.S. is expected to reach 105.4 million22 mobile workers in 2020.
BUT THERE MUST BE A COMMITMENT
Regardless of how distributed the workforce gets, Khurram Virani believes that in-house
investments are needed so Canada’s IT development workforce continues to grow. For him,
there still isn’t enough private investment in growing tech companies or tech innovation both in
Vancouver and countrywide because most of the money is going towards real estate. He wishes
the government would get more involved in addressing this issue.
Although Canada’s ICT sector is a $7,419 billion per year industry, companies invest less than
half in digital technologies than their counterparts in the United States do. “Canada’s ICT
investment as a percentage of non-residential gross fixed capital formation was 17% compared
to more than 30% in the United States and more than 20% in countries like Sweden, Denmark
and the United Kingdom,” the Digital Talent: Road to 202023 report states.
The same review recognizes that a 20 percent increase in direct investments in ICT
technologies would yield more than $16.5 billion to the national GDP.
Aware of these possibilities, the Federal Liberal government has committed to invest $200
million annually24, over the course of three years, in local incubator and accelerator programs,
with the idea of growing tech startups in various provinces. Another $100 million a year will go to
the Industrial Research Assistance Program, which encourages innovation and small- and
medium-sized businesses.
20
Wallace Immen, Mobile workers are the ‘new norm’ (Toronto, ON: The Globe and Mail, 2013) Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/the-future-of-work/mobile-workers-are-the-new-norm/article8295535/ Accessed on on July 12, 2016. 21
Krista Collins, Emily Taylor, Canadian Mobile Worker 2014–2018 Forecast (Toronto, ON: International
Data Corporation, 2014) Retrieved from http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=CA5MS14 Accessed
on on July 12, 2016. 22
International Data Corporation, IDC Forecasts U.S. Mobile Worker Population to Surpass 105 Million by 2020 (Toronto, ON: International Data Corporation, 2014) Retrieved from https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25705415 Accessed on on July 12, 2016. 23
The Information and Communications Technology Council, Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond (Ottawa, ON: ICTC, 2016) Retrieved from http://www.ictc-ctic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ICTC_DigitalTalent2020_ENGLISH_FINAL_March2016.pdf Accessed on on July 12, 2016. 24
David Friend, Where should Trudeau's promised $900M for tech sector go? (Toronto, ON: Toronto Star, 2015) Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/business/2015/10/21/where-should-trudeaus-promised-900m-for-tech-sector-go.html Accessed on June 26, 2016.
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Some of this money has already been pledged25, with a sum lading the coffers of Lighthouse
Labs’ Halifax partner VoltaLabs.
For Khurram, “that’s part of it.” He recognizes -and according to different statements, so does
the government- that procurement policies and procedures to promote technology adoption and
talent acquisition in both public and private organizations also need to be in place to strengthen
Canada’s digital ecosystem.
QUESTIONS THAT LIE AHEAD
Given this outlook, what is Lighthouse Labs best path to continued growth? Or should it not
grow anymore at all?
Should Lighthouse Labs only launch satellites when there is a partnership in place to hire
graduates?
The company does explore the needs and demands of communities before going into them, and
they’ve found most benefit from the injection of developers who are able to work in non-tech
organizations. Still, does this approach help grow the innovation ecosystem in such
communities?
On top of this, does the education that students in these remote places are receiving equal that
of students in Vancouver and Toronto? LL has admitted that, regardless of all the Slacks,
LiveStreams, or Perches, creating personal connections between the main support team and
people in London or Halifax remains a challenge. So, are these graduates able to provide
similar added value to their employers from day one?
Could establishing fully-equipped schools in those towns be a feasible possibility? Their first
cohort in Whitehorse was of five students, and Lighthouse Labs collected +$40,000 in tuition
payments. So, beyond feasible, would it be profitable?
What should Lighthouse Labs do about employers who are looking for intermediate/senior level
developers? A good portion of the almost 21,000 ICT positions in British Columbia that will open
in the next five years are replacements due to retirements. Is Lighthouse Labs going to continue
ignoring this labour market reality by focusing on creating solely junior developers?
25
Terry Dawes, Canada’s tech sector already positioned to benefit from federal budget (North Vancouver, B.C.: Cantech Letter, 2016) Retrieved from http://www.cantechletter.com/2016/03/canadas-tech-sector-already-positioned-to-benefit-from-federal-budget/ Accessed on June 26, 2016.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research PAGE 22
They could stay focused on their niche of producing junior developers but, would that be such a
good idea? Should they start to train at intermediate/senior level? Should they work with
partners to establish better paths to intermediate status through practical experience?
As Khurram sat staring at his coffee cup in front of the red brick wall, he pondered the best path
forward for Lighthouse Labs.