.png)
On September 6th Vivacity Technologies celebrated its third birthday! It was a fun week where we got to hang out as a team, were frantically preparing for a major conference, and signed an agreement with the City of Kelowna for our new software platform, VivaCitadel. Part of me believes the purchasing manager for Kelowna was holding off on this monumental milestone just for our 3rd birthday.
It’s a wonderful achievement turning 3. I’m immensely proud of what we’ve undertaken over the last few years, but more so in the way we’ve gone about it. Since day one we’ve embraced diversity, openness, challenging the status quo, and all with a client centric approach. While we haven’t always met our own internal high bar, I’d like to think we’ve got things more right than wrong over the years.
To recap on our third year, here are a few of the highlights:
Attended and graduated from Creative Destruction Lab;
Secured National Research Council Canada / Conseil national de recherches Canada funding to support our VivaCitadel platform development and rollout;
Launched and executed our Design Partners Program with municipalities;
Continued to support and work with some amazing clients including City of Kamloops, Simpcw Resources Group , the City of Castlegar; and
Became a finalist for the Emerging Business of the Year Award for the Kamloops & District Chamber of Commerce. We hear whether we won on October 24th!
We’re really proud of all these achievements, plus many more than didn’t make the above list. In addition to these, here’s a couple of extra things I’ve learned to really appreciate along the way:
Enjoy the journey - in our yearly strategy session earlier this month, I spoke about how it might seem ideal to skip a few levels in the ‘business game’ we’re playing, however, there’s a critical benefit in us taking every hard step together, and most importantly learning along the way. Every challenge and success has been a hugely valuable experience, shaping who we are today and how we do things. I've massively enjoyed watching our team grow, building strong relationships internally and with our clients. The journey has taught us that success isn't just about the milestones, but about appreciating the process and lessons learned.
Continual improvement - one of the things that I believe we do exceptionally well at Vivacity is continually looking for ways to improve. This comes from one-on-one weekly catch-ups, weekly team meetings, monthly retro sessions, and our quarterly stay interviews. All with the goal of finding small, and sometimes big, ways to get better. We even tear up the hymn sheet on occasion to start things from scratch. I love this approach and honestly it comes more from the team than from me, which brings me nicely onto my next point, the team!
It really is all about the team - on our third birthday we celebrate the following hard facts about the VivaTeam:
We’ve grown to a size of 11
We are represented by 7 women and 4 men
50% of the leadership team are women
We cover a combined 7 different countries
We all live in beautiful Kamloops
A few things about this team composition are by design e.g. all being in Kamloops, but many just come from seeking and bringing onboard the most talented individuals.
Every step forward for us has been built on openness, collaboration, and the unique strengths each of us brings. We've grown together, learned some hard lessons along the way, and celebrate the diversity we all bring. And ultimately, it’s
this collective talent that has helped Vivacity get where it is today.
Time with family - for those of you who believe it's not possible to juggle work and life effectively, I’ve come to learn that it is very much possible and very much needed. On occasion I get it wrong, but it's often about prioritizing what's important to you. For example, spending time with my wife and kids means a massive amount to me. My children are still young and apparently still love me! Why on earth would I give that up, and in all honesty I don’t have to. Sacrifices have to be made, but if that means cracking my laptop open in the evenings to do an hour's work, then it's definitely worth the price.
As for the entrepreneurship journey, as with anything in life, there is always a risk-reward and cost-benefit analysis going on. I still firmly believe our journey is meaningful and any costs or risks have been fully offset by the fun and achievements we’ve had so far. It's now my job to continue getting better at what I do, mitigate the risks for our future, and continue to help build on top of the already awesome team we have. And hopefully with a little luck the journey can be made a little less potholey (apparently not a word, but should be) along the way.
Thanks for tuning in!
Comments