William Johnson

Vancouver

Founder, Editor, and Writer at Vancouver Tech Journal

Roving writer, advisor and founder (Vancouver Tech Journal + Nevvco) • posts on tech, biz, media, sports, life • what I’m thinking, doing, and learning 👇🏾

Articles

Telling your startup’s story when the world is watching

2 days ago | vantechjournal.com | William Johnson

Your browser does not support the audio element. As Vancouver gears up for the inaugural Web Summit on Canadian soil, the spotlight is on BC’s tech founders—and how they choose to tell their stories. With more than 600 global journalists descending on the city, the stakes (and opportunities) are high. That was the backdrop for Beyond the Pitch: Crafting Your Startup’s Media Story, a recent panel hosted by Innovate BC.
IMGL 2025: Why the global gaming industry is watching Vancouver

3 days ago | vantechjournal.com | William Johnson

Credit: Generated via ChatGPT by William Johnson This week, a global roster of top gaming lawyers, regulators, founders, and investors will descend on Vancouver for the IMGL 2025 Spring Conference. The event marks the return of the International Masters of Gaming Law (IMGL) to Canada for the first time in nearly two decades — and it’s more than just a legal affair.
Cap tables, crowdfunding, and clarity

4 days ago | vantechjournal.com | William Johnson

🗞️ This week, BC tech is making history—and rewriting the playbook. Blossom just broke records with Canada’s largest equity crowdfunding round. The Terry Fox Foundation is teaming up with a VC firm to fund cancer-fighting startups. And founders are rethinking how (and when) to give up equity, thanks to some hard-won cap table lessons. Also inside: TELUS wants to build a Sovereign AI Factory in Vancouver, WELL Health inches toward unicorn revenue, and the mayor is ready to ride for bitcoin.
Blossom breaks records with Canada’s biggest-ever equity crowdfunding round

1 week ago | vantechjournal.com | William Johnson

Vancouver-based Blossom, a social network for investors, has closed a $3 million funding round. In just six hours, over 1,100 users invested $1.86 million, making it the most successful equity crowdfunding campaign in Canadian history, according to the company. The round was completed via FrontFundr, with the remaining funds coming from strategic angel investors.
Web Summit Vancouver afterparties you won’t want to miss

1 week ago | vantechjournal.com | William Johnson

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Founders, read this before you give away another 1%

1 week ago | vantechjournal.com | William Johnson

Your browser does not support the audio element. At a recent Vancouver Tech Journal panel hosted with Fasken, a group of startup veterans got candid about a topic that rarely gets the spotlight—but can quietly ruin your company’s future: the cap table. Joining the conversation were Lisa Payne (CFO and COO at Inetco), Hans Knapp (co-founder and partner at Yaletown Partners), and Geoff Pedlow (partner at Fasken).
My new job

1 week ago | williamjohnson.ca | William Johnson

It took almost ten years of writing before I let anyone call me a writer. What changed was Maclean’s publishing a list of ideas I’d written on how students should navigate the new digital age. My ideas weren’t revolutionary — but they were timely, written during a period of rapid change and the explosive growth of social media platforms. It was the fall of 2012. Facebook had just hit 1 billion users. Two hundred million people were tweeting (when it was still called that).
Hollywood acts bizarrely in response to Palestine protests

1 week ago | electronicintifada.net | William Johnson

Dozens of film and television workers picketed outside the headquarters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the organization that runs the Oscars – in Los Angeles on 31 March, demanding the academy speak out in defense of Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal. In early March, Ballal won an Oscar for co-directing the documentary No Other Land.
Export mode: How to go global without going broke

3 weeks ago | vantechjournal.com | William Johnson

A Purebread location in Vancouver, which has partnered with ChopValue to engineer its chopsticks to become countertops. Photo: ChopValue When Vancouver entrepreneur Sarah Goodman launched her snack brand Chiwis, she wasn’t thinking about global markets. “I came from tech, where I first met Keith [Ippel, co-founder and co-CEO of Spring Activator],” she told a recent panel hosted by the Vancouver-based impact accelerator and advisory firm.
Surviving uncertainty: Five key insights from Vancouver business leaders

1 month ago | vantechjournal.com | William Johnson

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