As a digital research firm operating out of Atlantic Canada, we at Thistlwood wanted to attempt to understand the primary issues and concerns of entrepreneurs and start-ups in Halifax and largely Nova Scotia. We did this by analyzing discussions and commentary from social media and other digital channels online.

This infographic aims to provide a visual sense of the primary concerns of entrepreneurs in Halifax and to a large extent, Nova Scotia. As can be seen, capital is the number one concern. On the issue of capital, the main concern discussed online is that access to capital is controlled mostly by a very few, making it difficult to determine risk tolerance and grow to the next level. Many entrepreneurs feel this restricts their opportunity.

Second is export growth. While it is easier than ever to reach global markets, many entrepreneurs feel there is a lack of people with exporting skills in the market and few investors understand the need to be export-driven. Others were concerned with the impact of the TPP and CETA trade agreements and what opportunities they could gain.

The third issue is government red tape. In this area, conversations we analyzed pointed to a high cost to get started, naming restrictions on a business that aren’t seen in other jurisdictions, various permits and the length of time to get by-laws and shareholder certificates from the government and that these hamper closing financing rounds.

Fourth is government, while many of the programs are appreciated and many have said improved, the degree of paperwork required to access and them and the follow-up reporting is high. In addition, many angel investors won’t invest without some government funding involvement and vice versa, making capital raising difficult and longer than other jurisdictions in Canada such as Alberta and Ontario.

The complete set of findings can be viewed on the Thistlwood blog here. In addition to the above, entrepreneurs in Nova Scotia also expressed a number of sociocultural concerns: how they are perceived within the community and vice versa. Two key findings here were that the public, government and business don’t seem to understand the value and need for some startups to fail and there is a low tolerance for failure. Second is the need for immigrants and lack of support from the federal government while feeling the provincial government has it’s hands tied. Other concerns ranged from a perceived lack of action on the Ivany Report, not enough entrepreneurial spirit in the province and poor community support for entrepreneurs.

But it’s not all bad news, entrepreneurs (primarily startups) felt more positive about starting up a business in Halifax than they have in the past few years.

Giles Crouch is the Managing Partner at Thistlwood, a Halifax-based Agile Digital Research firm.