5 minute read
Revelstoke tech: Chronometer. p
TRACKING TECH
DISCUSSING GROWING PAINS AND DIVERSIFICATION WITH AARON DAVIDSON, FOUNDER OF REVELSTOKE-BASED NUTRITION APP CRONOMETER.
By Bailey Gingras-Hamilton.
In a town dominated by retail, real estate, forestry and tourism, an unassuming white office building is easy to miss amongst flashy storefronts. Inside the Cronometer headquarters, computer screens fill with vivid green text. These rows of code are foreign to the untrained eye, and they form an app with five million users.
The dream of building a small company in a mountain community was Davidson’s ‘North Star,’ leading him to Revelstoke where Cronometer blossomed in 2017. Cronometer is a mobile health app that extends beyond tracking calories, accounting for specific nutrition data and exercise. Competitors in this space include MyFitnessPal, and tech supergiants like Google Fit and Apple Fitness.
Launching a tech startup in a small mountain town built on blue-collar industries (notably the forestry and rail sectors) might seem counterintuitive, but Davidson’s timing was perfect.
“I kind of just waltzed in,” he reflects. Through tech meetups at the Mountain CoLab, and initiatives like StartUp Revelstoke and the Revelstoke Technology Strategy, his network grew.
“It was a really good scene, so I felt very well supported. It was a very different atmosphere than Canmore [where Davidson moved from], where there was nothing. No strategy and no support, no real tech community.”
Beyond the growing tech community, Revelstoke’s remote location became a hiring perk. Davidson attracted like-minded people who wanted to continue their career, but preferred mountain skylines over skyscrapers. Although Cronometer had a few remote employees when Davidson arrived, he focused on hiring locals to build a base in Revelstoke.
“I was able to hire a lot of very talented people that were living in town just for the season. They put their professional careers on hold to ski bum a bit, and suddenly they had a reason they could stay and keep their career going. It was kind of a fairly compelling offer at the time,” he says.
“It was rare, and it was a unique opportunity for people.”
This market has changed over the past four years.
Aaron Davidson has built a successful and growing local tech company, Chronometer. Photo: Bailey Gingras-Hamilton. The staff bulletin board at Chronometer hosts an eclectic collection of doodles. Photo Bailey Gingras-Hamilton.
Balancing the benefits of diversification with the effects of remote work
When the pandemic made remote work mainstream, Davidson lost one of his major hiring advantages. The increasing popularity of remote work affects more than business, recent trends in rural migration indicate.
As more high-paid remote workers move away from city offices and into scenic rural life, a troubling housing shortage is emerging.
A 2021 report from the British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) found that buyers outnumbered sellers two-to-one during the height of the real estate spike in the Okanagan region, where Revelstoke data is located. This is a more acute imbalance than hot markets in the Kootenays, according to BCREA findings. That same report attributes remote work opportunities as a factor for demand.
While Davidson acknowledges the effect that high-paid remote workers, like many in the technology sector, have on Revelstoke’s housing crisis, he highlights the economic benefits of introducing new industries to small towns.
“It's a mixed bag, right,” Davidson carefully elaborates. "It’s good for diversification, for bankrolling people in town away from one or two industries.”
Recent events highlight the necessity of a diverse economy. Two of Revelstoke’s biggest industries, tourism and forestry, have taken massive hits since 2020. While tourism is recovering from pandemic losses, the forestry industry is now facing the impact of logging deferrals.
It’s a story that echoes across many resourceextracting communities. As pressure increases to address accelerated climate change, workers in sectors like forestry and energy are facing job losses. Without growth in new industries, this economic transition is more difficult.
As Davidson explains, opportunities within the tech industry exist for a variety of skill sets and backgrounds.
“That's another thing I think people don't realize intuitively about a business like ours, [a] tech business. I have 35 staff. Twelve of them are software engineers. So, who are all the other people? They're customer service, they're doing software testing, and they’re all trained on the job,” he says. “There's a wide spectrum of roles that come along besides very specific, highly skilled engineering roles.”
The hometown advantage
When balancing the pros and cons of a growing tech sector in Revelstoke, Davidson notes that a locally based business like Cronometer will bring different benefits than remote tech workers.
“Our culture and our philosophy is like, ‘Hey, we want to be here in town,’” he explains. Beyond the office, Cronometer is getting more involved in the community through sponsorships, working with organizations including the Revelstoke Cycling Association, the Revelstoke Grizzlies and the Ascent Mentorships program.
Looking at Cronometer’s competitors demonstrates the company's growth potential. However, they face the same challenges as many Revelstoke businesses.
“We're 35 people, and we're still just getting started. The bigger competitors in the space have hundreds of employees. So, the scale we could grow to is quite a bit bigger,” Davidson explains. Even with a new office expansion planned down the street from their current location, Davidson worries about finding the space to accommodate such growth.
This has not discouraged Davidson from building his company, and promoting the tech community as a whole: the same community that encouraged Davidson to pursue his “North Star.”
When asked about supporting the growing tech industry, passion ignites Davidson’s voice. He recalls the enthusiasm, networking, and brainstorming that happens at events like Revy Tech Meetups, one of which he hosted on Oct. 29. These environments foster the creation of new start-ups, he says.
“It's really hard to recruit a tech company that already exists to start-up an office,” Davidson explains. “The best thing I can do with Cronometer is use it as an example of what's possible. Maybe then I can inspire some people to be like ‘hey, you can do that here.’ It’s totally feasible.”
