Tim Jackson, a leading venture capitalist in Canada, isn’t giving money out to many start-ups these days through his company Tech Capital Partners. But it’s not frugality that is holding him back. He firmly believes that capital is not what is needed in this global economic downturn.
“The reality is that most early-stage companies don’t require venture capital - they just need to build organically,” Jackson said. “And downturns are great times for people to start their own businesses.”

For those companies that Jackson is investing in, his advice is simple and as he says, very “un-Canadian”: it’s OK to fail.

“We need to celebrate that spirit of entrepreneurship, and understand that failure is okay,” he said. “You can’t innovate without failure. That doesn’t mean you reward incompetence, but to get from here to there the path winds, it goes up and down, but that’s okay.”
Read the rest of the interview with ReportonBusiness.com here.

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