My neighbour J. is a former Canadian freestyle ski champion and a fanatical downhill mountain biker. I see him riding regularly and he invited me to join him on one of his rides. So today after work we drove up Cypress Mountain to the alpine ski area, where we unloaded the bikes and got started.

I had no idea what to expect, but considering all the gear that I had to wear (leg protectors, arm protectors, a back protector, a helmet and gloves) I knew it would not be simple bike ride. It started off quite easy, we took a gravel maintenance road down (and later up) through the woods below Cypress until we came to the powerlines that go up from Caulfeild to Cypress. It was a sunny day again and nature was beautiful. J. told me some interesting fact about the plants that we came across and showed me several bear droppings (none recent, so probably no bears in the area). At the power lines there was a nice view and we made a short stop and had some water.

After that the real trail riding started, we hit a small bike trail though the woods that was quite scary at first. J. taught me some basic techniques and soon I was going down slopes that I could have never imagined to go down from. Basically it’s all about not being afraid, your bike can do a lot more than you think. I wasn’t really afraid, but I felt I did not have full control over my bike yet so when things were too extreme I just stopped and walked a bit. At the end of this part of the trail we hit a maintenance road and right before this road I did not pay attention. The result was that my bike slipped away from me and I fell pretty hard. Luckily I was protected well so it did not really hurt, but it scared me a bit.

From then onwards I paid better attention and took less risk than on the first part. I was also getting a bit tired. Downhill biking seems easy, but it’s actually quite hard. You have to control your bike the whole time and my legs were not used to that. Next to that you have to bike up every now and then, which takes some effort when it’s around 30 degrees on the mountain. The downhill ride is not just 30 minutes or so, but it takes a full 2 hours in which you have to concentrate on the trail, the rocks, the trees and your bike constantly.

On the second part of the downhill trail I went down a steep slope and felt the bike was going a bit too fast, so I hit the brakes. For some reason I was not thinking, and instead of just using the backwheel brakes I also used my front tire brake. The result: my bike flipped over and I landed next to it. It hurt a bit, but not too much, so I got on the bike and continued the ride. But I realized that I made the mistake because I was tired and I became even more cautious.

We then hit the top of the Cypruss Falls, where Sonja and I had a close encounter with a bear a few months ago. J. told me some of his bear stories, he has seen quite some bears in this area over the years but he is not afraid of them (he carries a gun and bear spray in his back pack, just in case). He also explained me how to spot cougars, there seem to be more of them this year (this morning there was actually one seen at Lighthouse Park, not too far from where we live).

The last part of the trail was a part that I had hiked with my sister once. It was not harder than the other parts we did, but I felt less comfortable than before and had to concentrate even more in order not to make mistakes. And then it happened: I again braked using my front brakes and again I summersaulted through the air, this time landing head first on the ground. I immediately felt a headache and I stayed on the ground for a few seconds before trying to get up. J. came over right away (he was ahead of me but heard the crash) and checked on me. Everthing seemed fine, but the rocks that I had landed on hurt quite a bit. I washed my face (it was covered in sand and mud) and had some water, and then we went down to Nelson Creek. I did not take any risks anymore after this last crash!

The last few kilometers were easy, but I was glad to be home again. I immediately took a hot shower and was surprised to see how bruised my body was. I probably hit a rock with my chest, because it looked like someone had beaten me up there. I had scratches and small wounds all over my body and generally I was very sore. A hot shower helped, but I’ll probably need a good sleep and 1-2 days of rest before I am okay again. My headache lukcily disappeared, so the helmet had protected me well and I had no concussion.

Looking back the bike ride was a lot of fun, but I am not sure if I am ready for this. If I will do it again I will first need to learn some more downhill techniques. I am glad I did it though, the experience was great and now I know what downhill biking is all about.

I wonder if I will ever learn it: always drink water on runs over 30 minutes on hot summer days.

This afternoon I left the office a bit earlier to hike up Grouse Mountain. Before my trip to China in July I did the Grouse Grind 1-2 times per week, but I had not climbed it since I came back. The weather was nice, about 25 Celsius (although my car told me it was closer to 30 degrees) and a beautiful blue sky.

I mainly drank coffee during the day, so I had a glass of water before I drove my car to the foot of the mountain. Because most of the trail is in the shade of the trees I did not think it would be very warm and so I did not bring any water. I normally don’t drink during this hike, because it’s less than an hour and there is a Starbucks at the end of the trail for water or other cold drinks.

When I started off I felt some muscle ache in my upper legs. I did not really understand why, because I didn’t run yesterday (my last run was a 7 km mountain run on Sunday). But then I realized it may have been from a semi-dangerous kayak experience on Monday. Scott and I had gone for a kayak trip to Whytecliff Beach, but on the way back the tide currents were suddenly so strong that Scott could not paddle against it. He therefore held on to my kayak and I had to paddle as hard as I could to get back to shore. It took me 45 minutes and we finally made it, but I was exhausted. I know I put my legs and knees against the top of my kayak to be able to have a more powerful paddle stroke, and that’s likely why I felt my legs today.

No big deal and after a few minutes of climbing the muscle ache had disappeared. At first the climb went quite well, but it was a lot warmer than I had expected. So warm that I could not really get into a good rhythm, I was sweating a lot and had to keep on getting the sweat out of my eyes.

About half way my legs were suddenly very tired. That’s strange, because normally on the Grouse Grind my breathing gets faster before I feel tired, but now I was still breathing normally, although my heart was beating very fast. I thought that it may be because of the food (I had sushi for lunch, maybe I did not eat enough calories to burn?) and continued my walk. But then I realized I was getting thirsty as well, which is unusual if I climb up only once. Quickly my thirst was getting worse but I did not bring any drinks and I had at least another 300 vertical meters ahead of me. Going down wasn’t really an option. Not only is it not allowed, but it’s also quite dangerous because the mountain is very steep in many places.

So I just walked very slowly and even had to stop a couple of times. When I saw other people drinking (there were quite some other hikers on the trail) I almost wanted to ask them for a sip, but I did not do that and continued on. I came to a point where I would have paid $50 for a bottle of water if there had been any for sale on the trail, but of course this isn’t China so there are no vendors climbing up mountains to make a few extra dollars.

When I got closer to the top the temperature was much lower (the end of the trail is at about 1200 meters, so it’s noticeably cooler there than at the bottom) and I felt climbing up the rocks was a little less difficult. I knew I would be able to make it, but it was still not easy. I pushed myself very hard and eventually reached the top. My time: 1:01, the first time that the Grouse Grind took me more than an hour while hiking on my own.

I immediately got a cold chocolate milk at Starbucks and it tasted fantastic. Within minutes my energy came back and once I could walk again normally I took the cable car down and drove home. There I drank a liter of water and ate a banana and now I am perfectly fine again. It was a good lesson though. The Grouse Grind is not your average walk in the park, and doing it without water on a hot summer day can be dangerous. I have been dehydrated while doing sports in warm weather several times over the years and I will try to make sure this won’t happen again – and certainly not on the Grouse Grind!

One of the great things about British Columbia is that every month has at least one long weekend. I only found out on Friday that this weekend is another 3-day weekend (Monday is British Columbia day, whatever that means), so a lot of extra time to spend with the family.

Today we went to Granville Island for lunch and to do some shopping. There is a great public market with tons of fresh local products, and we bought a lot of fruit and salads for the next days. After a quick stop in the marina where I wanted to show Grace a boat that I like (and where we saw a family of sea lions playing together!), we drove over to Mountain Equipment Corporation. MEC is the place where I buy most of my outdoor gear, they have everything I need and their service is great. I had promised Scott to teach him how to kayak during this holiday, so I got him a small kids kayak with a paddle and a life jacket.

After we arrived home he wanted to go kayaking right away. My original plan had been to start tomorrow, but he was so excited that I eventually gave in. I carried both our kayaks down to the beach, and while Grace and Elaine watched I tried to teach him the basics. Although it was not a big success right away, Scott loved it so much. He was not afraid at all, even when we went a bit farther out to sea. Most of the time he held onto my kayak instead of paddling himself (I put his paddle in my boat), and even when he unintentionally let go he was laughing hard instead of being afraid. Happy to see that.

We spent about 30 minutes on the water but if had been up to Scott we would have stayed a lot longer, so I am sure we’ll be back at the beach tomorrow. When I put Scott to bed and talked about the day with him (we do that almost every night) kayaking was the main thing he wanted to talk about, and he had all kinds of questions about boats and the behavior of waves. Glad he likes it so much, it’s nice to have a new sport I can do together with him!

One of the areas where I see major disruption happening over the next years is the banking industry. Most major banks are still living in the 20th century and don’t seem to realize that start-ups will turn their traditional industry upside down. Probably many feel are not only too big to fail, but also too big to change. Or more likely, their employees are generally too risk averse to innovate.

I looked at various business models and think that peer to peer (p2p) lending will be a game changer. In the US Lending Club is the leading player in this field and I wrote about them a couple of times already on this blog. They are killing it and got an investment from Google at a $1.55 billion valuation a few months ago. On the secondary market investors are willing to pay even higher prices for their shares right now. I joined the LendIt Conference in New York City in June and was impressed by how quickly the industry is maturing.

In January I was introduced to Soul Htite, co-founder and former CTO of Lending Club. He moved to Shanghai 2 years ago to set up a Chinese version of Lending Club that he called SinoLending (点融网, www.dianrong.com). SinoLending is an online lending platform where members can borrow and lend money among themselves at better interest rates. Borrowers can get loans significantly below market rates, and lenders can earn returns well above those of bank deposits, wealth management products, trust products and other traditional fixed-income investments.

One problem I have encountered many times over the past years, is that companies or individuals are not able to get bank loans. Even if the company is doing well and only needs a temporary loan, the banks are not able (or not willing) to gives these loans. This is a major problem for China’s growth and it’s an important reason why the whole shadow banking industry developed in China. SinoLending can help to solve this problem.

SinoLending’s proprietary and state of the art technology gives the company a huge advantage over traditional banks by reducing the cost of customer acquisition, underwriting, fund managements, bad debt collections, regulatory compliance, and reporting. Better rates and better returns are now a reality in China. As a lender you get returns of on average 15-20% per year, much higher than you get anywhere else, and even a lot higher than I get on my Lending Club loans. Take a look at some of their currently available loans at http://www.dianrong.com/browse/browse. Anybody in China can sign up and immediately invest in loans, even if you just want to put a few hundred Renminbi in.

View from the SinoLending/Dianrong offices in Shanghai

I looked at several China based p2p platforms and think SinoLending is by far the most professional with an excellent back-end system (similar to Lending Club) and a great Chinese management team. Although there is a big regulatory risk in China I believe this company can become the leader in this space because of Soul’s previous experience, because of his strong team and because of their good local connections. Therefore I am happy to announce that after a few months of advising the company I now formally joined the SinoLending board, so I can help the company even better to achieve its goals.

Good luck to the Sinolending/Dianrong team and let’s make this a huge success together!

If you read Chinese, Forbes China had a good article on SinoLending in its issue from July 15.

On Saturday Marcel Ekkel and I went for a long hike on Hong Kong Island, doing the main part of the Hong Kong Trail. We started in Big Wave Bay / Shek O, on the far eastern end of HK Island, which is officially the end of the trail. Main reason was that it would be a sunny and very hot day (up to 35 degrees) and the western part of HK Island has a lot more shade than the eastern part, so it would be better to spend the hottest part of the day on partly covered trails.

I have done a lot of hikes with Marcel over the years (among others in preparation for the Trailwalker), and I like to hike with him. We’re both in decent shape and during our hikes we talk for hours about everything, from work to private life, and from politics to social issues. Marcel came to pick me up at my hotel at 7:30 AM and after discussing some logistics we took a cab to Big Wave Bay. In the taxi I had a quick breakfast (Japanese cakes from 7 Eleven) and at 8:15 we were at the start of the trail.

I had never been to this part of the island and I was impressed by the beautiful sandy beaches and the fact that there was hardly anybody else. Partly because it was so early of course, but during the whole day on the trail we hardly met any other people. That’s the same all over the world, people tend to stay in areas that they know, and when you are more than 2 km from the nearest parking lot you hardly see anybody anymore. I think a lot of people don’t realize how beautiful Hong Kong’s nature is and what they are missing out on.

The hike was pretty tough, not only because of the distance (we hiked 35 km), but also because we had to climb several mountains. And especially because of the heat: after about 20 km we had to hike over 2 hills that had no shade whatsoever and where there was no wind either. It felt like 50 degrees (and maybe it was actually) and I kept on drinking to stay hydrated. When we took a break after 25 km I realized I had drunk 7 liters already (a mix of water, Japanese sports drink and apple juice).

After the break we came closer to urban areas but the trails were still great, and luckily a lot more covered. When we were above Wanchai we noticed that it was getting cloudy and when we hiked a bit further we felt that it might start to rain soon. So after 30 km we decided to leave the trail and hike to the top of the hill and then down on the other side to Bowen Road and Central. We ended the day at the hotel pool and hot tub with cold beer and chilled white wine, a perfect way to end a sportive day.

It was once again a great trail hike through the Hong Kong hills. Very different from the ones I do in Vancouver, but certainly as nice. I realize that because I do so many trail runs these days, hiking up mountains is now much easier for me than just a few months ago. Good to know and a a good reason to keep on running and hiking the British Columbia trails after this trip.

We spent a couple of days in Hong Kong with the family, I put more pictures of the trip in this set on Flickr.

Flying back to Beijing on Air China

After 4 months of living in Vancouver we planned to spend part of our summer holiday in China. To be honest, I was not looking forward to go back. The weather in July is fantastic in British Columbia and there are still so many things that I wanted to see or do close to our new home. But my wife and kids really wanted to see their family and I also wanted to catch up with some friends and set up some business meetings, so I decided to join them.

Beijing Olympic Forest Park and its 10 km running track on a hot summer day without pollution

We arrived in Beijing a week ago and the weather was almost as good as in Vancouver: temperatures in the lower 30s Celsius and a clear blue sky. When we had drinks with friends in a Houhai courtyard one night we could even see the stars – quite unusual in the middle of Beijing. Of course the weather did not stay long like this and when I opened the curtains in our apartment on the 3rd day Scott immediately asked me why it was so polluted outside.

Houhai area in Beijing

But interestingly I did not mind the pollution that much anymore. While we were living in Shanghai I hated it, especially because I could not run outside and the kids often could not play in the outdoor playground at school. I guess the big difference is that I knew this will be only for a few days (or weeks) before we would be back in a country that does not need to measure its air pollution. I even went for a long run in the smog when it was a bit less severe (just over the 150 level, which is merely ‘unhealthy’), something I never did in Shanghai.

Generally I liked Beijing a lot better during the past week than I had imagined. The traffic jams were as bad as always, or maybe even worse. But we had arranged a car with driver and  had enough time, so it did not matter too much and I managed to read 2 books in the back seat while crawling through the city. Traffic is a lot worse than in Shanghai, I could never drive here myself anymore. In Vancouver I love driving, most days I open the top of my convertible while driving to and from the office, even when it’s cold. But driving a cabriolet in Beijing would be a waste of money, or at least extremely unhealthy.

There are so many cars in Beijing that people park in the middle of the street

One night we did not have our car and had to take a taxi from dinner at the North 4th Ring Road to drinks with friends at Centro. It was raining and impossible to find a cab, the few that were available refused to take rides. Very different from when I lived her in the early 2000s, I suppose the taxi fares are still way too low so there is no incentive to take passengers on a rainy night. Luckily a friend passed by and drove us to the bar. For me it would be hard to imagine living in Beijing without a car and driver, maybe I should give public transportation a try?

4D movie at the China Science & Technology Museum

Grace mainly spent time with her family and with the kids, taking them to (indoor) playgrounds, swimming pools, the Olympic Park (when the weather was still nice) and to lunches with her friends. I mainly spent time at home during the day, studying for my Canadian boating license (I passed the exam last night!), doing a Spanish course to brush up on my skills (I did not speak or study Spanish in almost 20 years), and to read a book on Canadian corporate tax law (which sounds more boring than it really is).

Beijing still has a lot of great Japanese restaurants

At night we met up with lots of friends, who either live in Beijing or were here on business trips. Among others we had dinner with a group of former Mercedes-Benz colleagues, some of whom I had not seen since 2002. We went to Gary’s new house one night and I visited Gary’s new company (which among others has its own cinema, so next time I’ll bring the kids so they can watch cartoons there!). We also had some business meetings and of course had a couple of 4-hands massages at Dragonfly (they should open a branch in Vancouver, I think they will do very well there).

To my surprise I enjoyed the first week a lot more than I had imagined, a change of scenery every few months is good. I realize that I still like Beijing very much, despite all its downsides. I could not live here anymore, but it’s a place I need to come back to at least once a year. The place still has the vibe that Shanghai also has, but that Vancouver is missing.

I am having a great time at CrossPacific Capital (XPCP), learning a lot and seeing many interesting deals. So many that it may be more efficient to get some assistance. Therefore I am now looking to hire an additional personal assistant / executive assistant for our office in downtown Vancouver (we have one EA already at this moment). 

What does that mean? The person I am looking for will help to efficiently manage the day-to-day operations and  bookkeeping of our venture capital firm. You will work directly with me, but management of staff, accounting, and support of management or other staff is also required. You may also work with some of the start-ups that we incubate in our office.

Position Requirements

• Three to five years in administrative support in a corporate or start-up environment, with two years support at the executive level.
• Experience in an investment banking or VC/PE environment a plus.
• Minimum of a Business Admin degree from a recognized University (SFU, UBC or equivalent educational institution in Canada or abroad).
• MBA a plus
• Fluency and proficiency in the English language, with a preference for a candidate who also speaks another language (esp. Chinese would be a big plus considering our activities in China)
• Certification in accounting and bookkeeping
• Overseas experience a plus
• Ability to respect at all times the confidential nature of the work and information in the Executive’s office
• Ability to be available 24/7.  Max 1 hr response time to calls, sms and email during working hours, 24 hrs response time during non working hours
• Communication: Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Needs Assessment: Anticipate, understand, and respond to the needs of members and other clients to meet or exceed their expectations.
• Teamwork: Work cooperatively and effectively with others to set goals, resolve problems, and make decisions to enhance organizational effectiveness; ability to undertake self-directed tasks when necessary.
• Organization: Excellent time management skills; attention to detail; the capacity to prioritize by assessing situations to determine urgency; ability to develop a work schedule, set goals, create / implement actions plans and monitor progress towards goals; and ability to make clear, timely decisions.

If you are interested in this position or have any questions, you can get in touch with me at marc@xpcp.ca. If you decide to apply for the job send us your resume and a short motivation. Please also indicate your expected salary level. 

For a couple of weeks I have been looking at Bitcoins. First more out of curiosity, but over the last couple of days more from an investment point of view. It’s fascinating that someone managed to come up with the idea for this new currency and that he (or she? Nobody knows who was behind the original Bitcoin idea) made it into a globally accepted means of payment.

Globally is relative of course, but in most countries of the world there are at least some merchants accepting bitcoins. Not a lot though: today there are just 12 companies accepting bitcoins in Vancouver for example. But I believe this will change, and therefore I see a huge opportunity.  Because hardly anybody uses bitcoins the demand is relatively low compared to supply. The supply side will certainly go up a lot over the next years (more people will buy or build bitcoin miners), but because it will get harder to mine every day (that’s part of how bitcoins work) I expect that demand will go up a lot more.

As an economist I see a big opportunity here: if supply is constrained and demand will go up it means that bitcoins may easily be worth 10, 100 or even 1000 times as much as their current value. Don’t underestimate what can happen it bitcoins would really become a global currency: in 2010 someone bought a pizza for 10,000 bitcoins, just 3 years later those bitcoins are worth USD 1 million. I hope the pizza maker kept them in his bitcoin account!

Of course there are a lot of risks. Maybe the theory behind bitcoins has a critical flaw that nobody thought about. Possible, but more and more unlikely as time goes by. A bigger risk, however, is that governments will ban bitcoins. This is something that is actually quite likely in the US or the EU, although a global ban will be impossible because bitcoins are anonymous. But if it happens my theory about demand outstripping supply might not work, because the general public won’t use them.

The currency seems to be a lot more stable than just a few weeks ago, so this looks like a good time to take a position. Either I’ll lose my complete investment or I’ll make a mega-return. No risk no fun, just like in my daily life as a venture capitalist!