We did it! We finally got our business license. Wohoo! But man, the road to this milestone wasn’t easy. As my first blog post, I want to share the journey with you — raw, real, and maybe a bit ridiculous.
Migrating to Canada? Challenging.
Migrating to Canada and opening a business at the same time? You’d have to be an idiot like me to try it. Looking back, I probably should’ve waited a bit longer… but hey, life happens.
When my wife, our 1-year-old son, and I arrived in Vancouver last November, I thought finding a spot for a tattoo shop in this massive city would be a breeze. Spoiler alert: I was dead wrong.
I won’t bore you with the details of how terrible most places were or how maddening it was to deal with agents. But seriously, the back-and-forth process? My agent talks to the landlord’s agent, who then talks to the landlord. Then the reverse happens. Who invented this convoluted system?! Why can’t I just talk to the landlord directly? Jesus.
Eventually, I rented a place in Gastown in April. Long story short: a few weeks in, I ran into drama with some previous tattoo artists (maybe I’ll make a separate post on that). I moved out, and the cost of getting out of the lease? A cool $8,000 CAD. If you ever want to blow 8k fast, I’m your guy.
In July, I signed the lease for our current shop. At that point, I was so desperate that when the landlord only offered one month of free rent (instead of the typical three), I took it. My fault. I told them I needed the space urgently and was ready for anything.
The place needed just three sinks installed. How hard could that be, right?
Yeah… I should’ve known better.
There’s a term — Yak Shaving — for when one task unravels into ten more, and you lose track of what you were even doing. That was me. To get a license, I needed an inspection. For the inspection, I needed sinks. To install the sinks, I needed a building permit. To get the permit, plumbing plans. For the plans, an engineer. To get the plans? Landlord permission. You get the idea.
I finished renovating in three weeks. The other three months? Paid full rent while I waited for bureaucracy. Three inspections just to approve the sinks: one for the plumber, one for the engineer, and one from the city.
Three inspections? Seriously?
At one point, the engineer told me, “This water tank might fall during an earthquake; a seismic engineer needs to sign off.” Despite it being bolted to the ceiling with four massive bolts.
Fine. I called a seismic engineer. He walked in, climbed a ladder, took a 10-second look, climbed down, and said, “I’ll sign off. That’ll be $550 plus tax.” And left. Five minutes. That was it.
Finally, on December 11, we got our business license. Valid until… December 31. Twenty freakin’ days. Why not just give me a year-long license?
By then, most of the artists I’d been counting on had found other work. And my savings? Gone. We had to borrow money from our parents, and I was left with nothing but a hope that this shop would somehow take off. Not exactly a solid business plan.
I know this sounds dark — and it was. But I share this because I believe in transparency. The struggle was real, but every setback taught me something valuable.
If you’re opening a business, I hope my experience saves you some headaches. If you’re my client, know this: every challenge we’ve overcome makes our service stronger and more resilient.
Thanks for reading. This journey is just beginning, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.
Alex
