In their younger days, Vancouver natives Sebastian Jacob and John Reid worked as carpenters but often lacked a reliable way to find consistent work.
“We wanted to give anyone a chance to find a job in construction and make it super easy to apply,” Mr. Reid adds. Adapting a product for a market on the other end of the continent, even a tech product, isn’t as easy as flipping a switch or adding a few lines of code, but the opportunity was too big to ignore. Starting in 2019, the co-founders say they spent months engaged in reconnaissance, research and paperwork, taking frequent trips to Texas to explore the market. Unfortunately, they soon discovered their success in Canada didn’t count for much on the other side of the border.
Faber still relies on the Vancouver market – where it facilitated jobs for more than a thousand workers last year – for about two-thirds of its volume. Still, the company sees Texas – where it placed 500 workers in 2021 – and the surrounding region as a primary source of future growth in the short and medium term.
“One thing that we haven’t figured out yet is how much of an actual physical presence we need to have in these launch markets versus doing remote launches from here,” Mr. Jacob says. “There are pros and cons to each scenario.”