Bit Space Development a true success story

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This article was published 30/06/2023 (1169 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dan Blair, the founder and owner of Bit Space Development, has gone outside the company to hire a new CEO to help lead it in its next stage of growth.

Blair will become chief technology officer of the interactive digital media company that has built up a solid business producing specialized training — often using virtual reality — for the construction trades industries.

Taking over as CEO is Dave Olynyk, the former founder and owner of AccuCare, a medical device company that specialized in compression therapy body garments.

That company was sold in 2020. Olynyk was retired for a short while and met Blair at a trade show for the Construction Safety Association of Manitoba.

“I was really impressed with what I saw they were doing,” said Olynyk.

They started talking about doing some work together and then Blair said he realized Bit Space was looking to do the kind of development that Olynyk was already experienced at.

“We’re at an inflection point for the company,” said Blair. “I am a computer science grad from RRC… literally a business school dropout. I’m happy to know I can grow a company to the size I have. That said we are at a growth point for the company which makes it critical that we have the right people in the right positions.”

When Bit Space Development (BSD) started, in 2015 right after Blair graduated — the company worked with RRC Polytech students on some of its first projects — virtual reality was experiencing its first round of hype. (Facebook acquired the VR headset company, Oculus for US$2 billion in 2014.)

But rather than embark on lengthy speculative development into the gaming side of things, Blair headed into the construction industry training space early on.

He said, although he’s a big supporter of the startup sector, Blair himself avoided the dynamic others take of just getting enough of an idea together to be able to raise money… and then find paying customers. Blair went out and found customers first and then built solutions for them.

Since then he’s built a company with close to 40 full-time employees and many other co-op students and interns. The company now occupies 6,000 square feet in a nondescript industrial park and it’s now doing business with construction safety councils and industry players across the country.

“We now have the team, the reputation, the history and the clients and it was all done without wasting other people’s money along the way,” he said.

But with projects currently under- way with big-name companies in the railroad industry, utilities, aerospace and defence, Blair said the focus is on building up the company’s sales and support capacity to better service larger clients.

Olynyk will be tasked with building out the sales team and also begin the process of raising additional capital to fund upcoming growth.

But while courting the Fortune 500 companies, Blair said the company will remain committed to the training work and work with non-profits.

In addition to its VR industrial training products, Bit Space has been doing work with Indigenous organizations including an award-winning Indigenous language training project where it teamed with Georgian College.

Olynyk’s previous business, which included a significant software development component, gave him plenty of experience in the capital markets space and dealing with larger corporations.

He believes that Bit Space has plenty of potential.

“Dan is a humble guy,” Olynyk said. “They have all this great technology that he has kept fairly close-knit. But now there is an opportunity to share it with the world with a technology that is advancing so rapidly. What a fantastic opportunity for everyone involved.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca