Venture capitalist Boris Wertz got the investing bug as a teenager growing up in Germany when he entered the local bank’s stock-picking contest. He didn’t make much virtual money, but the wins and losses were intriguing enough for him to start following the stock listings in the local newspaper.
After earning degrees in business and logistics at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Mr. Wertz decided to skip the corporate world and pursue entrepreneurship. In 1999, he started his first business: JustBooks, an online marketplace for used and out-of-print books. It was bought by Victoria-based AbeBooks two years later. Mr. Wertz and his co-founder Hannes Blum stayed on and moved to British Columbia from Germany to run it. In 2008, they sold it to Amazon. Mr. Wertz used the proceeds to become a full-time investor. In 2012, he started Version One Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in technology startups across North America. He spoke to the Globe recently about the difference between being an investor and an entrepreneur:
