To discover what's different about the startup community in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Startup Edmonton's CEO, Tiffany Linke-Boyko suggests we start on the ground floor of the Mercer Warehouse. In "Vacancy Hall" (as the ground floor pop-up retail space is known) entrepreneurs can rent space month-to-month as a way to test or introduce new products or meet customers. Online lifestyle company, The Skinny moved into Vacancy Hall primarily as a way for their existing customers to pick-up orders offline. During the Vacancy Hall tenancy, The Skinny's founder saw a larger need for her customers to come together and see her more often, so this spring, she left Vacancy Hall and scaled her offline presence into a larger, permanent retail storefront in a local mall.
