Founder Notes #4 - No One Believed in It at the Beginning

Looking back at the early days of the Canada Bubble Tea Festival (back when it was still called the Vancouver Bubble Tea Festival), it honestly feels a bit surreal.

A lot of people see the festival today and assume it started as something big.

But that wasn’t the case at all.

At the time, I had only organized a few events.

My biggest experience was probably a gala banquet with just over 300 people.

When it came to festivals or large-scale outdoor events,

I knew absolutely nothing.

No experience.

No team.

No funding.

So when I started telling people I wanted to create a bubble tea festival,

most reactions were pretty similar.

“How are you going to pull that off?”

No experience, no resources, no team—

to most people, it just didn’t seem possible.

To be honest, I wasn’t thinking that big either.

My goal was actually very simple.

If more than 1,000 people showed up, I would already consider it a success.

But on the day of the first festival,

people just kept coming.

At first, we thought maybe a few thousand.

But when we looked at the final numbers,

over 20,000 people showed up.

Some things only feel incredible when you look back at them.

Back then, a lot of people didn’t believe it would happen.

And honestly, I don’t think I fully imagined it either—

that it would become what it is today.

But sometimes, once an idea begins,

it starts to grow on its own.

And all you can do

is keep building it, one step at a time.

——Eric Yang

Founder of Canada Bubble Tea Festival