Calgary Business Podcast

Euan and his two colleagues, Christine Dawson and Peter Rynsburger, have the best job in the world! Not only do they get to sample hundreds of craft beers from across Alberta and neighbouring provinces, they also get to provide feedback to their customers that can help them improve the quality and possibly safety of future samples!  In the event that listeners also happen to be Microbiology s...

Omer Chaer coordinated the podcast with Abir and Aya to allow me to learn the origin story of how a shop-a-holic mother (Abir) was convinced by her book worm daughter (Aya) to start A to Z Liquidation to allow other shoppers to share this experience at one location — rather than spending hours shopping for deals at retail stores and on-line.  There is a real community feel for how these two e...

When people order a pizza in their community, it usually arrives in a cardboard box. Imagine answering the door to find two guys standing there with a 600-lb wood-fired oven, fresh dough, fresh ingredients and a bundle of wood? That isn’t quite how it happened when Tony and Mike started making pizzas out of various restaurant kitchens in the Renfrew area of Calgary, starting with the Diner Deluxe...

This is a terrific story of how two co-founders, Rob and his wife, Brandy, started experimenting in their home kitchen with making home-made bitters. Those experiments turned into researching about how to extract flavours from diffusing alcohol and herbs together; how best to package and ship the finished product; how to navigate through provincial and federal government regulations and a host of...

It is not often that a temporary 6-week project turns into a permanent 7 year relocation from Aberdeen, Scotland to Calgary, Alberta. That is what happened with Neil Summers when he agreed to an assignment for an existing client for his Scottish employer, Electra Learning. That was in 2013. Now Neil employs 16 full-time staff and numerous contract consultants to provide targeted IT learning, train...

When Rashad was working with various freelancers and tradesmen (plumbers, electricians) as a business consultant, he noticed the pain points they felt around dealing with their invoices and receipts — or rather, their lack of desire to want to deal with the accounting and bookkeeping of such receipts — it inspired him to develop a simple and effective solution to help them. That is where Receipt D...

Harish and his venture capital company, Ocgrow Group, have combined their expertise with real estate and tech in their latest condo development in Calgary, called “SOLA Project”. Given that Harish spent many years living and working in Vancouver with tech startups, it is no surprise that Ocgrow / SOLA are partnering up with Amazon and Shopify to ensure the UI/UX - or customer inter-face and custom...

Jade connects Calgary small businesses through his Facebook Live program (called “Telling It Like It is”) and with over 1 million downloads, it is not surprising that his show is booked up until March 2021. Jade also started the “Founders Coffee YCC” meetups and even though Covid has prevented many of the in person meetups in 2020, Jade ensures startups, founders and entrepreneurs continue to get...

In the age of digital books and self-publishing, Trena White and her co-founder, Jesse Finkelstein, have combined their years of experience in the publishing industry, to forge a unique relationship with the non-fiction authors they work with to bring their books to the market. In fact, Trena compares the digital age to the time in the 19th Century when authors, like Charles Dickens, used to publi...

Randene brings 20+ years of education and oil field experience into ensuring her startup, Onitt Inc, reflects solutions that deal with the “pain points” she suffered while managing projects and ensuring compliance with government regulations. In turn, the U/X or user experience, of her customers on the Onitt Inc platform will save time and allow engineers, geologists, land personnel to perform mor...

This brotherly duo is set to create a marketplace where landlords and tenants can potentially transact beyond the move-in and move-out checklists, collection of monthly rent checks and adhoc service requests that are inherent with living in a rental property. Scott and Mike are seeking to build a rental property platform that rewards renters with cashback and protects landlords from bad tenants. T...

Having a rocket science degree may or may not help when working in the financial profession but a degree in neuro science from McGill University provided Jeremy Clark with some of the core skills that have helped him be successful in his 22+ years in the financial management industry.  To learn more about the work of Jeremy Clark and CH Financial, including philanthropy work with the Calgary...

Self-employment is difficult at the best of times and if there is a lack of support during crisis periods, the challenges for such individuals increases dramatically. In fact, it was only recently that I heard about the MNP “Self-Employment” program and I thought:  “…what a terrific initiative to make available to small businesses and entrepreneurs during the Covid pandemic…”.  I quickly...

Pivoting from oil and gas has been a consistent theme on the Calgary Business Podcast. After a 17-year career as an electrical engineer, Tammam Altajar converted his hobby with flight simulation into a startup business.  §§§  To learn more about Tamman’s journey into entrepreneurship with his business, Altitude Flight Simulation, click on the links below:  Altitude Flight Simulation...

It is rare when the underlying business model seeks to help more than one party at the same time. The Nicerr platform does exactly that. It is designed to bring volunteer advisors together with entrepreneurs / small business owners to provide them with targeted guidance for a fee. In parallel, Nicerr contributes a portion of such fees to a charitable cause.  In my view, it does not stop there...

In what initially started as a hobby tutoring children on maths and sciences, Launchpad learning started offering coding courses to students in a Southeast Calgary recreation centre. Covid required them to shift virtually all classes to their on-line platform (which they named “Learning Management System”) to allow students to submit their code for immediate review and comment by instructors ...

Since 2006 or so, Eric Crowell has been coaching CEO’s and senior executives across Canada and the globe. As Eric highlighted, the first 9 months of 2020 has brought about more change and complexity than he has seen in the 10+ years that preceded this year. Eric does a wonderful job articulating some of the major trends he has seen with CEO’s and leaders as they manage through such complexity. Eri...

Colin and his team at Canadian Distribution Network benefited from an existing product (handsanitizers) and an existing network (with major  supermarket chains) to help other small businesses when Covid hit.  One example was "white labelling" a product for third parties to get them shelf space with such food retailers.  This creativity and innovation extended to the development of a...

Pivoting from a career in social services, Jason found a co-founder, Michael Knisely, to form a company focused on helping businesses reduce their environmental impact, reduce expenses and improve the efficiency of their energy consumption.  The unique feature of their platform is to require customers to pay nothing upfront for the capital costs and seek to earn their revenue by sharing in th...

Yassine provides a unique view of how he used his own personal experiences with Covid to pivot into raising funds for healthcare workers in Algeria and now coaching Canadian startups to match them with investors from private family offices in the Middle East.  §§§  To learn more about Yassine and his work, click on the links below:  Coach Business Solution | https://www.messenger.co...

Teser Technology was literally born at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic when Phil and his team brainstormed on how to sanitize their own production and fabrication facilities. This quickly led to development of a compact unit that allows for sterilizing / sanitizing of “Personal Protection Equipment” (PPE) used by healthcare workers such as face masks and medical instruments. In a short peri...

What happens when an investment banker goes rogue? He starts trading in cuff links, pocket squares and scarves for men!! He secures contracts with Italian suppliers and hedges the downside risk by offering a line of women’s scarves. Finally, he swaps ideas with his family on how to invest a portion of top line revenues into charitable programs.  §§§  To learn more about Gentleman Rogue,...

The co-founders of Bode Canada, Robert Price (CEO) and Alan Kelly (Chief Revenue Officer) referred to the “Humble Abode” as being one of the key aspects behind naming their startup. There is nothing humble about the disruption these entrepreneurs, including their fellow co-founder Jeff Jackson, have unleashed on the real estate market. Their customer focused approach has unlocked the door to treme...

Shannon and her partners used one business, the East Calgary Registry, as the inspiration to start a new tech-driven business called “Wait Well”. The trigger? Long lines during Covid and little or no information to provide her customers with an estimate of wait times. Well, the wait experience will change forever — at least for those individuals that have a mobile phone that allows for text messag...

Entrepreneurs are found in all areas of Calgary. Kinesiology classmates at the University of Calgary, the Studio Spero team turned their combined photography hobby (Justin) and a propensity to critique videography in films (Adam) into a self-learning studio of innovation and creativity.  ... Given their understanding of engaging their customers and removing the conservative barriers in the Ca...