The Hard Part with Evan McCann

Alex Barrett is the Co-Founder and CEO of Meroka , Alex is also the Co-Founder and General Partner at Boon Fund . Meroka's mission is to make independent practice ownership the default path for physicians in all specialties. Meroka believes that care delivered in the independent setting produces superior patient outcomes at a lower cost. By breaking down barriers to successfully operate an ind...

Fatima Zaidi is the Founder and CEO of Quill, a Lecturer at the University of Toronto and Co-Chair of Tech4SickKids. Quill is an award-winning podcast production agency, specializing in branded content and podcast marketing. They produce podcasts for enterprise-level brands that are looking for content that achieves maximum impact and results. Working with companies like PwC, Expedia, Emergent Bio...

Sang Lê was the Co-Founder and CEO of Peko (acquired by Fresh Prep ). Peko is Western Canada’s first “peculiar” & surplus grocery delivery service, on a mission to fight food waste. As of February 2023, they became a part of Fresh Prep Foods - Canada’s most sustainable meal kit delivery service. Takeaways Effectively leveraging internships. Genesis story behind Peko. How to find advisors and m...

Tarun Sachdeva is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gitwallet . Gitwallet is a toolkit for open-source maintainers to commercialize their services for their repos and ecosystems. We help leading maintainers create robust support offerings, sell across channels, and grow their businesses. Tarun also has some great writing on his blog. Takeaways What makes UWaterloo and the co-op program so legendary. Worki...

Shawn Adrian is the Founder of Input Logic . Input Logic is a digital product studio in Nanaimo, BC founded in 2011. They launch beautifully crafted web and mobile apps for brands and startups. Takeaways Don't be shy to talk about money and value when freelancing. Finding product-market fit requires a combination of timing, luck, and intuition. Building a great product studio involves talent r...

Faye Pang is the Canadian Country Manager at Xero. Xero  is a global small business platform with 3.95 million subscribers which includes a core accounting solution, payroll, workforce management, expenses and projects. Xero also has an extensive ecosystem of connected apps and connections to banks and other financial institutions helping small businesses access a range of solutions from within Xe...

Vasu Nadella is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vital Bio. Vital Biosciences has raised $48M+ from Sam Altman, Lachy Groom, Marc Benioff, Northpond Ventures, Labcorp, Inovia Capital and Route 66 Ventures. Vital is bringing to market its revolutionary blood-testing product, the VitalOne. A compact device the size of a desktop computer, VitalOne conducts more than 50 lab-grade test results (95% of routine...

Raquel Urtasun is the Founder and CEO of Waabi . Waabi is an AI company building the next generation of self-driving technology. With a world-class team and an innovative approach that unleashes the power of AI to “drive” safely in the real world, Waabi is bringing the promise of self-driving closer to commercialization than ever before. Waabi has raised $83.5M+ from leading investors including Kh...

Ryan Wilson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Walter . Walter enables modern, collaborative relationships between law firms and their clients. Their software platform dramatically and immediately reduces the unbillable, frustrating tasks across law firms so legal teams can focus on higher-value billable work. But it’s also transformative for their clients. They get on-demand digital access to their dat...

Sam Ifergan is the Founder and Managing Partner of iGan Partners. iGan Partners is the largest venture capital firm investing in Canada. They empower visionary founders with early-stage capital and the true resources required to grow extraordinary, high-impact companies in Healthcare Technology, Digital Therapeutics, Medical Devices, and Digital Health. Takeaways Investing at an early stage in med...

Stephanie Curcio is the CEO and Co-Founder of NLPatent . NLPatent is an industry-leading AI-based patent search and analytics platform trusted by Fortune 500 companies, law firms, and research universities around the world. The platform takes an AI-first approach to patent search; it's built from a proprietary LLM trained on patent data to truly understand the language of patents and innovatio...

Drew Taylor is the Co-Founder and CEO of Acorn Biolabs . Acorn has developed the world’s first non-invasive, follicle-based cell cryopreservation service and has patented cell-based treatments made from a patient’s own hair follicle cells. Takeaways Moving from playing MLB baseball to doing his PhD. Regenerative medicine is needed to address the limitations of prosthetics and improve patient outco...

Andre Charoo is the Founder and General Partner of Maple VC . Maple backs founders with Canadian roots...because they build category-defining companies. Andre was the 25th employee at Uber. He is a Venture Partner at Inovia and Co-Chair of The C100. Takeaways How Andre raised his first $1M fund and executed his unique Canadian-focused thesis. What it is like fundraising as an emerging solo GP. Tre...

Cindy Diogo-Kociuba is the Co-Founder of Consoul . Consoul is a family caregiver wellness platform. Their mission is to connect family caregivers to the resources, learning and support they need to focus on them. Their distinctive approach combines respite services, caregiver learning, and access to resources to tackle burnout directly in one place. Takeaways Misconceptions about talent acquisitio...

Jim Estill is the CEO and President of Danby Appliances . Jim's resume is impressive: Founder of EMJ Data (acquired by SYNNEX) Founding Board Member of BlackBerry Angel in 150+ startups like Miovision, Clearpath Robotics (acquired by Rockwell Automation), PostRank (acquired by Google) and Well.ca Founding member of Communitech Order of Ontario and Order of Canada Active philanthropist Takeaway...

Simran Kang is the Founder and CEO of MyFO . MyFO is an easy-to-use platform to help you start and grow a family office. Our net worth snapshot, curated guidance and personalized workflows help you securely manage and safe-keep all important information pertaining to your growing family office. Takeaways Working at a Big Four firm like PWC provides valuable insights into various businesses and bui...

Peter Faist is the Founder and CEO of Staffy . Staffy is an online, on-demand platform that connects experienced workers with businesses who need their skills on a short- or long-term basis. Using a proprietary mobile and web app, contractors work when they want and businesses hire only when there’s a need. Managing everything from recruitment and vetting to scheduling and payment, Staffy is simpl...

Sylvia Ng is the CEO of ReturnBear, a platform for circular e-commerce logistics. With over 18 years of experience in technology, Sylvia noticed a gap in the e-commerce industry, where retail returns were costly and difficult for merchants. Now, Sylvia is on a mission to make retail returns accessible for everyone, and better for the planet. Sylvia has worked at eBay and Google, and most recently...

Andrew Kim is the CEO and Co-Founder of SHARE . SHARE is a real estate investment company that streamlines the end-to-end process of buying and managing high-return single-family rental homes on behalf of investors in the US, Canada, and abroad. They make investing in and owning real estate as easy as stocks by enabling investors to reap the benefits of real estate ownership without the burden of...

Maxime Courchesne is a VC Investment Manager at Investissement Québec (IQ) . Investissement Québec is the go-to partner for foreign and Québec-based businesses seeking to make a go of it in the province. Working out of 17 offices across Québec and 12 more around the world, their experts have a thorough understanding of your business environment and the unique challenges that Quebec founders face....

Akash Vaswani is a General Partner at Velocity Fund . Velocity Fund is a pre-seed fund spun out of the University of Waterloo to invest in world-changing companies at the earliest stage. Waterloo grads have started companies like Databricks, Instacart, Faire, Substack, PagerDuty, Top Hat, ApplyBoard, D2L, Avidbots, BufferBox (acquired by Google), Kik, North (Formerly Thalmic Labs, Acquired by Goog...

Lewis Wynne-Jones is the VP Product at ThinkData Works. ThinkData Works unlocks the value of external data to grow your business. Connect seamlessly to any source, drive critical insights, and deliver data while retaining visibility and control. Flexible data connections, an intuitive catalogue interface, and a suite of enrichment tools securely deliver data where it needs to be — inside or outsid...

Amodini Chhabra is an Investor at Compass Digital Ventures . Compass Digital Ventures is the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) arm of Compass Group. They invest in Seed and Series A startups at the intersection of food, retail, and hospitality technology. Their area of interest include frontline employee experience, automation, sustainability tech, restaurant management, convenience economy, omnicha...

Rachel Wong is the Co-Founder of Monday Girl . Monday Girl is the first private members club focused on supporting and connecting next-generation women leaders. Monday Girl offers: A powerful network of like-minded professionals who can offer guidance, support, and valuable connections Resources, programming, and mentorship opportunities that can help you grow and develop as a leader in your respe...

Alex McIsaac is the Founder and General Partner of Northside Ventures . Northside Ventures is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture capital firm backing exceptional Canadian founders in the US and Canada with unique insights derived from past experiences that serve as a competitive advantage in their next venture. They invest in a founder’s first round of external capital, often at the point of compan...