The Loew Down

She walked into rooms nobody invited her to. Cold called every single day selling a technology most people had never seen. Heard no more times than she can count. And kept going anyway. Alex Graham is the founder of Me-Tour, a Hamilton company building 3D virtual tours for businesses, schools, and healthcare spaces. Think Google Street View, but for the inside of a building. She started it during...

She's spent two decades in pediatric medical and mental health and she still has to convince parents she's worth paying for. Michelle McVittie is a certified child life specialist and parenting coach behind Mom the Manager, and the recurring parenting expert on CHCH Morning Live. She works with families navigating ADHD, anxiety, and strong-willed kids — the ones therapy waitlists can&apo...

Amanda Gurman spent years being the person other women called when they finally had something they needed to say out loud. She's the host of the Honest as a Mother podcast, a three-time bestselling co-author, and the founder of Her Truth Press — a publishing house she built from scratch in Hamilton, Ontario for women who have been carrying a story they were told to keep quiet. In this convers...

Matus Baran has been the guy nobody calls unless they have to — and he’s completely fine with that. He runs Green Heat Bed Bugs Exterminators out of Hamilton, Ontario, doing 100% chemical-free heat treatment for bed bug infestations across Hamilton, Niagara, and the surrounding area. He bought the business from a guy he met in Cuba, built it from the ground up, and has been doing it for a decade....

Safiya didn't plan to open a clay studio. She planned to take a break. After 15 years in higher education, teaching, research, coaching, she quit her job, moved to Ancaster, and picked up pottery as a hobby. Something just for her. Then the job market dried up. Then she couldn't find a studio space. Then she gave herself six months, and she almost ran out of time. In this episode, Safiya...

Annette Smith of Lip Service Beauty has been through a winery fire, a year-long insurance battle, COVID, two Canada Post strikes, a tariff war — and this week, hackers wiped out eight years of her Instagram and Facebook in a single afternoon.  Annette is a certified aromatherapist and cosmetic formulator who left a corporate district manager career to build Lip Service Beauty from scratch — starti...

Holly Silenzi built Beyond the Bomb from scratch during COVID lockdown — a one-woman handmade bath bomb business out of Hamilton that became the original toy surprise bath bomb shop. Five years in, she’s one of the most respected makers in the city. Today she’s talking about something almost nobody in small business says out loud: copycats. What actually happens when someone takes what you’ve buil...

Mersina opened Lion's Heart Family Martial Arts in Ancaster when she was 21 years old — with no business background, no financial cushion, and a school that had been open for exactly one year before COVID tried to take it all away. She's been running it for seven years. She has a 4th degree black belt, has represented Team Canada at the World Championships, and has built a school around...

Kristi Grove has been running Tundra Leather on King Street East in Hamilton since 2015. The shop has been there since 1991. Her dad, Peter, built it. When he got sick and passed away, Kristi walked away from a stable finance job at McMaster University and took the reins — even though they never once talked about whether she would. In this conversation we get into how Peter started the shop, the m...

The best business advice Cassidy ever got didn't come from a book, a course, or a morning routine. It came from another small business owner who'd been exactly where she was and gave it to her straight. That's what's missing. So that's what she's building. Before you meet anyone else, meet Cassidy — former soapmaker, lip care and gift box creator, legal assistant, mom...