Float or Founder: Toronto Startup Business Stories

Ryan Shupak is the co-founder of Jiffy, a service that allows you to get on-demand contractors to your home. Building a marketplace always comes with its own set of challenges. The supply side, the contractors, are already doing the work so building up this marketplace was a bit easier and more unique than others.The early day grind of getting sign ups took this former investment b

Shawna Stewart is the VP of People and Operations at PostBeyond, a tech startup in Toronto. Being in charge of the operations and people part of any company is a tall order. Shawna's favourite task is to create inclusive and positive policies. In light of Black Lives Matter especially, she believes it is important to take another look at policies and revamp those that have bia

David Lloyd recorded this episode with Neil Wainright in mid-2019 but never had the opportunity to publish it... until now! David Lloyd takes over the Float or Founder podcast to discuss "the grind" it takes to run a tech startup and turn it into a solid company. David comes from an extensive background in the tech industry in Toronto and is currently the CEO of PostBeyon

What does it take to launch a business in Canada? Kayla Isabelle has had the pleasure of seeing companies from launch through success many times as Executive Director of Startup Canada. She takes us through the joy of coaching and mentoring startups and the similarities she sees between leaders. What does every entrepreneur need? Passion and grit.Kayla takes us through how COVID-19

Diana Goodwin launched Aquamobile eight years ago - a business enabling swim instructors to do at-home lessons on-the-go. Their internal management tool of these instructors and customers/lessons led her to launching Marketbox to other companies facing labour deployment and management challenges. In essense, Aquamobile became a customer of Marketbox!The journey of balancing two com

Many people think marketing is fluffy but (especially in the tech industry) it's anything but. Marketing is creative, experimental, and data-driven. How do you write copy that connects? How do you create ads that converts? You need to test a hypothesis and see the data to build the most successful marketing strategies.Sarah Stockdale takes us on her decade-long career in the s

David Lloyd recorded this episode with James Novak in mid-2019 but never had the opportunity to publish it... until now! David Lloyd takes over the Float or Founder podcast to discuss "the grind" it takes to run a tech startup and turn it into a solid company. David comes from an extensive background in the tech industry in Toronto and is currently the CEO of PostBeyond.J

Running a textile factory is challenging but Kathy Cheng of WS & Co. and Redwood Classics Apparel takes us into the world of vertical integration. She shares how her family moved to Canada and started this company to promote made-in-Canada goods. She discusses how they're making fashion accessible through their Redwood Classics Apparel brand and the importance of sustainab

Derek Manuge is the co-founder, Director, and CEO of Corl.io - a revenue sharing and investment company. He shows us the different types of funding opportunities for businesses and how he came up with the idea of using data to make equitable and fair investment decisions. There is a lot of math that goes into the underlying software! Derek shares the importance of choosing the righ

Faye Almeshaan is the Program Manager and Venture Associate of Acceleprise. Acceleprise is a B2B software accelerator program and investment firm based in San Francisco and Toronto. She talks about how companies pivoted and grew out of COVID and what the investment scene is like. If you're a B2B startup looking to join an accelerator, you can follow along with the current coho