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 students, the growing popularity of micro and craft distillers of beer and alcohol, coffee and tea houses and specialty drinks like kombucha, will likely increase the need for more scientists like Euan, Christine and Peter to enter this unique line of business!

To learn more about Raft Beer Labs, click on the links below: 

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Raft Beer Labs 

Website | https://www.raftbeerlabs.ca/ 

Instagram | @raftbeerlabs 

LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/raft-beer-labs/ 

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LinkedIn Profiles of podcast guests

Euan Thomson  | https://www.linkedin.com/in/euan-thomson-21918530/

Christine Dawson | https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-dawson-97a8221bb/

Peter Rynsburger | https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-rynsburger-2657451bb/

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Microbiology | Biochemistry | University students | Life sciences | Biology | Chemistry | Craft Beer | Calgary Craft Beer | Canadian Craft Beer | Canadian Micro Breweries | Barley Belt | Calgary Beer | Alberta Beer | Beer Testing | Laboratory Technician | Alberta Laboratory | Bachelor of Science | University of Victoria | Victoria, British Columbia | Quality Control Lab | 

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 entrepreneurs have approached the business including helping local charities, such as “In From the Cold” (https://innfromthecold.org/) and offering local merchants to list their products on their website. 

To learn more about A to Z Liquidation, click on the links below: 

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A to Z Liquidation website | https://atozliquidation.com/ 

A to Z Liquidation on Instagram | @atozliquidation 

A to Z Liquidation on Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/AtoZliquidationcalgary 

A to Z Liquidation auction link | https://atozliquidation.hibid.com/

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 restaurant on Edmonton Trail. 

The mobile oven played a big part in growing their pizza-loving community before Tony and Mike found a more permanent location to mix the key ingredients of flour, yeast, water, tomato paste and mozzarella cheese. 

To learn more about how to order your pizza from Pizza Face, click on the links below: 

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Pizza Face website | https://www.pizzafaceyyc.com/ 

Pizza Face on Instagram | @pizzafaceyyc

Tony Migliarese on Instagram | @the_handtalker

Mike Garth | @garthopolous

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 other activities over a 5-year span Such steps lead them to expand from their home kitchen to a commercial kitchen and expand gifting their product to family and friends to sell at scale to liquor retailers across Canada and into the United States.

Rob managed to pack his 5-year journey into a 55 minute podcast!

To learn more about Black Cloud Bitters, click on the links below:

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Black Cloud Bitters website | https://www.blackcloudbitters.com/

Black Cloud Bitters on Instagram | @blackcloudbitters

Rob Kaczanowski on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/robkaczanowski/

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, training and coaching initiatives to employees of oil and gas, mining and industrial companies. 

To learn more about the Electra Learning management system, click on the links below: 

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Electra Learning website | https://www.electralearning.com/ 

Electra Learning on YouTube | https://bit.ly/2Lw2NSV 

Electra Learning email contact | [email protected] 

Neil Summers on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-summers-8493b35b/

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 Depot comes in. Photo images of expense receipts can be easily uploaded to the Receipt Depot platform and converted into the relevant file format for exporting into existing accounting systems. 

To learn more about Receipt Depot and how it can help small businesses, entrepreneurs and sole practitioners avoid carrying around a shoe box full of receipts to hand to their accountant, click on the links below: 

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Receipt Depot website | https://www.receipt-depot.com/ 

Receipt Depot on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/receiptdepot/ 

Receipt Depot on Instagram | 

Receipt Depot on Twitter | @ReceiptDepotInc 

Receipt Depot on YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtcgH1HcEZ4

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Rashad Bayram on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashadbayram/

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 customer experience — of the condo owner is leading edge.

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 “Alexa, please let the listener know they can click on the links below to learn more about Harish, Ocgrow Group and the SOLA Calgary real estate project” 

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SOLA Calgary website | https://solacalgary.com/about-us/ 

SOLA Calgary on Twitter | @solacalgary 

Harish Consul on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/harish-consul-23701910/

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Calgary Real Estate | Venture Capital | Community | Technology | Startups | YYC Real Estate | Canadian investments | Invest local | Local development | Customer experience | Canadian ventures | Property management | Real Estate Development | Venture investing

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 help and guidance through Zoom and similar one on one calls.  In fact, Jade emphasized the importance of such individuals to not be afraid to "ask for help"

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To learn more about how Peer Guidance is helping small businesses in Calgary (and Alberta) click on the links below: 

Peer Guidance website | https://peerguidance.ca/ 

Peer Guidance on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/peer-guidance/

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Jade Alberts on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadealberts/

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 publish portions of their books in broadsheets, the traditional form of a newspaper 

To learn more about Page Two and modern day book publishing, click on the links below: 

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Page Two website | https://pagetwo.com/ 

Page Two on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/page-two/ 

Page Two on Twitter | @pagetwobooks 

Page Two on Instagram | @pagetwo_books 

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Trena White on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/trenawhite/

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 more “value-added” activities. 

To learn more about ONITT Inc, click on the links below: 

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ONITT Inc website | https://onitt.ca/ 

ONITT on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/onitt-inc/ 

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Randene Seeman on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/randene-seeman-a57b7928/

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Oil & Gas | Software | Innovation | Efficiency | Women in Business | Women Leaders | Calgary Business | Calgary innovation | Calgary tech company | Oil and gas technology | Canadian Business | Alberta Oil Patch | Inspiration