Float or Founder: Toronto Startup Business Stories

Mark Ang, co-founder and CEO, of Second Closet joins us this week. He discusses the unscalable early days of creating their storage company and how they grinded through those challenges. If you're curious on what goes on behind-the-scenes of early day startups, Mark has incredible insights into what him and his co-founders faced!

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

Nunzio Presta runs a business of helping you sell your business with the company he is the CEO of, BizOn. He takes us through the selling process, the best way to approach selling your business, how to buy a business, why people sell, and so much more. He provides really interesting insights into operating this type of marketplace and how it began.

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

Marsha Druker of F*ckupNights talks to us about building a community and what it takes to really form a meaningful one. In light of COVID, she talks about taking a community that typically met in-person to a virtual one.

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

Starting a new business anywhere is a challenge - but especially if you need a physical space to operate in. Dr. Bryan Gelman runs Yonge & St. Clair Veterinary Hospital. He delved into the tricky world of Toronto commercial real estate, navigating a property sale, and turning the place into his ideal veterinary practice.

Dr. Gelman truly values his clients and their furry family members. He shared best practices for maintaining social distancing when you have pets to keep everyone safe as well as some socialization techniques for those new furry family members!

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

Back in April 2020, Techstars Global Startup Weekend COVID-19 Online CANADA took place. People from across the country joined this hackathon-style weekend virtually to help accomplish goals surrounding COVID-19. Float or Founder offered a podcast episode as a prize and from there, this special edition episode was created!

In this episode, you'll meet Danielle Torrie, an organizer for the event, plus Bruno Morency who was a judge. Members and leaders from the three winning teams also participated. Introducing Kelsey Muller & Michaela Moore and Omar Mohamed of RestAssured, Sabahat Naureen: Pharos, and Nino Melikidze & Sean Huang of HealthBot.

Congratulations to everyone who participated. Thank you to Sunil Sharma and Rob Foxall for organizing the podcast episode with us and to the entire Techstars team for putting together this virtual startup weekend.

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

Eric Vardon now operates Morphio.ai, an artificial intelligence company for digital marketers. This all grew from his many years operating a digital agency. Eric discusses marketing during COVID and beyond.

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

Shrad Rao built Wagepoint from a unique perspective: seeing a strategic alignment between a product all businesses need and a desire to modernize an older industry. He took on payroll, alongside his co-founders, and they have helped small businesses handle their payroll needs in a modern way. Shrad's company has always been remote-first and he shares exactly what they do to build and maintain a positive and social remote work culture.

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

Launching a marketplace can be difficult in the best times. How are Kate Dickson and Sarah Hartkorn, co-founders of Primped handling their bring-beauty-to-you app during COVID? If you need advice on managing a marketplace during challenging times, tune in! 🎙️ These former finance professionals discuss how they started the company together and how their corporate background supports the work they do.

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

Jodi Kovitz, founder of #MoveTheDial takes us through the challenges her organization faced during COVID-19 and how she turned these experiences into new projects to lead. Now, Jodi has published her book Go Out Of Your Way and her podcast Joyful Sundays went live on June 14th 2020. We had a lot of fun catching up with Jodi and discuss how you can go out of your way for others during social distancing.

Book: https://shop.movethedial.com/products/go-out-of-your-way-book
Season 1 episode: https://www.floatorfounder.com/episode/jodi-kovitz-move-the-dial

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)

"At some point, you have to ask for it."

 Colin Hennigar is the VP of Major Gifts of SickKids Foundation. He talks about fundraising tips for non-profits and startups alike, whether during COVID-19 or not. Colin goes in-depth about how their foundation keeps investors up-to-date on where their charity goes. He shares how the charitable and giving acts of Canadians and around the globe has positively impacted SickKids Foundation. He also discusses Tech4SickKids and the foundation's new podcast!

Support the show (https://www.floatorfounder.com/partners)