Episode Summary:
On the Startup Calgary Podcast, we chat with Tyler Chisholm, CEO at clearmotive marketing and Host & Founder of both Collisions YYC and They Just Get it podcasts. During his time as a podcast host, Tyler has chatted with more than 100 interesting community-oriented, ecosystem builders, 85 of which were in 2020. Follow along as Tyler gives some meaningful perspective into Calgary’s innovative tech ecosystem and where he thinks it’s headed.

Interview date: December 3, 2020

Featured Guest:
Tyler Chisholm, CEO at clearmotive marketing and Host & Founder of both Collisions YYC and They Just Get it podcasts

From his days growing up in southern Quebec to his adventures as a pilot at the ripe old age of 26, Tyler’s curiosity and resourcefulness have driven him to search out an eclectic list of life experiences.

Tyler’s pursuit of his career in aviation led him to Calgary in 2000 where he found endless opportunity, none of which was a job in aviation. His passion for business led him to develop his own online health and fitness software program, (back before you could download it for free on your phone) as well as a full-service active weight loss & personal training center. This was to be the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey.

After exiting the fitness business Tyler took his new-found love of marketing and co-founded clearmotive marketing in 2007. With offices in Calgary and Toronto Tyler’s goal was to build a marketing-first agency focused on better connecting clients to their customers. As an entrepreneur, his experience told him that establishing better communication by gaining an understanding of clients’ business challenges would make the difference. With an appreciation of the impact digital transformation has on the way companies do business, Tyler’s focus has always ensured that clearmotive shapes the curve of how digital solutions can affect greater outcomes.

As host of two podcasts, They Just Get It and Collisions YYC, Tyler brings a voice to advocates, challengers and thought leaders to inspire lively dialogue and bold actions towards creating a better Calgary. A strong advocate for helping those less fortunate, he also established Red Express in 2010, a project that puts Christmas toys in the hands of kids in need. In 2012, Tyler was recognized as one of Avenue Magazine's Top 40 Under 40

Be sure to check out both Tyler’s YYC-based, fun and informative podcasts:

• Collisions YYC
• They Just Get It

 To learn more about Tyler, visit his website. 

Join Calgary's Startup Community:
Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here. 

Follow Startup Calgary on social media

Episode Title: #21 So, You Want to Work for at a Startup? – Developer

 Making the decision to work at a startup means you must roll up your sleeves and embrace the attitude that no job, or no task is too small. During the series, “So, You Want to Work for at a Startup,” we feature a few of the key and growing roles at Calgary tech startups to help answer questions like, “how can you best prepare yourself to work at a startup?” and “what should you consider when evaluating an offer?”

Interview date: August 19, 2020

Featured Speakers: 

Katherine Connolly is a Software Engineer at Neo Financial, a financial services company based in Calgary. Prior to becoming a software developer, Kat attended a liberal arts college and had a career in politics. Kat only started to think about a career in tech about three years ago while she was living in Toronto. In 2018, Kat moved back to Calgary and completed the Lighthouse Labs web development bootcamp and now works at Neo Financial. 

 Pedro Restrepo is the VP of Engineering at Knowhow, a Calgary-based tech startup that is helping US-based Blue Collar service companies to improve project profitability, customer satisfaction, staff productivity, management capacity and improve overall company performance through an intuitive ‘how-to’ hub that lives at the core of the organization. Prior to working at KnowHow, Pedro held various engineering positions at local startups like TikTiks and Calgary Scientific. Perdo is passionate about building software that solves real world problems.

Interested in working at KnowHow? Check out their current job openings.
Join Calgary's Startup Community: 

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here. 

 Follow Startup Calgary on social media 

Making the decision to work at a startup means you must roll up your sleeves and embrace the attitude that no job or no task is too small. During the series, So, You Want to Work for at a Startup, we feature a few of the key and growing roles at Calgary tech startups to help answer questions like, “how can you best prepare yourself to work at a startup?” and “what should you consider when evaluating an offer?”
 
Interview date: July 16, 2020

Featured Speakers: 

Shubh Sidhu is an engineer by training with a career in technology. He is passionate about tech and its role in improving lives. As Vice President of Growth at ZayZoon, Shubh spreaheads lead generation strategies and is responsible for company growth. He is passionate about his role and deeply believes in both ZayZoon’s product and people.

Prior to working at ZayZoon, Shubh spent eight years in progressive roles at Mentor Engineering (eventually acquired by Constellation Software), three years at Rogers in advanced solutions and three years building out sales and marketing for ConvergentIS (top 500 Growth company in Canada 2018). Shubh loves sports, people and meaningful conversation. Most importantly, he is invested in being the best partner, the best teammate and watching his kids become the best versions on themselves. 

Grant Lahring is proud to be the Growth Manager for Goodlawyer, a Calgary-based legal tech startup that is transforming Canada's legal industry by making legal services fast, affordable, and effortless.

Before joining Goodlawyer, Grant held positions in sales, marketing, and growth within organizations like Uber, Habitat for Humanity, Deepwater Farms, and ActiveConversion. Grant’s carried a bag, built teams, managed budgets, and everything in between, but not a day goes by when he doesn't see something new and realize how much more there is to learn. His proudest moments at Goodlawyer (so far) include three successive month-on-month doublings in monthly bookings and a 5x increase in gross revenue over a six month period.

 Join Calgary's Startup Community: 

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here. 

Follow Startup Calgary on social media 

Making the decision to work at a startup means you must roll up your sleeves and embrace the attitude that no job or no task is too small. During the series, So, You Want to Work for at a Startup, we feature some of the key and growing roles at Calgary tech startups to help answer questions like, “how can you best prepare yourself to work at a startup?” and “what should you consider when evaluating an offer?”

Interview date: July 16, 2020

Featured Speakers: Megan Kurcwal, Director of Sales and Marketing at StellarAlgo, drives the new customer acquisition and marketing strategy for StellarAlgo. She has over seven years of experience leveraging data to accelerate sales, marketing & fan experience programs in multiple industries including sports & entertainment and energy businesses. Megan has helped lead StellarAlgo from seven customers to over 50 in the sport & entertainment space with a 180% growth rate year over year.  

Brandon Healey, Sales Director at SumoQuote, is responsible for leading the company’s sales growth, developing new sales & market entry strategies, supporting product development & leveraging partnerships to maintain growth. Brandon has helped lead SumoQuote to 5x growth in 2020, trending toward 900% revenue growth for the year. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs connect with their clients in a deeper, more honest way.

Join Calgary's Startup Community: 

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here. 

Follow Startup Calgary on social media 

Episode Description: Sean Cardiff, VP / Engagement Lead at Green Stone, is a user experience designer with more than 12 years of experience in the industry. On the Startup Calgary podcast, Sean dives deep into three areas:

1. His background: Sean discusses his education, where he started, how he landed his first job, what clients he’s worked with, where his career taken him & more.
2. User experience 101: UX as a four-step process, what product design is, where it comes into play & why it's so important
3. Rapid-fire Q&A: From building user journeys to making UX design impactful & meaningful to protecting intellectual property & recommended software, Sean answers an array of burning questions. 

View session notes & Sean’s presentation here.

Interview date: June 18, 2020

Featured Speaker:

Sean Cardiff brings an extensive resume in building human-centric strategies and digital products for brands like Charles Schwab, Volkswagen, American Express, Beats Electronics, and others. His work ranges from Macro-level research studies & data analysis to digital product development and executive leadership. Outside of Green Stone's consulting practice Sean is passionate about building a culture of innovation in western Canada. He's an active advisor to a number of educational institutions & local tech businesses and interested in helping any entrepreneurs who share his enthusiasm.

Join Calgary's Startup Community:

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here.

Follow Startup Calgary on social media 

The best way to learn about the startup journey is to hear it first-hand from those who have experienced it. Listen to our “Startup Story” episodes to hear from local founders who are growing their companies right here in Calgary.

Interview date: May 20, 2020

Featured Startup: Pam Draper President & CEO of Bitvo

Bitvo is a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange platform founded by a group of financial entrepreneurs with backgrounds in the banking and payment processing sectors. Bitvo makes it easy for its customers to buy, sell and trade cryptocurrency by setting up safe and secure accounts, offering same day processing of deposit and withdrawal requests and live customer support 24/7.  

Check out more Calgary startup stories.

Join Calgary's Startup Community:

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here.

Follow Startup Calgary on social media

Episode Description: Cassels is a leading Canadian law firm with one of the country’s most sophisticated teams dedicated to helping startups and emerging companies protect and grow their businesses. On the podcast, we chat with three legal experts and Cassels team members, Daniel Zuniga, Maria Constantine and Corinne Grigoriu who discuss corporate, employment and tax law in regards to COVID-19.

Interview date: April 23, 2020

Featured Speakers

Daniel Zuniga | [email protected]: Dan is a partner in the Business Law Group at Cassels and serves as Co-Chair of the Emerging Companies Group. Daniel has extensive experience in advising both start-up and emerging companies, private equity and venture capital firms with respect to the formation, organization, financing, sale, and acquisition of start-up and emerging companies, particularly in the technology sector. This expertise includes the organization of companies to venture-backed standards, non-dilutive financings, angel and seed investments, Series A and other preferred share financings, and exit transactions.

Maria Constantine | [email protected]: Maria is an associate in the Litigation and Employment & Labour Groups at Cassels. Maria advises employer clients on all aspects of the employment relationship, including employee hiring, discipline and dismissal, statutory compliance, disability management and accommodation, workplace investigations, and human rights issues. She regularly represents employers in litigation matters and has appeared as counsel at all levels of court in Ontario and at a variety of administrative tribunals, including the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and Ontario Labour Relations Board. Maria has particular expertise in written advocacy and extensive experience drafting complex employment contracts and workplace policies. She also provides strategic advice on employment issues arising in connection with corporate reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions.

Corinne Grigoriu | [email protected]: Corinne is an associate in the Taxation Group at Cassels. Corinne’s practice focuses on corporate and international tax planning, advising clients on a variety of domestic and international tax matters including inbound and outbound investment and financing, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, internal reorganizations and natural resource taxation. Her practice also includes the settlement of tax disputes and tax litigation. In addition, Corinne offers experience with charitable and not-for-profit tax matters and assists clients with general corporate and commercial matters.

Join Calgary's Startup Community:

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here.

Follow Startup Calgary on social media

The best way to learn about the startup journey is to hear it first-hand from those who have experienced it. Listen to our “Startup Story” episodes to hear from local founders who are growing their companies right here in Calgary.

Interview date: March 9, 2020

Featured Startup: Stuart Kinnear, CEO & Co-founder at Interface Fluidics

Interface Fluidics is a laboratory technology company that allows the oil and gas industry to make better decisions about how to maximize the amount of oil recovered from each well by providing unique fluid compatibility and property testing.  This allows their customers to make better decisions, extend the life cycle of wells, and reduce the emissions per produced barrel of oil.

Interface Fluidics has been a part of Startup Calgary Launch Party, Creative Destruction Lab - Rockies and the Techstars Equinor Energy Accelerator. They raised a $6M Series A in 2019.   

Check out more Calgary startup stories.

Join Calgary's Startup Community:

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here.

Follow Startup Calgary on social media

 Carey Houston, Founder and Partner at 321 Growth Academy will discuss topics such as: 

• The importance of taking care of yourself, so you have the resilience to lead through this crisis - and your team and customers
• How to think through your options for how you might respond and adapt 
• How to keep selling and marketing - but differently 
• And how to shore up for what comes next.  

Interview date: March 25, 2020

Featured Speaker:

• Carey Houston, Founder & Partner at 321 Growth Academy

Carey Houston is a veteran of startup and scale-ups, with 30 years of executive experience in marketing, product management, sales and business development. She’s held executive positions in 6 high growth tech companies in both Toronto and Calgary and is a four-time VP Marketing, so she’s seen first hand not only how the practice of marketing has evolved, but also how it changes through economic ups and downs. 

Currently, Carey is focused on helping the next generation of tech entrepreneurs build and learn the skills needed to accelerate growth. She founded and runs a company called 321 Growth Academy, that help startups, scale-ups, and innovative businesses create and grow successful companies right here in Alberta. 

She’s also an active volunteer mentor with the Venture Mentoring Service of Alberta, and a member of The A100 - a group of experienced “been there, done that” tech executives focused on building a great tech community and helping startups and entrepreneurs thrive.

About 321 Growth Academy: 

321 Growth Academy delivers programs designed to ignite the growth of B2B startups and scaleups. Through hands-on learning, coaching and a community of growth experts, participants graduate with the skills they need to align their team and drive more revenue faster.

Session notes from previous “Ask Me Anything” Sessions

March 20, 2020: Ask Me Anything with Michael Lake: How will your startup navigate COVID-19?

March 25, 2020: Ask Me Anything with Carey Houston: How will your sales team respond to COVID-19?

Looking for more guidance and resources to help you navigate COVID-19? View this page on our website. 

Join Calgary's Startup Community: 

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here.

Follow Startup Calgary on social media

Episode Title: #15 Startup Story: Virtual Gurus

The best way to learn about the startup journey is to hear it first-hand from those who have experienced it. Listen to our “Startup Story” episodes to hear from local founders who are growing their companies right here in Calgary.

Interview date: March 9, 2020

Featured Startup: Bobbie Racette, Founder & CEO at Virtual Gurus

Bobbie is the Founder and She-EO of Virtual Gurus, a Talent as a Service Solution platform that matches its users with the perfect North American Remote Assistants and Freelancers by using matchmaking algorithms.

Recently named both Canada’s Indigenous Entrepreneur of the Year and Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, Prairies Region by Startup Canada, Bobbie is an unstoppable force in the Canadian startup community. She is a Cree-Metis woman who prides herself on building an inclusivity-first company, championing for indigenous people and the LGBTQ+ community. She is a natural leader, sharing her passion by mentoring First Nations Youth who have demonstrated interest in Tech and Business.

Forbes announced Virtual Gurus as being one of the top 19 Innovative Tech Startups to watch. Bobbie’s company works with clients who are Fortune 500 executives, startup entrepreneurs, and small business owners.

About Virtual Gurus: 

Virtual Gurus is a two-sided marketplace that matches businesses and entrepreneurs with on-shore Virtual Assistants. Virtual Gurus is currently working to finish building the dashboard of the marketplace which will include it's new by-the-task app that will allow users all over the world to delegate simple tasks while on the go. 

Special offer for Calgary startups: 

Does your Calgary-based startup need back-office support? Virtual Gurus is offering free virtual assistant services. Visit startups.thevirtualgurus.com and enter code “Startup100” at checkout.

Bobbie’s favourite podcasts: 

• From Founder to CEO
• The Talent Economy
• ScaleUp

Bobbie was also recently featured on The Pitch. Listen to the episode. 

Check out more Calgary startup stories.

Join Calgary's Startup Community:

Startup Calgary’s free Community Membership will help you stay on top of community events, resources and updates. Members receive exclusive discounts and a free downloadable version of our Startup Community 101 deck. You can sign up here.

Follow Startup Calgary on social media