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 COVID with no marketing background, no social media, and no blueprint. Just a stubborn belief that this technology mattered and that accessibility is a standard, not a feature.

She auditioned for Dragon’s Den, two days after catching the stomach flu from her toddler, and kept going when it didn’t pan out. Then she landed Mohawk College. All four campuses. With a popped rib.

We talk about what it actually takes to sell something nobody understands yet, why she cold calls every single day, and what she told a room full of business owners about networking that I haven’t stopped thinking about since.

Find Alex at @me_tour_inc and me-tour.ca.

Because your story matters. 🎙️

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't always reach fast enough.

We get into the real gap nobody talks about: she's not covered by insurance, even though a therapist with a fraction of her experience often is. We talk about the shame that keeps parents from picking up the phone in the first place, and the thirty-second introduction she's built so specific that people remember her name in a room of strangers. We also ask her the question we ask everyone — if she started over tomorrow, what would she do differently.

Find Michelle at momthemanager.ca and on Instagram @momthemanager.

Because your story matters.

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 conversation we get into all of it. How she went from suffering through postpartum depression in silence to building a platform that has given hundreds of women permission to tell the truth. Why she walked away from the self-publishing model she'd used for three books and built her own company instead. The moment she stopped calling her identity crisis a midlife crisis and renamed it a breakthrough. And how she gets women to share their most vulnerable stories in print — with their real names on the cover — just by showing up as herself.

We close with the question we ask every guest on The Loew Down: what do you want to be remembered for in your community? Her answer is eight words. And it's the whole episode.

Find Amanda at @amanda.gurman and Her Truth Press at @hertruthpress.

Because your story matters.

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.

In this conversation, we get into the stigma nobody talks about — why people panic, why they beg him to drive an unmarked truck, and why bed bugs have nothing to do with how clean you are. We talk about the families in tears when he walks through the door, why heat treatment beats chemicals every single time, and what it’s like to build a business in an industry where word of mouth is almost impossible. And we close with Matus’s first Father’s Day coming up and what he wants his son to one day understand about this work.

Find Matus at bedbugsexterminators.ca or on Instagram @greenheatbedbugs.

Because your story matters.

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 gets into the full story: growing up in Dubai, starting a dessert subscription box business before moving to Canada, the long search for a space, and what it actually felt like to open a creative studio six months ago with no roadmap and a lot of faith. Safiya talks pricing, pivots, building community from scratch, the tension between keeping things affordable and running a real business, and why pottery and small business have more in common than you think.

Safiya also shares a moment from her studio that stopped the conversation cold — a story about a family, a funeral, and what healing with your hands actually looks like.

Find Safiya at @kreativeklay.ca on Instagram and at kreativeklay.ca
Because your story matters.

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 — starting on Etsy, growing to 30–40 products, wholesale, and in-person markets across Niagara and beyond.

In this conversation: the 2022 winery fire and the insurance battle she had to fight alone. The playbook she’s built for surviving external chaos. What the hack actually felt like — and what she’s building instead. Why she’s not reinstating her personal accounts. And how she thinks about community over competition in a way most people talk about but don’t actually do.

We close with the question we ask every guest: what do you want to be recognized for in your community?

Find Annette at lipservicebeauty.ca and @lip.service.beauty on Instagram. 
Because your story matters. 

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 built — your products, your photos, your ideas, even your bio? Holly and Cassidy have both been through it. In this episode they get into the moment you first see it, the emotional hit that nobody warns you about, where inspiration ends and copying begins, what to do on social media (and what not to do), how to stay grounded and keep creating when you know someone is watching, and how you protect your business without losing yourself.

Plus: Holly’s take on donation requests, building brand trust, and why focusing on your customer — not your competition — is the only strategy that actually works long term.

Holly’s business: beyondthebombbath.ca | @beyondthebombbath
The Loew Down: theloewdown.ca | @theloewdown.co

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 one principle she will not compromise: make money to do karate. Don't do karate to make money.

In this conversation, we get into what it actually cost her to stay true to herself when every school around her was pivoting. We talk about surviving COVID a year in, building radical inclusion into the DNA of the school, the parent who called expecting to be turned away because her daughter is deaf, and a solo trip to South Africa that gave the school its name.

And we close with the question we ask every guest: what do you want to be remembered for in your community?

Find Mersina at Lion's Heart Family Martial Arts on Instagram and Facebook, or in the business park in Ancaster. Listen to the Lions Den podcast with the kids.

The Loew Down drops every two weeks. Find us on Instagram @theloewdown.co — because your story matters

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 moment Kristi knew she couldn't let it close, and what it actually felt like to step into a business she'd grown up inside of but never run. We talk about learning leather work from Sean — her dad's original hire — who learned it from Peter. About keeping a physical craft shop alive in downtown Hamilton in 2026. About the workshops that sell out every two months and what they've meant for the business and the community. And about what it's like to be a woman running a trade that still occasionally asks if the man is in.
And we close with the question we ask every guest on The Loew Down — what do you want to be remembered for in your community? Kristi's answer is worth waiting for.
Find Kristi: @tundraleather on Instagram · tundraleather.ca · 313 King St E, Hamilton · Open Tues–Fri 9–5:30, Sat 9–5
The Loew Down drops every two weeks. Find us on Instagram @theloewdown.co 

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, and the quiet one in a group who somehow keeps finding her people. In this pilot episode she tells you who she is, why The Loew Down exists, and what you can expect every time you hit play.
She gets into the rebrand from Allan Soaps to Loew and Co — what shifted, what stayed, and why her maiden name meaning lion in German had everything to do with it. She talks about moving to Hamilton before her first child was born, not knowing anyone, and finding that the small business community was the thing that finally made her feel like she belonged somewhere.
And she answers the question she will ask every single guest before she ever asks anyone else.
What do you want to be recognized for in your community?
No guest today. Just the real story of why this show exists.
The Loew Down — Real talk with Hamilton small business owners. Starting here and growing from there. Because your story matters.