What The Tech?

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Erik Simins to the show, who is the CEO and CO-Founder of Workwolf and is a force in the Toronto startup scene. 

At Workwolf, Erik’s team has developed a hiring software that finds, screens, and validates quality candidates better than humans can. Using proprietary technology to screen and verify backgrounds, the platform automates the recruitment process, bringing unmatched efficiencies to the employment market.

But Erik has been driving innovation in Canada for more than a decade, having founded his first 8-figure company in 2011 with the healthcare staffing firm MAGNUS, which has since partnered with the Canadian government and hundreds of customers across North America.

It’s safe to say that Erik not only understands the tech and talent ecosystem in Canada, but has played a hand in steering it over the course of his career.

I’ll leave it to Erik to share the details and give his take on the state of startups, what it takes to make it as an entrepreneur and the incredible work that has gone into building his businesses. 

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to be joined by Ella Harris and Kenny Huang, Co-Founders of TinyRex, which is an extremely talented indie game studio that’s bringing a unique perspective to narrative-driven idle games. This tiny team packs a huge punch, as they bring years of commercial success in the video game and social casino industry to their mission, which is to create mobile gaming content with partners around the world, and, as Kenny puts it, “crafting small, cozy games that our players will love.”

While the games may feel small and cozy, there is some serious innovation happening here, as the team created their own idle-merge framework by blending the static nature of idles games with the dynamic experience of merge games, which led to the launch of their debut game, Wizard of Oz: Idle Merge, which achieved a combined 4.8 star rating on the app store!

It’s quite a story, so joining me again this week to discuss how this innovation was translated into meaningful capital is Boast AI’s own Technical Solutions Manager, Aliya Amershi! Before we kick off with our guests, Aliya, welcome back to the show, how is it going and could you provide a quick intro for listeners who haven’t caught your previous episode with Natureblocks?

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to be joined by Mike Roberts, CEO of Roll, which is a chat app that puts the magic of game night in your pocket by providing a virtual tabletop where players can enjoy their favorite board games. 

Users can share their identity across other networks to connect with new people, allowing them to be their authentic selves, all while Roll keeps them safe by only sharing what users want to share, at the right time.

It’s a game-changer for gaming, and a platform that combines serious innovation while also being a place for creators, offering a low-code environment for building games as well as playing.

I’ll leave it to Mike to dig into all the capabilities that Roll aims to deliver, the R&D behind their innovation, and what’s on the roadmap for this exciting new venture!

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m pumped to be joined by our buddy Taylor Del Giudice from Quack. Quack is a prospecting platform that makes cold calling easy for sales teams at tech companies. Their platform enables users to call multiple prospects simultaneously, empowering reps to speak to 2-3x more prospects per call block, while syncing seamlessly with leading sales engagement tools.

It’s a great model that I know the team at Boast is testing out ourselves. But there’s also fantastic people at the center of the business, as Taylor has caught up with our team at Collision, FounderFuel Demo Day and Startupfest over the past two months, and we’ve had a blast each time.

I’ll leave it to Taylor to give us his take on what a busy summer it’s been for the Quack team, his experience working in the startup ecosystem, and what’s on the roadmap for Quack.

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to be joined by Josh Gray, Co-Founder & CEO of Artemis. Artemis helps businesses operationalize data in marketing, sales, finance, engineering, revenue, and operations. It’s a tall order, but his team and technology ultimately empowers data analysts to work with data faster, by providing a low-code editor where they can visually explore, build and automate data cleanup using pre-built logic they can drag and drop onto a canvas.

Along with creating a powerful business intelligence solution, Josh and his team are also amazing networkers, and met up with us briefly during Startupfest and FounderFuel Demo Day back in July.

We’ll chat about our experience at the show (including, if I recall, an impressive funding round from Josh and team) as well as Josh’s founder journey and what it’s been like building Artemis.

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to be joined by Dallas Price, a true standout in the North American tech and startup ecosystem. 

Dallas has spent his entire professional career working with and building over 100 startups from ideation to growth phase, including taking on the co-founder role at Leo Prestte where his team develops brand strategy, content, & identity systems for startups globally. 

Currently, he’s on the Growth Team at Forum Ventures in their new Venture Studio, where his team is working to launch 8 seed-stage startups annually.

If that all wasn’t enough, Dallas is also  currently leading the digital nomad life, serving entrepreneurs on the road and getting a taste for the different startup communities across the US and Canada. 

We’ll discuss all of it and let Dallas get into the nitty gritty about his path as an entrepreneur, his strategies for building successful startups, and his take on the current state of venture funding and building a scaleup in 2023. 

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today’s podcast is a very, very special episode of What The Tech, as I’m positively stoked to feature Boast’s very own Co-Founder and community builder extraordinaire Lloyed Lobo onto the show!

Along with being one of the original brains behind Boast, Lloyed is also the founder of Traction, a community empowering over 100k innovators through connections, content, and capital. The community-led business model Lloyed spearheaded both here and at Traction was key to bootstrapping Boast in our early days, eventually building a business with eight figure revenue while securing over $100million in funding.

Lloyed tells this story as well as other community-first founder strategies in his new book ‘From Grassroots To Greatness: 13 Rules to Build Iconic Brands with Community Led Growth,’ which features tactical advice from businesses both big and small, including Apple, Harley Davidson, Nike, Crossfit, HubSpot, and many more.

It’s a must read, and of course, any podcast featuring Lloyed is a must listen. I can’t wait to hear from him directly about what it was like building Boast in tandem with the massive Traction community, his process for writing, and his advice for founders navigating the startup scene in 2023.

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Hello and welcome to a special bonus episode of What The Tech from Boast AI, where we’re handing over the mic to our French-speaking colleagues for an episode dedicated to founders in Quebec!

This week, we’re featuring a conversation between Hedi Berrais-Sanchez and Joshua Martin, where they answer the most commonly asked questions about Credit for the Development of E-Business, or CDAE, a unique funding program available to Quebec-based startups with a digital focus. Starting with the eligibility criteria, the conversation covers all aspects of the CDAE, and was originally featured as part of our Innovators Live LinkedIn Series.

Enjoy the show and tune in live on LinkedIn each Friday at 12pm ET for the latest tips and tricks from members of our team. 

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today, I’m thrilled to chat with our friend and partner Ekin Ober, co-founder and CEO of myconverso. 

Ekin and her team have created an AI-powered assistant for enhancing workplace productivity. With their solution, professionals can enhance their communication skills through lifelike simulations, personalized training, and actionable insights, leveraging myconverso’s cutting-edge generative AI technology to provide an immersive and transformative learning experience.

Along with developing an incredibly powerful solution, Ekin and her team are also amazing partners in the Toronto and Canadian tech ecosystem, who we got to say hi to in person recently during our visit to Collision Conference at Boast’s “Get SREDed” Barry’s Bootcamp event.

I’ll leave it to Ekin to comment about how we all fared during our workout, and to dive deeper into the innovation driving the team over at myConverso.

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to speak with Maria Konikov, Director of Operations for the York Entrepreneurship Development Institute—also known as YEDI—which is a mission-oriented charitable organization providing top-tier business education and mentorship to innovative entrepreneurs from any sector or industry. 

Serving Toronto, York Region and internationally based ventures, YEDI offers an array of programs to for-profit and not-for-profit innovators from a diversity of sectors, both across Canada and internationally. At its core, however, YEDI is committed to ensuring that ideas with high impact are not lost due to lack of knowledge during the start-up process.

It’s a tall order for sure, and as Director of Business Operations, Maria brings a strong understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing entrepreneurs. I’ll leave it to her to get into the nitty gritty of what her and her team at YEDI does every day and how they’re supporting the local and global tech ecosystem.

Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence.

Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth.

Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.