20mile - The Stories Behind A Startup Founder's March.

In this episode Shaun Jamieson, Leader of Sales and Operations at Freshworks, tells the story of how his skills and interest in business execution and building teams have led to successful outcomes. Shaun walks us through his journey so far, from joining AbeBooks and running one of its subsidiaries to turning a business around and, most recently, joining Freshworks, a fast growing mobile app design and development studio based in Victoria, BC Canada.

Bonus content - We continue our chat with Jason Morehouse, CEO and Co-founder of Checkfront.

 In this 20Mile episode we learned about Tim Teh’s journey. Tim is the CEO and Co-founder of Kano, a growing Canadian gaming studio. From turning a challenging situation into a contract that evolved into a company and finding himself as CEO as the business continued to grow, Tim talks about how Kano, which focuses on free-to-play games as a service, has established gaming communities encompassing millions of players worldwide thanks to its player obsession and goal to build meaningful connections through lasting social games.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Jason Morehouse, CEO and Co-founder of Checkfront. Jason walks us through his path, from starting to work in Toronto as a teenager to learning to code by himself, moving to New Zealand and coming to Victoria, Canada where he started Checkfront, a B2B product that makes it easy for companies to manage bookings and customers. 

Brandon Wright is the solo founder and CEO of BRNKL, aka Barnacle Systems Inc. With a background in electrical engineering, Brandon tells us how his march took him from working with security systems for royal families in the Middle East and completing contracts with the NSA to creating an innovative monitoring and security system for boats. 

 Todd Hooge, CEO and Co-founder of Metamend tells his story. From being interested in computers and music at an early age, deciding to leave university and follow one of his two major passions. During this episode, Todd shares the successes and challenges he’s faced in his march. Today Metamend is a full-service, digital marketing agency working with enterprise Fortune 500 multinational companies and smaller local organizations looking to grow their business over time.

From studying child and youth care to working in counseling with high-risk families as well as real estate, Amber Simpson, CEO & Co-founder of Covault, has a myriad of experiences under her belt. She shares how these experiences have helped her transition into tech as she and her husband continue their march with Covault, a co-op marketing platform that simplifies the ads approval process between brands and retailers. 

Born and raised in Colombia, Jose Albis, Chief Digital Officer and Co-founder of Moduurn, tells his story. He tells us how an interest in the arts and a supportive environment allowed him to explore his entrepreneurial tendencies from an early age.  After moving to Victoria, Canada to study, he was faced with visa constraints. The constraints forced him to get creative in order to extend his visa and led him down a Marketing and Communications path which he embraced fully.

In episode 5 of 20Mile’s season 1, we had the opportunity to chat with Charles Lavigne, CEO and co-founder of LlamaZOO - A 3D data visualization company that uses VR/AR solutions to help companies easily digest and visualize data. Charles tells how a grad from Vancouver Film School, specializing in game design, created a solution that has seen success in the oil, mining and coal industries.

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Connor Tobin, Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder of eBuyNow. Following a different path than other companies located in Victoria, Canada, eBuyNow is a remote company that manufactures, brands and brings to market consumer electronic products. They are also going public. Connor talks about how he met his co-founder, who is a business relationship whisperer, and their path together to growing eBuyNow’s business to working with companies such as Skype and Kodak.

On 20Mile’s third episode of season 1, we sat down with Leif Baradoy, CEO and Co-founder of Giftbit - A B2B company that facilitates the sale and offering of giftcards to clients. If there is one word to describe Leif, it is intense. If there is another one, it is driven. Leif found his entrepreneurial drive at an early age, as he witnessed his relatives run successful businesses started from scratch. This drive also led him to become a high-level triathlete, competing against the top athletes in the world and ranking in the top 5. From ideating to entering one of the top startup accelerators in the world, to raising angel and venture capital money for growth, Leif tells the story of how he got Giftbit off the ground.

In episode 2 of 20Mile’s season 1, we sat down with Humaira Ahmed, CEO and Founder of Locelle (/lōk-el/) - A location based women only social networking platform. Humaira tells us her story, from being raised in Pakistan and challenging cultural norms to fit her vision, to moving to Canada with her family at a young age and her march towards empowering women entrepreneurs.

This is 20Mile Podcast’s first episode! Welcome. Will Fraser, CEO and Co-founder of Saasquatch, tells the story of how he got started, as a new grad with a software engineering background and founded his first company with three other engineers. His march took him on a number of turns which today is his SaaS company, Saasquatch: A B2B referral SaaS platform.