Calgary Business Podcast

Euan and his two colleagues, Christine Dawson and Peter Rynsburger, have the best job in the world! Not only do they get to sample hundreds of craft beers from across Alberta and neighbouring provinces, they also get to provide feedback to their customers that can help them improve the quality and possibly safety of future samples!  In the event that listeners also happen to be Microbiology students, the growing popularity of micro and craft distillers of beer and alcohol, coffee and tea houses and specialty drinks like kombucha, will likely increase the need for more scientists like Euan, Christine and Peter to enter this unique line of business! To learn more about Raft Beer Labs, click on the links below:  §§§  Raft Beer Labs  Website | https://www.raftbeerlabs.ca/  Instagram | @raftbeerlabs  LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/raft-beer-labs/  §§§ LinkedIn Profiles of podcast guests Euan Thomson  | https://www.linkedin.com/in/euan-thomson-21918530/ Christine

Omer Chaer coordinated the podcast with Abir and Aya to allow me to learn the origin story of how a shop-a-holic mother (Abir) was convinced by her book worm daughter (Aya) to start A to Z Liquidation to allow other shoppers to share this experience at one location — rather than spending hours shopping for deals at retail stores and on-line.  There is a real community feel for how these two entrepreneurs have approached the business including helping local charities, such as “In From the Cold” (https://innfromthecold.org/) and offering local merchants to list their products on their website.  To learn more about A to Z Liquidation, click on the links below:  §§§  A to Z Liquidation website | https://atozliquidation.com/  A to Z Liquidation on Instagram | @atozliquidation  A to Z Liquidation on Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/AtoZliquidationcalgary  A to Z Liquidation auction link | https://atozliquidation.hibid.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen

When people order a pizza in their community, it usually arrives in a cardboard box. Imagine answering the door to find two guys standing there with a 600-lb wood-fired oven, fresh dough, fresh ingredients and a bundle of wood? That isn’t quite how it happened when Tony and Mike started making pizzas out of various restaurant kitchens in the Renfrew area of Calgary, starting with the Diner Deluxe restaurant on Edmonton Trail.  The mobile oven played a big part in growing their pizza-loving community before Tony and Mike found a more permanent location to mix the key ingredients of flour, yeast, water, tomato paste and mozzarella cheese.  To learn more about how to order your pizza from Pizza Face, click on the links below:  §§§  Pizza Face website | https://www.pizzafaceyyc.com/  Pizza Face on Instagram | @pizzafaceyyc Tony Migliarese on Instagram | @the_handtalker Mike Garth | @garthopolous --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

This is a terrific story of how two co-founders, Rob and his wife, Brandy, started experimenting in their home kitchen with making home-made bitters. Those experiments turned into researching about how to extract flavours from diffusing alcohol and herbs together; how best to package and ship the finished product; how to navigate through provincial and federal government regulations and a host of other activities over a 5-year span Such steps lead them to expand from their home kitchen to a commercial kitchen and expand gifting their product to family and friends to sell at scale to liquor retailers across Canada and into the United States. Rob managed to pack his 5-year journey into a 55 minute podcast! To learn more about Black Cloud Bitters, click on the links below: §§§ Black Cloud Bitters website | https://www.blackcloudbitters.com/ Black Cloud Bitters on Instagram | @blackcloudbitters Rob Kaczanowski on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/robkaczanowski/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor

It is not often that a temporary 6-week project turns into a permanent 7 year relocation from Aberdeen, Scotland to Calgary, Alberta. That is what happened with Neil Summers when he agreed to an assignment for an existing client for his Scottish employer, Electra Learning. That was in 2013. Now Neil employs 16 full-time staff and numerous contract consultants to provide targeted IT learning, training and coaching initiatives to employees of oil and gas, mining and industrial companies.  To learn more about the Electra Learning management system, click on the links below:  §§§  Electra Learning website | https://www.electralearning.com/  Electra Learning on YouTube | https://bit.ly/2Lw2NSV  Electra Learning email contact | info@electralearning.com  Neil Summers on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-summers-8493b35b/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

When Rashad was working with various freelancers and tradesmen (plumbers, electricians) as a business consultant, he noticed the pain points they felt around dealing with their invoices and receipts — or rather, their lack of desire to want to deal with the accounting and bookkeeping of such receipts — it inspired him to develop a simple and effective solution to help them. That is where Receipt Depot comes in. Photo images of expense receipts can be easily uploaded to the Receipt Depot platform and converted into the relevant file format for exporting into existing accounting systems.  To learn more about Receipt Depot and how it can help small businesses, entrepreneurs and sole practitioners avoid carrying around a shoe box full of receipts to hand to their accountant, click on the links below:  §§§  Receipt Depot website | https://www.receipt-depot.com/  Receipt Depot on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/receiptdepot/  Receipt Depot on Instagram |  Receipt Depot on T

Harish and his venture capital company, Ocgrow Group, have combined their expertise with real estate and tech in their latest condo development in Calgary, called “SOLA Project”. Given that Harish spent many years living and working in Vancouver with tech startups, it is no surprise that Ocgrow / SOLA are partnering up with Amazon and Shopify to ensure the UI/UX - or customer inter-face and customer experience — of the condo owner is leading edge. §§§  “Alexa, please let the listener know they can click on the links below to learn more about Harish, Ocgrow Group and the SOLA Calgary real estate project”  §§§  SOLA Calgary website | https://solacalgary.com/about-us/  SOLA Calgary on Twitter | @solacalgary  Harish Consul on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/harish-consul-23701910/ §§§ Calgary Real Estate | Venture Capital | Community | Technology | Startups | YYC Real Estate | Canadian investments | Invest local | Local development | Customer experience | Canadian ventures | Proper

Jade connects Calgary small businesses through his Facebook Live program (called “Telling It Like It is”) and with over 1 million downloads, it is not surprising that his show is booked up until March 2021. Jade also started the “Founders Coffee YCC” meetups and even though Covid has prevented many of the in person meetups in 2020, Jade ensures startups, founders and entrepreneurs continue to get help and guidance through Zoom and similar one on one calls.  In fact, Jade emphasized the importance of such individuals to not be afraid to "ask for help" §§§ To learn more about how Peer Guidance is helping small businesses in Calgary (and Alberta) click on the links below:  Peer Guidance website | https://peerguidance.ca/  Peer Guidance on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/peer-guidance/  §§§  Jade Alberts on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadealberts/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

In the age of digital books and self-publishing, Trena White and her co-founder, Jesse Finkelstein, have combined their years of experience in the publishing industry, to forge a unique relationship with the non-fiction authors they work with to bring their books to the market. In fact, Trena compares the digital age to the time in the 19th Century when authors, like Charles Dickens, used to publish portions of their books in broadsheets, the traditional form of a newspaper  To learn more about Page Two and modern day book publishing, click on the links below:  §§§  Page Two website | https://pagetwo.com/  Page Two on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/page-two/  Page Two on Twitter | @pagetwobooks  Page Two on Instagram | @pagetwo_books  §§§  Trena White on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/trenawhite/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

Randene brings 20+ years of education and oil field experience into ensuring her startup, Onitt Inc, reflects solutions that deal with the “pain points” she suffered while managing projects and ensuring compliance with government regulations. In turn, the U/X or user experience, of her customers on the Onitt Inc platform will save time and allow engineers, geologists, land personnel to perform more “value-added” activities.  To learn more about ONITT Inc, click on the links below:  §§§  ONITT Inc website | https://onitt.ca/  ONITT on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/onitt-inc/  §§§  Randene Seeman on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/randene-seeman-a57b7928/ §§§ Oil & Gas | Software | Innovation | Efficiency | Women in Business | Women Leaders | Calgary Business | Calgary innovation | Calgary tech company | Oil and gas technology | Canadian Business | Alberta Oil Patch | Inspiration --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

This brotherly duo is set to create a marketplace where landlords and tenants can potentially transact beyond the move-in and move-out checklists, collection of monthly rent checks and adhoc service requests that are inherent with living in a rental property. Scott and Mike are seeking to build a rental property platform that rewards renters with cashback and protects landlords from bad tenants. To learn more about Yaldi Renting, click on the links below: §§§ Yaldi Renting website | https://www.yaldirenting.com/ Yaldi Renting on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/yaldi-renting/ Yaldi Renting on Instagram | @yaldirenting §§§ Scott Andrews on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-andrews-/ Michael Andrews on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-andrews-6750b283/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

Having a rocket science degree may or may not help when working in the financial profession but a degree in neuro science from McGill University provided Jeremy Clark with some of the core skills that have helped him be successful in his 22+ years in the financial management industry.  To learn more about the work of Jeremy Clark and CH Financial, including philanthropy work with the Calgary Philharmonic, McGill University and the Calgary Police Foundation, click on the links below:  §§§  CH Financial website | https://chfinancial.ca/  CH Financial on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/ch-financial-ltd/  CH Financial on Instagram | @ch.financial  §§§  Jeremy Clark on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyclarkcalgary/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

Self-employment is difficult at the best of times and if there is a lack of support during crisis periods, the challenges for such individuals increases dramatically. In fact, it was only recently that I heard about the MNP “Self-Employment” program and I thought:  “…what a terrific initiative to make available to small businesses and entrepreneurs during the Covid pandemic…”.  I quickly learned from Troy Deck, the senior manager at MNP here in Calgary, that the program has been in place since 1992 and to date, over 2000+ entrepreneurs have moved on to start their own businesses. Although jointly funded by the Governments of Alberta and Canada, the MNP team brings together an array of advisors from within their firm and experts from the business community §§§  To learn more about how MNP Calgary is helping professionals pivot into self employment, click on the links below:  MNP website (English) | https://www.mnp.ca/en  MNP website (French) | https://www.mnp.ca/fr  MNP on LinkedI

Pivoting from oil and gas has been a consistent theme on the Calgary Business Podcast. After a 17-year career as an electrical engineer, Tammam Altajar converted his hobby with flight simulation into a startup business.  §§§  To learn more about Tamman’s journey into entrepreneurship with his business, Altitude Flight Simulation, click on the links below:  Altitude Flight Simulation website | https://nicerr.org/  Altitude Flight Simulation on Instagram | @AltitudeFlightSimulation  §§§  Tammam Altajar on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammam-altajar-8a6b2551/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

It is rare when the underlying business model seeks to help more than one party at the same time. The Nicerr platform does exactly that. It is designed to bring volunteer advisors together with entrepreneurs / small business owners to provide them with targeted guidance for a fee. In parallel, Nicerr contributes a portion of such fees to a charitable cause.  In my view, it does not stop there. The advisor indirectly benefits from learning about a new business in which he/she can share experiences with similar businesses, including the charitable organization adopting such advice to their own activities. Finally, each transaction expands the Nicerr community to benefit future newcomers!  §§§  To learn more about Nicerr, click on the links below:  Nicerr website | https://nicerr.org/  Nicerr on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/nicerr/  Nicerr on Instagram | @teamnicerr  §§§  Robin Daltauni on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/robindaultani/ --- Send in

In what initially started as a hobby tutoring children on maths and sciences, Launchpad learning started offering coding courses to students in a Southeast Calgary recreation centre. Covid required them to shift virtually all classes to their on-line platform (which they named “Learning Management System”) to allow students to submit their code for immediate review and comment by instructors  §§§  To learn more about the Launchpad Learning team and their plans to scale up their coding for grade 3 to 12 students, click on the links below:  §§§ Launchpad Learning website | https://launchpadlearning.ca/ Launchpad Learning on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/l2iyyc/  Launchpad Learning on Instagram | @launchpadlearning_l2i Launchpad email | info@launchpadlearning.ca  §§§  Sam Begai on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/sampada-bagai/  Yash Purwar on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/yashasvi-purwar-a542915/  Abhishek on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.co

Since 2006 or so, Eric Crowell has been coaching CEO’s and senior executives across Canada and the globe. As Eric highlighted, the first 9 months of 2020 has brought about more change and complexity than he has seen in the 10+ years that preceded this year. Eric does a wonderful job articulating some of the major trends he has seen with CEO’s and leaders as they manage through such complexity. Eric finished our chat with a heart felt story and words of wisdom from Suzanne West, who had a successful career in Calgary as an executive, entrepreneur and Board member. Sadly, she passed away from cancer in 2018 at the age of 52. §§§  To learn more about Eric and his work with CEO’s from across Canada and globally, click on the links below:  Awesome Journey website | https://www.awesomejourney.ca/  Awesome Journey on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/awesome-journey/  Eric Crowell on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-crowell-ba212214/  Eric Crowell email | Eric@awesomejou

Colin and his team at Canadian Distribution Network benefited from an existing product (handsanitizers) and an existing network (with major  supermarket chains) to help other small businesses when Covid hit.  One example was "white labelling" a product for third parties to get them shelf space with such food retailers.  This creativity and innovation extended to the development of a new product called "Mask Careier" to provide a means for individuals to store surgical / medical masks that are mandated in public places across Canada. §§§ To learn more about Colin and his work as a Calgary entrepreneur, click on the links below: Mask Careier Kickstarter campaign (expires early December 2020) | https://bit.ly/2H8NFcz Canadian Distribution Network website | https://thecanadiandistributionnetwork.com/ Canadian Distribution Network on Instagram | @canadiandistributionnetwork CDN Citrus Clean on Instagram | @cdncitrusclean §§§ Colin George on Instagram | @CNG649 Colin George on LinkedIn | http://linke

Pivoting from a career in social services, Jason found a co-founder, Michael Knisely, to form a company focused on helping businesses reduce their environmental impact, reduce expenses and improve the efficiency of their energy consumption.  The unique feature of their platform is to require customers to pay nothing upfront for the capital costs and seek to earn their revenue by sharing in the future savings experienced by their customers. §§§  To learn more about Origin Energy, click on the links below:  Origin Energy website | https://www.originenergy.ca/  Origin Energy on Twitter | @originenergym  Origin Energy on Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/originenergyefficiency/  Jason Gravelle on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-gravelle-a8102145/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message

Yassine provides a unique view of how he used his own personal experiences with Covid to pivot into raising funds for healthcare workers in Algeria and now coaching Canadian startups to match them with investors from private family offices in the Middle East.  §§§  To learn more about Yassine and his work, click on the links below:  Coach Business Solution | https://www.messenger.com/t/MyCBSauto  Algeria fundraising on LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/algerians-vs-covid-19/  §§§  Yassine Azzouni on LinkedIn | hhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/yassine-mohammed-azzouni-73339962/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/allen-wazny/message