Amplify Your Business

Amplify Your Business Impirica

For Episode 186 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by PJ Barclay, the President and CEO of Impirica. Impirica develops risk assessment tools for companies to accurately measure impairment risk as it relates to driving and operating in other safety-sensitive environments. Impirica gives organizations and individuals the peace of mind that employees and individuals can operate safely in a given environment. They provide easy-to-use and cost-effective in-depth risk assessment solutions to ensure that commercial drivers are healthy, productive, and able to continue to work for years to come.To learn more, visit the Impirica website.
 
00:00 - Intro
00:55 - What do you think are three things every entrepreneur needs to know?
03:25 - What are some of the superpowers that you think you bring to the table?
05:19 - Can you tell us a little bit about Impirica? What are you doing? What problems are you trying to solve?
06:57 - What motivated you to become a partner in this company?
09:26 - Is there anything that you can share about things that you were looking at when making the decision to join this company?
12:01 - Your gust instinct, was that something that was borne out of a history of entrepreneurship?
17:46 - How do you stay focused in a particular kind of space when you have so many opportunities out there?
23:19 - What is easier for you or your company, now at this stage in its business life?
25:39 - What keeps you up at night right now?
28:56 - If you could write a letter to your younger self, what would it say?
31:05 - What inspires you, who inspires you, or where do you get your inspiration from?
34:42 - What would be the best way for our listeners to reach out to you?
36:38 - Outro

Amplify Your Business Ordr

For Episode 185 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Evan Wain, the co-founder of Ordr. Ordr is a company that is changing the way we enjoy sporting and local events by affording the public the option for premium service, even in the “cheap seats”.
 
Following Edmonton Unlimited’s Launch Party 13, we delved into the ups and downs of starting a service-oriented startup in the middle of a pandemic.To learn more, you can visit Ordr’s website or check out their Instagram.
 
00:00 - Intro
00:55 - Tell me about the experience of pitching your company at Launch Party 13, held by Edmonton Unlimited.
01:52 - How unnerving was it to get up in front of everyone at Launch Party 13 to pitch your business, Ordr?
02:49 - What are three things that every entrepreneur needs to know?
06:43 - Can you tell us a little bit about Ordr? What problem are you solving?
08:46 - What was it like starting a business like Ordr in the middle of COVID when there were no large venues open?
11:32 - Where are you now in terms of the business? Walk me through the last year.
14:45 - How did you manage to land such major investors?
19:27 - What is the best advice you have received from your mentor?
23:05 - What keeps you up at night?
24:15 - What challenges have you had to overcome?
25:59 - With the threat of big names like Uber Eats or Doordash possibly moving into this space, how are you mitigating this?
28:30 - What advice would you give your younger self?
30:36 - How can our viewers get in contact with you?
31:14 - Outro

Amplify Your Business Charm City Integrative Health

For Episode 184 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Dr. Tom Ingegno, the owner of Charm City Integrative Health. Charm City Integrative Health is a health and wellness center in Baltimore, Maryland, that offers health services that combine both Eastern and Western medical practices to help their clients achieve their greatest level of wellness. 
 
Some of their services include whole-body cryotherapy, acupuncture, salt therapy, red light therapy, therapeutic massage, clinical counseling, and more. To learn more, visit the Charm City Integrative Health website.
 
00:00 - Intro
01:22 - What are three things that you think every entrepreneur should know?
5:50 - Can you tell us a little bit about Charm City Integrative Health?
10:24 - Is it unique to be as integrated as Charm City is?
13:37 - Do you have multiple clinics? Are you franchising?
18:02 - In terms of COVID, how were you able to, as a business owner, accommodate that all within one physical space?
20:01 - What do you think are some of the biggest challenges you’re going to have in terms of the growth plans you have?
22:07 - How are you overcoming the challenges that come with rapid growth?
24:37 - Where do you find the inspiration to help people with their health?
27:14 - Do you have other mentors as well?
28:36 - What are the secrets to creating the kind of amazing culture you’ve curated at Charm City?
30:10 - If you could go back in time and write your past self a letter, what would it say?
32:23 - What is it that you are currently losing sleep over? What stresses you out right now about your business?
34:54 - How do you manage the desire to tinker with and change your business?
37:07 - What do you see that is a common thing that you advise entrepreneurs to do that maybe is a little different than what you advise other people?
38:30 - How can people contact you?
39:49 - Outro

Amplify Your Business ScaleHR

For Episode 183 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Jeff Waldman, the founder, and principal of ScaleHR. ScaleHR helps small to mid-size businesses scale their HR and People Operations through strategy and operations advice and resources, tech stack support and help, identifying value props, and growing leadership skills. They also help recruitment tech and HR startups build better solutions and software for their own businesses.To learn more, visit the ScaleHR website.
 
00:00 - Intro
01:09 - In your experience, what are three things every entrepreneur needs to know?
03:11 - Where did you get your strong business acumen from?
04:27 - Can you tell us a little about ScaleHR?
09:48 - Can you explain what you offer in terms of tech stacks to your clients?
12:27 - With the more widespread acceptance of hybrid and remote workplaces, what changes from an HR standpoint?
16:19 - Do you think that, regardless of technology, the days of having that work-life separation are over now? 
19:47 - How do you support your team to navigate through working with so many different people with different personalities and beliefs surrounding work-life balance?
25:22 - If you could have had $1 million at the start of ScaleHR, what would you have done differently?
28:04 - What is your take on the entrepreneurial lifestyle? What do you love about it? What do you find most difficult?
30:12 - How do you manage the emotional roller coaster that comes with being an entrepreneur?
33:54 - If people wanted to reach out to you, how could they do that?
34:35 - Outro

Amplify Your Business BudSense

For Episode 182 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by David Thomas, the founder of BudSense. BudSense is a Software as a Service provider that offers branded, customized cannabis dispensary menus and digital signage that you can change as often as your inventory changes. They take the pain out of having to manually create store menus and tracking inventory with spreadsheets and a sharpie for crossing out sold out strains. Everything is fully customizable for whatever new stock you get in on delivery days to update and print paper menus and signage.
To learn more, visit the BudSense website.
 
00:00 - Intro
00:42 - What are three things that every entrepreneur should know?
03:17 - What is BudSense and what is the problem you’re trying to solve?
06:15 - When you say that the inventory changes by 5% on a regular basis, what do you mean by that?
08:45 - Is BudSense a SaaS with hardware included?
9:24 - In terms of BudSense as opposed to running brick-and-mortar dispensaries, what do you like about this business model?
12:28 - Does BudSense have an early mover advantage that’s going to play out in your favour?
13:38 - What is your biggest challenge, outside of just cost-benefit analysis?
15:36 - Is it a challenge for you to put your trust in team members after spending so much time micromanaging everything yourself?
18:18 - What would you say is the key to the success you’ve found so far in this space?
20:18 - Can you speak to me about the intentionality that you have around the culture you’re creating within BudSense?
22:06 - Can you explain to us how you fill the positions that you have available in your company?
30:26 - If you could write a letter to the you that was just starting BudSense, what would that letter say?
34:07 - What is easier now that you’ve been doing this for a while?
 35:48 - Did moving to Victoria happen before or after you figured out the whole work-life balance thing?
36:37 - Who or what inspires you?
40:59 - If someone wanted to get in contact with you, how could they do that?
41:44 - Outro

Amplify Your Business Partake Brewing

For Episode 181 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Ted Fleming, the CEO of Partake Brewing. Partake Brewing started in Ted’s basement (and garage) as a solution to his own problem of not being able to consume alcohol any longer due to a Crohn’s Disease diagnosis. From its meager beginnings in Ted’s house in 2017 to two manufacturing and processing plants - one in Toronto and one in Calgary - Partake has quickly become a household name for non-alcoholic brews. Partake’s Pale Ale even won the World Beer Award for Best Non-Alcoholic Beer.To learn more, check out their Online Shop or give them a follow on Instagram.
 
00:00 - Intro 
01:01 - In your experience, what are three things that every entrepreneur needs to know?
03:49 - Can you tell us a little bit about your Pale Ale?
05:42 - What is the process for removing the alcohol from your beers?
08:11 - Tell us the story of how Partake Brewing was born.
09:55 - So Partake started in Toronto and expanded into Calgary, and now you’re manufacturing in both provinces, right?
10:35 - Do you have any competitors in Canada in the exclusively non-alcoholic brewing space?
11:27 - Being the first in this category, did it make it easier to get penetration into distribution?
12:58 - Being in the non-alcohol beer industry, what does your distribution look like? Do you sell in more than just liquor stores?
14:32 - Are you finding that growth in your category of the beer market is growing at the same rate as the rest of the craft beers or faster?
17:32 - When you were first starting out, did you have enough foresight to understand all of the potential advantages - from a market standpoint?
19:52 - In the early days of Partake, what thought did you put into building a community around your brand, and how has that changed over time?
21:50 - Can you share with us any of the ways in which you continue to grow your community engagement as you’ve grown?
22:52 - Was it difficult for you, as a craft brewery, to expand your manufacturing and processing to two different locations on opposite sides of the country?
24:40 - What challenges would you be facing that other single-location craft breweries don’t face?
25:30 - With two locations on opposite sides of the country, are you now facing double the supply chain issues that many other businesses in Canada have been facing?
26:37 - If you could write your past self a letter, what would it say?
27:43 - Do “Thinking big,” and “keeping it simple” contradict each other, or are you able to still manage both philosophies?
28:32 - What is easier now, at this point in your journey, than what it was at earlier stages in your business?
29:32 - If you had $1 Million at the start of your journey with Partake Brewing, what would you have done differently?
31:43 - How did you manage to achieve such rapid growth with Partake Brewing in such a short period of time?
34:49 - Who or what inspires you?
35:45 - Where can we find Partake Brewing products?
38:17 - Outro

Amplify Your Business Chiwis

For Episode 180 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Sarah Goodman, the founder and CEO of Chiwis. Chiwis is an organic health food company that makes fruit chips. But these aren’t the dried fruit that you’ve come to expect. The fruit used to make Chiwis products is farmed right down the street from the facility where they are dried and made into chips. Meaning that rather than getting dehydrated fruit chips that are brown and boring looking, Chiwis fruit chips are dehydrated at the height of their ripeness, which not only allows them to retain their bright colors, but also their sweet flavours.To learn more, visit the Chiwis website at https://chiwis.co/ or check out their Instagram.
 
00:00 - Intro
01:57 - What are three key things that every entrepreneur needs to know?
06:02 - Can you tell me a little bit about your products?
16:04 - The way you chose to methodically do the research before launching Chiwis, is that something you learned from your previous experience in the tech industry?
18:45 - Why did you start marketing Chiwis the way you did right from the start? Why did you choose to not go to farmer’s markets?
21:32 - Why was it that Whole Foods jumped all over Chiwis, even though they’re not known for doing that?
26:17 - What are the biggest things that you’re able to draw from, from the tech experience you have that you’re able to apply to Chiwis that is different from what the rest of the food industry is used to?
31:46 - What are you doing, at this stage, to prepare for something that might be larger than your projection is?
36:06 - Is it fair to say that the critical thinking you’ve displayed in launching Chiwis comes from the bootstrapping you’ve done?
39:21 - If you could write your past self a letter, what would that letter say?
41:04 - What were some of the big takeaways from the speech given by Nike’s CMO that you were present for?
43:06 - If any of our viewers wanted to get in touch with you, how could they do that?
44:14 - Outro

Amplify Your Business Goodlawyer

For Episode 179 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Grant Lahring, a co-founder and Head of Growth at Goodlawyer, a software marketplace based out of Calgary, Alberta. Goodlawyer provides startup founders and other founders with specialized legal services enterprises that they can trust. Through Goodlawyer, startups have the ability to work directly with lawyers, rather than having to communicate through the firm and paying extra overhead and costs.
 
Goodlawyer are striving to elevate the legal experience for startups and entrepreneurs by offering transparency around pricing, knowing your price before you start, knowing your deadlines, and being able to talk to your lawyer whenever you want, not whenever they want.To learn more, visit their website at www.goodlawyer.ca 
 
00:00 - Intro
01:20 - What are three things that you think every entrepreneur needs to know?
07:19 - Can you tell us a little bit about Goodlawyer? What problem are you trying to solve right now?
10:41 - From a competitive standpoint, does Goodlawyer have many competitors out there that have a similar model?
12:00 - How did you get involved with Goodlawyer?
14:16 - Can you share with us a little about what it’s like coming in as a co-founder but not in the original founding group?
16:43 - How does everyone at Goodlawyer handle the idea of taking risks? 
18:52 - How do you approach conflict between partners at Goodlawyer?
20:58 - In your conversations with founders, have you found any common threads in terms of the skillsets that they bring to the table that differentiate the successful ones from those who struggle?
23:05 - From a personal perspective, what is one of the biggest challenges to the entrepreneurial life?
24:23 - What do you do to maintain your health - mental and physical - through all of the challenges and stress that being an entrepreneur brings?
28:00 - Do you have a favourite book, podcaster, blogger, or somebody that you admire and look forward to consuming their content?
30:46 - If you could write your past self a letter, what would it say?
34:09 - Is Goodlawyer self-funded, or have there been outside investors?
35:42 - If our viewers wanted to connect with you, what’s the best way to do so?
36:16 - Outro