Amplify Your Business

Amplify Your Business Empowering Renters, Rewarding Responsible Living

For Episode 247 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Thomas Deneve, the founder and CEO of RentFund. RentFund turns rent payments into an investment and incentivizes people to take better care of the places where they live. The mission at RentFund is pretty simple: they believe that everyone should benefit financially from the place they live because, oftentimes, that's our biggest monthly expense. Essentially, a portion of each rent payment a renter makes gets put into an investment fund that will be returned to the renter upon the end of their lease, as long as the property is in good, undamaged condition. To learn more, visit https://www.rentfund.ca/ 
 
00:00 - Intro
01:16 - What are the three things that you think every entrepreneur needs to know?
05:00 - Tell us a little bit about RentFund.
12:52 - Can you speak to the marketing aspect of RentFund? How do landlords market their property on your site?
17:13 - From the time you came up with this idea to the time you launched, what are some of the challenges that you’ve had to overcome?
24:23 - Can you explain how you’re playing both sides of the market with RentFund? What is your business model?
27:43 - What is going to be the biggest hurdle you’ll have to overcome to get to the next stage of growth?
33:11 - What is the best way for our listeners to connect with you?

Amplify Your Business - A Fractional CRO’s Tailored Path to Excellence

For Episode 246 of Amplify Your Business, we’re in conversation with Christian Solomine, founder and CEO of Fractional CRO. What is a fractional CRO? A fractional CRO is an executive team member responsible for marketing, sales, business development, and customer success, essentially overseeing all revenue-generating aspects of a business. The key distinction is that they perform the same responsibilities as a full-time Chief Revenue Officer, but with a designated number of hours or days per week. In an effort to help companies that either don’t need a full time CRO, or are unsure which duties to assign to a person in this role, Christian began Fractional CRO to organizations to shape this role to be effective from day one.To learn more, connect with Christian on LinkedIn or visit their website at fractional-cro.com. 
 
00:00 - Intro
00:51 - What is a CRO? 
07:08 - What patterns have you noticed from your diverse interactions with different businesses?
13:42 - Does your role have system-based implementation strategies?
16:22 - Can some tools be more of a distraction than a help for certain businesses?
19:02 - Do you have stories from some of your more memorable engagements? 
20:36 -  If any of our audience members wanted to connect with you, how could they do that?

Amplify Your Business

For Episode 245 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Charlie Aldis, the co-founder and CRO of Maven IT. Charlie started in the telecom industry at just 18 years old, and by 30, had worked his way up to the executive level. However, frustration, anger, and stress caused his blood pressure to skyrocket, and he ended up having a stroke at work one day. It was then, after more than 30 years in the telecom industry, that Charlie realized he needed a change. So he hooked up with an old colleague, Aaron, and together, they founded Maven IT. Maven IT got its start with the aim of providing enterprise-level managed IT services to small and medium businesses. After a chance phone call to the franchisee of a Smoothie King opening up new stores in Michigan, Charlie and his co-founder Aaron realized that franchises were a very underserved market in terms of managed IT services. And so, eventually, Maven IT evolved from serving primarily small to medium businesses to operating in the franchisee space. To date, they’re in 32 states servicing about 1100 franchise locations nationwide and growing.To learn more, visit their website at https://www.mavenitinc.com/. 
 
00:00 - Intro
01:03 - What are three things that you think every entrepreneur should know?
02:58 - Can you tell us a little bit about Maven IT? What is it you do, and how has the business evolved since you first started?
08:55 - Why did you leave your job, in an industry you were in for more than 30 years, to get into entrepreneurship with Maven IT?
15:31 - Where does your entrepreneurial drive come from? 
22:19 - What have you found most challenging or frustrating about pivoting from the telecom world into entrepreneurship?
29:55 - What does success look like to you now?
35:44 - If you could write a letter to your younger self, what advice would you give?
38:48 - If our audience members wanted to connect with you, how could they do that?

Amplify Your Business Saving Lives with AI: ScriptChain Health and the Fight Against Heart Disease

For Episode 244 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Moh Noori, the CEO and founder of ScriptChain Health. heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, which equates to over 700,000 deaths annually in the U.S. alone and globally, over 18 million deaths annually. Readmission equates to over $72M a day in penalties and losses. The heart-shattering and life-changing moment of witnessing his beloved grandmother suffer and ultimately pass away from Congestive Heart Failure is what led Moh down the road to founding ScriptChain Health. In an effort to find a solution to both heart disease and readmission, two growing issues in the health care industry, Moh and ScriptChain Health created an AI prediction platform for heart disease readmission in order to better patient outcomes and help physicians identify patients who are at a high risk of readmission.To learn more, connect with Moh on LinkedIn or Twitter, or visit their website at https://scriptchain.co. 
 
00:00 - Intro
01:10 - What are three things that you think every entrepreneur needs to know?
04:18 - Can you give us a snapshot of what ScriptChain Health is all about?
10:51 - How did you go from being a grad student in business to the founder and CEO of a medical tech and digital health startup?
12:09 - How have you bootstrapped this startup, and where are you now in terms of funding?
13:12 - How are you handling the work-life balance as the founder and CEO of a startup?
17:08 - How do you manage to stay so driven after two-and-a-half years at such an insane pace?
18:29 - Tell me a bit about your business journey. What are some of the hurdles you’ve had to overcome?
25:48 - If you could write a letter to your pre-entrepreneurial self, what would it say?
30:04 - If any of our audience members wanted to connect with you, how could they do that?

Amplify Your Business Ascent Drywall and Coating

For Episode 243 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Neil Belenkie, the CEO of Ascent Drywall and Coating. Neil is a serial entrepreneur with over 50 successful businesses under his belt. In his current venture, as the CEO of Ascent Drywall and Coating, Neil completely redone their finance modelling, created a new ideal customer profile, rebuilt supplier partnerships, and put in new controls for theft and accountability. In two-and-a-half years, he turned a company that was drowning into a successful and thriving business. To learn more, connect with Neil on LinkedIn, or shoot him an email at neil@2000coffee.com.
 
00:00 - Intro
04:12 - Can you talk to us a little bit about Ascent, what you’re doing there, and what you mean by the term “turnaround specialist”?
10:01 - Please tell us about the $2,000 coffee.
17:56 - How did you get to this place in life where you have all this expertise that allows you to help these companies with their turnarounds?
21:21 - If you could distill this expertise down to three things that you think every entrepreneur should know, what would they be?
25:26 - How do you find the balance between all of the multiple businesses you work for or with simultaneously?
36:34 - If you could write a letter to your younger entrepreneurial self, what advice would you give?
40:49 - What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you?

Amplify Your Business Edmonton Unlimited Open House Part 2

For Episode 242 of Amplify Your Business, we’re at the Edmonton Unlimited Open House, and we’re speaking to a lot of incredible entrepreneurs, hearing their stories, their challenges, and their successes. 
 
First up, we speak with Lilah Penddah, the founder and CEO of Afro Facts. Afro Facts creates educational tools, games, workshops, and webinars to help people increase their awareness with respect to black history, as well as give them the tools needed to have more productive and healing conversations with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion. To learn more about Afro Facts, visit their website at www.afrofacts.ca. 
 
Next up is Ali Salman, the founder of Lawtiq. Lawtiq is an online platform that allows you to connect with a lawyer in the time it takes you to order a pizza online. With just a few clicks, you can book an appointment with a lawyer of your choice, or if you’re looking for long-term legal services, they have a fixed-price option. Learn more at www.lawtiq.com. 
 
After Ali, Lance meets with Sahr Saffa, the founder of C-Tribe Society. C-Tribe Society’s mission is to find ways to celebrate diversity and to help more underserved and underrepresented innovators and creatives in achieving their goals. They operate across various verticals, ranging from the technology sector, fashion, music, gaming, and culturally inspired sectors as well. To learn more, find them on Facebook.
 
Our fourth interviewee is 14-year-old Sophia Fairweather, the founder of Key-Angels. Sophia founded Key-Angels when she was only 10, with a unique purpose in mind, which is to provide single-parent and zero-parent families with the ability to grow and succeed in their lives. They do this through a unique financing platform that connects single-parent and zero-parent families with “Angels” that help them with access to buying their first home. To learn more, visit www.key-angels.com.
 
Finally, Lance interviews Kevin Peterson, the founder of Zipstall. Zipstall is a parking app, downloadable from all major app stores, that doesn’t just allow you to pay for parking directly from the app but also helps you find available parking in downtown Edmonton – an often difficult task! By solving local parking crises, Zipstall brings communities together and helps Edmontonians support local businesses. To learn more, visit www.zipstall.com. 
 
00:00 - Intro
01:48 - Introducing Lilah Penddah, Founder & CEO of Afro Facts/
2:07 - Can you tell us about your business?
02:27 - Is this Canadian Black history, or do you encompass Black history in other countries as well?
02:52 - What is the business model of Afro Facts?
04:21 - Where do you want to take your business in the next three years?
05:27 - What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who’s on a similar journey to yours?
06:57 - Introducing Ali Salman, Founder of Lawtiq.com.
07:40 - What is Lawtiq, and what is the problem are you trying to solve?
09:43 - After running a marketing business, how did you find yourself starting Lawtiq?
11:33 - Introducing Sahr Saffa, Founder of C-Tribe Society.
11:44 - Tell me a bit about your business and what problem you’re trying to solve.
12:28 - What are you doing differently now than you were before COVID hit?
15:04 - Introducing Sophia Fairweather, Founder of Keys-Angels.
17:47 - Where did the idea for Key-Angels come from?
18:35 - The youths that come do you, do they provide their own capital, or is the angel investor providing it?
20:20 - Introducing Kevin Peterson, Founder of Zipstall.
20:34 - What has changed with Zipstall since the last time we interviewed you?

Amplify Your Business Edmonton Unlimited’s Open House Part 1

For Episode 241 of Amplify Your Business, we’re excited to be let out of the studio! Coming to you from Edmonton Unlimited’s Open House we had the opportunity to chat with some of the great entrepreneurial minds coming out of Edmonton. This episode is part one of a two-part series, in which Lance enjoyed catching up with past AYB alum and meeting some of the Edmontons' brightest entrepreneurs. 
 
00:00 - Intro
02:41 - Derek Nolt, CEO of Bladeflex
05:32 - What’s the biggest challenge Derek has to overcome to get to where he wants to be in a year’s time?
07:05 - Emily Craven, Founder & CEO of Story City
10:20 - How does Emily stay focused on her most important goals?
12:56 - Harpal Mandaher, CEO of Sarcomere Dynamics
14:37 - How did Sarcomere Dynamics shift from prosthetics to automation?
17:57 - Jean Bruce Koua, Co-founder & COO of Elev
20:30 - How is Elev overcoming the challenges they face?

Amplify Your Business A Woman-Owned PR Company With Bite

For Episode 240 of Amplify Your Business, we’re joined by Jenny Beres, the co-founder and president of Pink Shark PR. Pink Shark PR works with funders and founders in the tech industry to help them expand their companies past the early or growth stages of their businesses. Their area of specialization is startup first, PR second, which means that they understand the unique challenges faced by startups in that there are no one-size-fits-all strategies for early and growth-stage businesses. This is all done through a program called the Startup Accelerator, which offers customized “fast and deep” PR strategies to help startups get funded, find the right investors and strategic partners, and connect with the right customers. To learn more, visit their website at https://www.pinksharkpr.com/ or connect with Jenny on LinkedIn.
 
00:00 - Intro
00:59 - What are three things every entrepreneur should know?
05:36 - What problems are you solving at Pink Shark PR?
08:45 - Can you tell us a little bit about the “startup press machine” that you’ve created for your clients?
11:42 - What have you found are some of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs are making in terms of PR?
20:29 - Is there a hierarchy of value in terms of the different avenues of PR?
26:09 - How do you leverage PR and build upon it?
32:14 - What is your opinion on this onslaught of AIs and AI-enabled chatbots in terms of PR and PR content?
37:29 - What is the best way that our audience members can connect with you?