70 episodes
Matt Espinoza sold his first software company the same week he graduated university — then did it again, faster. Now, at 23, he runs Clover Labs (AI), a Toronto startup that grew to 65 employees in a year by building AI "growth agents" that mass-produce content, run outbound, and manage ad spend for other companies.
Stan has helped over 100,000 creators and entrepreneurs earn more than $600M online — and takes $0 in commission on any of it. Vitalii Dodonov, co-founder and CTO of Stan, explains why the team made that call on purpose, and what it's built on top of it since.
Farhan Thawar leads engineering at Shopify — roughly 3,000 people building the infrastructure behind one of the largest commerce platforms in the world. He joined in 2019 when Shopify acquired Helpful.com, the company he co-founded, and he's been there now for longer than any job he's held before.
Canadian businesses are getting left behind by their banks — and Saud Aziz is doing something about it. As co-founder of Venn, he's building the financial operating system that Canadian SMBs actually need: multi-currency accounts, same-day payments, corporate cards with real spend controls, and accounting automation that eliminates the admin pile.
Wayne Pommen is the Chief Revenue Officer at Affirm, North America's leading buy now pay later company. Before that, he was the CEO and builder of PayBright — Canada's first BNPL company — which he grew from 6 employees to 200 before it was acquired by Affirm in 2021. Today Affirm serves 27 million active consumers and processes close to $50 billion a year in purchases across the US, Canada, and the UK.
Eliot Pence is the founder and CEO of Dominion Dynamics, a company on a mission to become Canada's national defense systems integrator. Founded on D-Day 2025, Dominion is building a dual-use, persistent Arctic sensing network — integrating sensors across land, sea, air, and space into a sovereign data fabric that closes a critical intelligence and command-and-control gap in Canada's north.
with Som Seif, Founder and CEO, Purpose Unlimited
Som Seif, CEO of Purpose Unlimited and co-founder of Wealthsimple, joins the StartWell Podcast to talk about why Canadians fear criticism more than failure, how small businesses struggle to get capital, and why AI is the most exciting moment of his career.
“It's a fear of criticism.” — Som Seif
Steven Wang is the CEO of Venture for Canada, a national charity that equips young Canadians with the entrepreneurial skills, mindset, and opportunities they need to thrive in a rapidly changing economy.
*Recorded at StartWell - Toronto's best place for company meetings, events and professional content capture: https://startwell.co/
*Recorded at StartWell - Toronto's best place for corporate events/meetings/podcasts: https://startwell.co
*Recorded at StartWell in downtown Toronto: https://startwell.co
*Recorded at StartWell - Toronto's campus for corporate meetings & events: https://startwell.co
*Recorded at StartWell, Toronto's campus for corporate meetings & events: https://startwell.co/
*Recorded at StartWell - Toronto's campus for corporate meetings & events: https://startwell.co
*Recorded at StartWell - Toronto's campus for corporate meetings & events: https://startwell.co
*Recorded at StartWell - Toronto's campus for corporate meetings & events: https://startwell.co
*StartWell is the best place to bring your company for meetings and events: https://startwell.co
*StartWell is the best place to bring your company for meetings and events: https://startwell.co
*Bring your team to StartWell in Toronto for meetings and events: https://startwell.co
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Nayeema Raza (@SmartGirlDumbQuestions) believes that success comes from embracing authentic curiosity rather than chasing algorithms. For this episode of the StartWell Podcast, Nayeema joined us in studio in Toronto to discuss her lens on hosting her own show, and what the modern media landscape looks like from her perspective as a journalist, filmmaker and podcaster.
PR is not a shortcut to leads. It’s a trust engine.
This episode of the StartWell Podcast delves into the complexities of burnout, distinguishing it from acute stress and exploring the impact of chronic stress on mental health.
In this episode of the StartWell Podcast, Ruslan Nikolaev, co-founder of Float, shares the journey of building a fintech startup aimed at revolutionizing financial management for Canadian businesses.
For this episode of the StartWell Podcast, Peter Hwang shares his entrepreneurial journey - starting from his first business right out of university to navigating various challenges in the startup landscape.
This episode of the StartWell Podcast explores the multifaceted nature of community building in business as we sit down virtually with Joshua Zerkel; a community-led growth and engagement leader who has done amazing work for technology companies operating at massive scale; including Asana and Evernote.
This conversation is a deep dive into the Canadian creative industry's untapped potential and challenges.
In this episode of the StartWell Podcast, we sat down with Nik Milanović, founder of This Week in Fintech (the world's largest fintech community with 160,000 subscribers.)
You're in for a fascinating conversation about rethinking startup strategy with Alistair Croll. For this episode of the StartWell Podcast, we dive deep into his new book "Just Evil Enough," which took seven years to write and challenges everything you thought you knew about building successful startups.
For this second conversation with Carbon6 - 2 years after we last had them in studio, you'll get an insider's look at one of the most dynamic success stories in the Amazon seller software space. Carbon6's journey from ambitious startup to industry powerhouse unfolds through candid discussions with its co-founders, who share both the triumphs and challenges of building a tech company through acquisition and organic growth.
For this episode of the StartWell Podcast, James McKay shares his path from film studies to RevOps consulting in this straight-talking conversation about the Canadian startup ecosystem. If you work in tech or are curious about how Canadian business really operates, there's plenty here to dig into.
For this episode of the StartWell Podcast, we discover how StackAdapt grew from a 3-person startup to a global force in programmatic advertising, now operating in 16 countries. CEO Vitaly Pecherskiy shares insights on bootstrap funding, sustainable growth, and building a customer-centric global tech company.
In this episode, we explored the transformative work King's Trust Canada is pursuing to improve youth employment outcomes with the organization’s CEO Farah Mohammed.
To scale companies that win markets, revenue operations must integrate sales with customer success functions.
70% of people in Canada don't feel like they have the skills to be successful at their job.
For this episode of the StartWell Podcast (https://startwell.co/blogs/business), 5andVine founder Rahul Raj and Qasim Virjee (CEO, StartWell) engage in a thought-provoking conversation about challenging traditional views of capitalism, emphasizing the importance of caring deeply about how one wins and balancing profit with ethical considerations.
Mark Evans is a Fractional CMO and advisor to scale startups. He's previously been a news reporter and launched his career as a consultant since 2008.
For over 15 years Jean has worked on Strategy and Marketing - at agencies (incl BBDO, Cheil, Taxi, VML and most recently at The Hive) and for startups.
In the post-pandemic era, marketing faces challenges such as declining efficacy and escalating costs.
Dan Park has had a colourful career so far - 20 years ago he was at McGill with Qasim, StartWell's founder/CEO, and since then has worked in investment banking and venture capital before taking the helm at Uber to define their UberEats business across Canada.
Roy Pereira's history in tech started in the 1990s - he saw the first boom-bust cycle and has since founded and exited a few startups.
Dr Anish Kaushal is an interesting guy - he worked hard to become a doctor but an administrative hiccup led to discovering a career path in VC which he found more interesting than simply practicing medicine.
At this roundtable we feature the perspectives of three guests who work within the Canadian cannabis industry - including a grower and two gentlemen who have previously owned a production/processing facility and now help new brands enter the market working with Wellcann - the only cannabis gum manufacturer in Ontario.
Cato Pastoll is the co-founder and CEO of a Toronto based fintech startup called Loop.
Andrew Ingham has had an interesting career - he started working in his youth in plumbing and then spent years building markets for beer companies before becoming an alcohol buyer for large grocery chains and hospitality companies around the world.
Jasmine Daya developed a successful injury law practice in downtown Toronto leading up to the pandemic - in the down-time when courts were closed and business was slow, her entrepreneurial spirit saw opportunity in hospitality.
Nick DenBoer is a film and music video director based in Toronto who has worked with a wide array of high profile clients - including ad agencies like Wieden+Kennedy, media personalities like Conan O'Brien and artists like deadmau5, The Neptunes and even Tommy Lee.
Alan Smithson co-invented the world’s first touchscreen DJ system called 'Emulator' - an award winning piece of performance kit used by some of the top DJs on the global dance music circuit. In a twist of fate, the company was taken from him the night his pitch on Dragon's Den for it aired.
For the 51st episode of StartWell's Podcast, we sat down with Lisa Mattam - the Toronto based founder of Sahajan. This unique clean skincare company develops Ayurveda based products with the rigor of scientific testing to ensure best in class performance from plant based ingredients.
As with most pharmaceutical drugs, Adderall comes with side-effects which make it undesirable for a lot of people - including addictiveness, something which inspired the team behind Gwella, a Toronto based company to launch vegan non-prescription edibles that boost energy levels, focus, mental clarity and positivity.
Originally a written series of interviews with male celebrities and athletes published online through a website called Gents Post, Gents Talk was launched in 2022 as a video podcast to better articulate the depth of experiences interviewees were expressing to Samir Mourani.
Accomplished Toronto Chef Jagger Gordon joined us in studio to share the inspiration behind his philanthropic endeavours to battle food insecurity and reduce food waste.
Entrepreneurs come from all backgrounds - so it was refreshing this time around to take a break from high tech startups and hear the story of this award winning Toronto based makeup and hair artist.
Purposeful Intent is a series of curated in-person Corporate Real Estate and Workplace events to have open discussions and thought leadership around the future of work.
With people buying things increasingly online the back end logistics required for not only shipping product out to consumers but then receiving back returns can be a nightmare for SMBs - that's where ReturnBear comes in. This Canadian company helps sellers manage their product returns; with central product drop depots in shopping malls and much more - including product sorting and re-packacking to speed up the path to resale.
Camille Moore joins us in studio on campus at StartWell to relate her founder story and share perspective on her firm's approach to enabling professional services through branding.
We sat down with the co-founders of Syzl - a Canadian technology startup which connects owners and operators of professional kitchens with additional sources of revenue through short term bookings by anyone - from hobbyists and media professionals to catering companies.
In this filmed interview we sit down at StartWell's downtown Toronto broadcast studio to hear from the CEO and co-founder of FOFS - a unique not-for-profit arts organisation presenting short films from Canadian Filmmakers aged 40 and younger.
For this, the 40th episode of the StartWell Podcast we sit down with Jason Goldlist (co-founder), Laura Backham (Insiders Manager) and Alexandra Reilly (Growth Marketing Manager) to talk about TechTO - the largest startup focused community organisation in Toronto.
Carbon6 is building a community to empower eCommerce sellers, removing the barriers to selling online. Focused on the global Amazon seller community, this innovative StartWell member company has just come out of stealth mode and is rapidly scaling their team and software solutions.
For this, the 39th episode of the StartWell Podcast we sat down with the founder of Top Drone - a Toronto based film production company that exclusively works with Drone technology on projects for entertainment and commercial purpose.
Ryan Bolton is a Toronto based photographer who has won awards and travelled the world capturing stunning images of people and places. His client roster includes Apple, Red Bull, Spotify, Gucci, SickKids and many other category leading institutions and commercial brands. Journalism originally led Ryan to photography as a career and in this session we discuss the backstory which developed his lens on the world plus tips and tricks for improving as a career creator.
Leveraging technology originally developed at the University of Guelph for NASA to test the ability to grow life on Mars, Elevate Farms is building some of the worlds most cutting edge vertical farms. We invited the company's CEO and Founder Amin Jadavji to StartWell for this conversation that recounts the company's history and technology plus addresses food shortage problems brought to light by the pandemic and more.
In this session we hear from one of Canada's premier experts on global licensing/merchandising and brand/franchise marketing focused on Asia. Jacqueline has spent 2 decades in the children's entertainment space and shares some of her experiences taking the minions to China, bringing the Wiggles to Canada and much much more.
In this session we hear from the founder of Fresh City Farms - a multi-brand grocer/baker/butcher operating 8 locations across Toronto which sprouted from humble beginnings about a decade ago as an urban farming experiment in Downsview Park.
We sat down with the cofounder of Canada's leading publication focused on the emerging North American Cannabis industry. Jay from Business of Cannabis gives us a 101 on how the industry is structured whilst recounting fun anecdotes and an update about being acquired recently by Prohibition Partners from the UK.
In this episode we hear from the founder of Toronto's Astrolab Studios - one of the most popular boutique studios for commercial film and photography located on the Revival Film Studios lot in the city's downtown-West neighbourhood of Leslieville.
Celebrating 10 years in business, Len joins us to recount the foundation story of The Deppanneur.
A conversation that introduces their career history and perspectives working within Toronto's restaurant industry.
