StartWell: Recent Episodes
http://startwell.co
Recorded at our incubator campus in downtown Toronto's King West neighbourhood, this at-least-weekly series will introduce events and people shaping Toronto's vibrant innovation ecosystem.
Cato Pastoll is the co-founder and CEO of a Toronto based fintech startup called Loop. Loop bills itself as Canada’s #1 bank for entrepreneurs – with a cross border banking platform that includes corporate cards, payments, FX, capital and more in multiple currencies. Founded about a decade ago as Lending Loop – the company launched […]
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. Recently, his conscience weighed on him and he decided to roll up his sleeves – […]
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. Today, Jasmine still practices the law but has reduced her hours on cases to focus on her nightlife establishments, and […]
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. His creative style remixes aesthetic elements to craft new narratives and […]
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. Since Emulator, […]
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. Inspired when her daughter covered herself in makeup one day, […]
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. Founded in the pandemic, Gwella is a remote-first company […]
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. Now joined by podcast cohost Matthew Chapman, Gents Talk is shot at StartWell […]
For over 30 years Michael Goldman‘s professional facilitation training and services company has worked to enable more effective and efficient collaboration. In Canada, Facilitation First is a highly respected firm for its practice and network – which has trained over 20,000 certified facilitators. In this episode of StartWell’s Gathering Podcast you’ll learn how Michael came […]
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. In this engaging conversation you’ll hear about a new app which lets people share extra food with people in need as well as how Jagger made his way to the […]
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. Elizabeth Taylor, works for personal and commercial clients under the company name ‘Faces by Pureness.’
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. For this episode of the StartWell Podcast we sat down with Simon Davis to learn about his impetus for founding the series, experiences hosting it through 2022 across North America and expectations […]
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 […]
Camille Moore joins us in studio on campus at StartWell to relate her founder story and share perspective on Third Eye Insights‘ approach to enabling professional services through branding. The conversation is fun and far reaching – touching on some of StartWell founder Qasim Virjee’s own experiences as one of the first people online in […]
For this session of the StartWell Podcast we sat down with the co-founders of Syzl – Adrian Savin and Azrah Manji. This husband and wife team have brought their combined experiences working in digital marketing and shared spaces to help food professionals, entertainers and hobbyists find and use professional kitchens on demand.
In this interview we sit down at StartWell’s downtown Toronto broadcast studio to hear from the CEO and co-founder of the Future of Film Showcase – a unique not-for-profit arts organisation presenting short films from Canadian Filmmakers aged 40 and younger. Eric tells us about how the Showcase got going as a grassroots solution to […]
Carbon6‘s community empowers 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 session of the StartWell podcast we sit down with 2 of the company’s cofounders, […]
For this, the 40th episode of the StartWell Podcast we sit down with Jason Goldlist (co-founder), Laura Backman (Insiders Manager) and Alexandra Reilly (Growth Marketing Manager) to talk about TechTO – the largest startup focused community organisation in Toronto. The session was recorded during our first TechTO-StartWell coworking day, launching monthly drop-in coworking for the […]
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. In the conversation, Michaelangelo tells us how he got started with drones and what sets his company […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. Learn more about Ran’s company: https://www.freshcityfarms.com/
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. Learn more about Jacqueline’s company, […]
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. Links: StartWell Podcasts on the […]
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 neighbourhood of Leslieville. Adam found his way into studio ownership from a previous career in Press Relations and has […]
Celebrating 10 years in business, Len joins us to recount the foundation story of The Depanneur. His self-described ‘interesting place where food things happen’ has become one of Toronto’s most applauded places to find unique experiences for those who love food, community and adventure. The Dep is where anyone who wants to cook for people […]
For this episode, we had the pleasure of sitting down with the cofounders of Ascari – a Toronto based hospitality group that has evolved in the past decade+ from an experimental Izakaya into a portfolio of French/Italian restaurants, bar plus new retail concept. Ascari cofounders Erik Joyal and John Sinopoli have been an innovative tour […]
For this episode of StartWell’s A New Normal series we are joined in Studio A by Neil Martin, a co-founder of the Toronto coworking brand Project Spaces. Neil relates his company’s history, community profile and we discuss the importance of the places which coworking operators provide for developing communities in our urban contexts.
Ali, one of 3 co-founders of Toronto based video startup Rally, joins StartWell’s CEO Qasim Virjee in our Hybrid Event Studio for a chat about how his company is trying to make online video more social.
Over the past 15 years David has grown what was originally a small recording studio into the world’s premiere marketplace for voice-over talent – voices.com. In this session we hear about the company’s foundation, their fundraising history and recent insights from working through lockdown.
Aliya Ramji is the co-founder of MT Ventures, a program at Canadian law firm McCarthy Tétrault which is focused on helping startups scale through leveraging client and partner relationships in tandem with the firm’s wealth of legal perspective.
As foresight becomes a more important tool for corporations to guide decision making through uncertain times we thought it useful to spend some time with Nikolas Badminton – a world-renowned keynote speaker, consultant, and media producer now based in Toronto Canada and resident at StartWell. In this discussion with our CEO Qasim Virjee, Nik breaks […]
BEworks is the world’s first commercial consulting team dedicated to the application of Behavioural Economics to real-world challenges. Recently the firm developed a Work From Home Diagnostic Tool – we caught up with Kelly Peters, BEwork’s CEO and CoFounder, to hear more about what inspired the Tool’s development and how they work with clients to apply its principles. […]
In this episode of A New Normal, the three cofounders of Toronto-based firm Yenza3 join us by video-link for a conversation that touches on a few topics – including how the pandemic has accelerated the need for companies to develop remote working plans and promote a new corporate culture that understands how people come together […]
In this conversation recorded for our A New Normal series, we caught up with Shez Samji, the Managing Director of Private Equity Services at Silicon Valley Bank Canada. The discussion covers a range of topics – from how important team work in person is to giving people a sense of purpose to why this point in […]
For the 5th episode of A New Normal we called up Nav Sangha – the Founder of Ambassador, a Toronto based startup helping brick and mortar retail businesses go digital with a turn-key integrated online ordering/eCommerce and customer support chatbot offering that can plug into any website infrastructure. Nav’s rich entrepreneurial experience has seen him run Toronto’s most respected […]
Motivbase’s CEO Ujwal Arkalgud is an Author, Entrepreneur and Cultural Anthropologist who joins us to relate some consumer trends he’s seeing at the moment and offer his take on how companies might use this time as an opportunity to innovate.
Tarun Nayar is a Vancouver based music industry professional who has toured all over the world with his award winning band Delhi 2 Dublin, released music through his SnakesXLadders imprint and raised stage to all sorts of artistic performances through his 5XFest events. We dialled up Tarun for his take on changes in the music […]
Welcome to Toronto’s Old Town neighbourhood near the St Lawrence Market – an area with roots dating back to 1793 when this city of now 3 million people was founded. With bike lanes, historic parks and plenty of boutiques, cafes and bars you’d normally find throngs of tourists and office workers strolling along sidewalks but its mid […]
For our inaugural episode we sat down with Dr Sheila Lakhoo – a family doctor who leads the Telemedicine Impact Plus clinic at St Michael’s Hospital. Recently she has also been the Medical Director at Union Health (a new clinic owned by Telus Health utilizing their own telemedicine app called Akira) and practices lifestyle medicine […]
With so many local small and medium sized businesses facing economic uncertainty in the face of the global pandemic, we thought it timely to get StartWell Member company First Aid Canada Inc on the microphone for this special episode of our podcast. Aaron Wayne is a first aid instructor, lifeguard and VP of Sales at […]
This special episode is the fifth of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell’s Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures. This talk was presented by Nikola Danaylov, founder of Singularity Media Inc, and is titled “NeoTechnocracy The Future is […]
This special episode is the fourth of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell’s Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures. This talk was presented by Melissa Eshaghbeigi,(https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshaghbeigi), a strategist at the Toronto design and experience agency JAM3, and is […]
This special episode is the third of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell’s Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures. This talk was presented by Calla Lee (https://www.linkedin.com/in/callalee) and is titled “Tinder” *Dark Futures is presented by globally renowned […]
This special episode is the second of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell’s Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures. This talk was presented by Oksana Andreiuk (https://canadianbiohacker.com/) and is titled “You’re already a cyborg and it’s about to […]
This special episode is the first of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell’s Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures. This talk was presented by Geoff Snack, a strategist at the Toronto design and experience agency JAM3, and is […]
In this studio session we sit down with Matt Cohen, the Managing Partner of Ripple Ventures which is a Toronto based early stage venture fund focused on B2B software. Ripple takes a hands-on approach to enabling the success of the companies which they invest in and Matt explains not only why its important to him […]
A frank discussion between Business of Cannabis‘ Jay Rosenthal and Tricia Lackey, Superette’s Director of Brand Experience, relating issues being faced by retailers of Cannabis in Ontario. *Recorded at the second edition of our speaker series focused on the emerging economy of Cannabis in Canada.
This brief 20 minute talk touches on the magic that happens when people come together. David introduces the role of ‘collaboration artist’ and more… About David’s company BizBash is North America’s #1 source of ideas, news, and resources for event and meeting professionals. Each month nearly 225,000 unique users look to BizBash for venue discovery, event […]
This time around we’re publishing a live-recorded panel discussion moderated by local cannabis accelerator program Leaf Forward as part of our new monthly Cannabinoid Futures speaker series. This inaugural edition of our series brought Vanmala Subramaniam (National Post), Matt Lamers (Marijuana Business Daily) and Jay Rosenthal (Business of Cannabis) together on the mic. We invite you to […]
TheAppLabb, founded in Toronto in 2007, is a striking example of how digital services agencies need to stay on top of constantly accelerating technological innovation to not only remain relevant but grow. In this session we sit down with its founder, Kundan Joshi. *Learn more about Kundan’s company here: https://theapplabb.com/
This time around we’re in the studio with StartWell member company Emergence Labs – a business technology consulting form and Salesforce implementation partner focused on helping small to medium sized businesses adopt new technologies that can help them database and better use their information. *Learn more about Emergence Labs on their website at https://emergencelabs.io/
MotivBase has created the world’s only Artificial Intelligence powered Anthropologist that can predict trends that will shape consumer behaviour. In this episode we sit down with cofounder Ujwal Arkalgud and learn about the early foundation stages of this successful yet boot-strapped venture as well as how context informs trends in unique ways online.
This time around we sit down with this unique consulting firm that helps organizations align user experience, content and technology across the core processes of knowledge management. Join Yenza3‘s Anuj Rastogi, Shveta Malhan and Martin Byrne join StartWell’s founder Qasim Virjee in this fun conversation that explores some of their own career history that lead to forming this […]
This live recording was made during the March instalment of AWENiteTO – a monthly event presented within our New Realities programming channel at main campus in downtown Toronto. The panel was moderated by Electric Runway‘s Amanda Cosco and featured – Charles Bern (CEO Patio Interactive), Fareena Contractor (Head of Walmart’s Innovation Community) & Matt McPherson (COO, Quantum Capture)
In this conversation we sit down with Scott Nihill, the co-founder of Embreate – an interdisciplinary agency focused on creating and producing original, interactive, story-based experiences that is resident at StartWell’s Main Campus in Toronto. *More info: http://embreate.com/
Our whole community at Main Campus has been in love with their personalized tea since we first partnered with teaBot to bring their machines to our cafe and bar. Based at StartWell, teaBot is a startup that has been through acceleration programs including Y Combinator and Creative Destruction Lab and weathered their first 5 years in […]
In this episode we sit down with Addo, one of the co-founders of Source – a new venture based at StartWell who are using Blockchain technologies for their interoperable data platform that lets developers create innovative ways to distribute access to information. One of the example use cases for their platform we discuss here briefly – being able to […]
In this episode, our CEO sits down with Marianne Bulger (People and Platform at Golden Ventures – a tech focused, industry-agnostic seed stage venture capital fund based in Toronto that invests across North America.) The conversation touches on our local VC landscape, the rapid growth we are experiencing in Toronto’s tech sector, diversity and wait […]
This is episode StartWell’s CEO and Founder Qasim Virjee sits down in our studio with Karim Harji – a leading researcher, educator and investor on the topic of Impact Measurement and Investing. Karim Harji brings over a decade of international experience in impact measurement and impact investing. He is a Senior Fellow with the J.W. […]
This time around, our Founder Qasim is joined in studio by Corey Caplan the Senior Director for International Sales at StartWell Member company Gusto Worldwide Media. Headquartered in Ottawa, Gusto is the world’s leading producer of native 4k food and cooking content, available for television and digital platforms. Seen in more than 170 countries, its award winning series […]
In this episode Yuriy Blokhin breaks down how the Lightning Network represents the values for distributed networks that core blockchain hacker communities support around the world. Though an employee of Bitfury, one of the largest companies in the world focused on developing solutions for the Bitcoin Blockchain, Yuriy develops partnerships that benefit the adoption of […]
Join our moderator, StartWell’s CEO Qasim Virjee in a discussion about how cryptocurrencies are ‘mined’ and the business models supporting this new sector’s evolution. This live panel discussion was recorded in person as part of StartWell’s guest speaker series on July 12, 2018 and included: Scott Howard (Cofounder, ePic Blockchain Technologies), Shelly Gray (ex-COO Greenminer, now Canada Blockchain Group), Scot Johnson (CEO, Digital Shovel) and Alim […]
Her work has been covered in publications around the world – including the Guardian, Vice, NPR, the Globe and Mail and others – StartWell member Natalia Juarez joins Qasim in the studio for this session, telling us about her journey to establishing a consultant practice that uniquely helps people navigate romantic challenges in their lives.
In this colourful conversation Salimah, the co-founder of Artery, shares some unique experiences founding a 6 million member youth-led environmental network, working as a journalist in Africa, the Middle East (pre-Arab Spring),the US and more – all apparently leading towards co-founding her new company called Artery – a unique digital platform changing the way creative […]
An action-packed conversation with tons of great knowledge about Blockchain/Bitcoin, Crypto-Currency and more with the CEO and co-founder of ePic Blockchain, Scott Howard and StartWell’s CEO, Qasim Virjee.
This time our CEO Qasim Virjee is joined in the studio by Shane George – a consultant who helps SaaS companies develop Agile Sales methods. Shane is also the Vice President of Sales at StartWell member company OnCall Health.
StartWell’s CEO sits down with Brendan Philp and Troy Fawkes from Delta Growth, a full service digital marketing agency who take a transparent and flexible approach to driving growth for their clientele rather than simply pushing ads.
One of our Artists in Residence, Gurpreet Chana is an accomplished music producer, performer and educator who works with partners to develop new instrumentation grounded in tradition that uses cutting edge technology. His innovative playing style and instrument creations have won awards and recently the Red Bull Music Academy invited him to perform as part of their 2018 […]
StartWell’s CEO sits down with Toby Savill, who is leading Canadian expansion for Airsorted – the world’s largest single manager of AirBnB properties who recently raised £5M to fuel global expansion. Toby explains why Toronto’s diversity has attracted the company to Canada and how StartWell is already contributing to his success.