Before the Business: Recent Episodes
Before the Business
Before the Business is a podcast series that celebrates the origin stories of entrepreneurs. Each episode, we interview the founder of a unique business to learn what inspired them to start their business, and what drives them to continue pushing forward.
Read more stories online at www.beforethebusiness.com
Recorded February 2024
**When Jacqueline rescued her first dog, Bella, she set out to find a natural, nutritious pet food that would help her new friend grow happy, healthy and strong – and that aligned with her personal values. But at the time, it seemed every food option was full of ingredients that seemed to compromise animal welfare, sustainability and transparency standards. As an animal lover, not only did she want to provide her pet with the highest quality food, but also to ensure that it was made ethically, and sourced from humane family farms that treated their animals with respect. She was disappointed in the options that were available, so alongside her husband Isaac and brother-in-law Derek, they started to explore what it would take to develop a pet food that met a higher standard – knowing there were likely many others who were seeking the same.
After years of research and hard work, they started Open Farm. Their goal was to do more than just change what pet food contained; they wanted to completely rethink the way it was made. For them, that meant not only sourcing the highest quality ingredients, but also supporting farmers who treat their animals right, and providing full transparency to customers.
It’s out of that vision that Open Farm was born—from the simple idea that pet food can both be good for your pet, and do some good for farm animals and the environment, all at the same time.**
Open Farm Website
Recorded January 2023
Founder Tonia Krauser created Oshen because she saw an opportunity in the beauty supply marketplace. She wanted to create her company, her way, informed by her values. Style? Check. Function? Check. Sustainability. Check. The result? Oshen is an intentionally eco-conscious lifestyle brand that blends these values together. Their flagship product is a stunning makeup case that is practical enough to store all of your beauty products, but beautiful enough to leave on your counter.
Tonia was struck by the fact that there is an endless supply of plastic in our oceans, and more being added to waterways each day. Because plastic doesn't belong in our oceans, Oshen uses recycled ocean plastic and ocean-bound plastic to create their products. They source the recycled plastic from Oceanworks, the largest marketplace for ocean plastic, to ensure reliable traceability of materials.
Working with an ethical factory overseas with experience using recycled materials, they produce design-forward, quality products that don’t sacrifice on style or functionality.
Oshen Website
Recorded July 2023
At Colaneri Estate Winery, they share a passion for producing premium wines that respect tradition while embracing more modern production methods. The result? A boldly delicious harmony that brings wine alive. Quality begins in their vineyard where vines are meticulously maintained, and bunches are thinned out on the vine to ensure incredible flavour profile and pristine fruit. Of course, grapes are hand harvested and placed onto racks in preparation for drying.
Many of their wines are produced in the “Appassimento” style which means “Wither”. In Italy, grapes could be left to dry in the hot sun. In Canada, the process sees grapes placed, in single layer, on drying racks and placed in a drying chamber to dehydrate. This dehydration concentrates the unique varietal character, reduces the water content and produces a fuller-bodied and full flavoured wine. The percentage of the appassimento method varies from year to year and with each varietal.
The longer-term goal? Continue to provide an exceptional in-person experience at the winery, while always striving to develop and create new wine experiences for customers.
Colaneri Website
Recorded January 2023
It would be too easy to say that Pokko is simply a healthier chip. Sure, its made from rice and chickpeas and is suitable for those on vegan diets. It would also be too easy to say that it has a unique flavour profile, inspired by spices from South Asia. To be more accurate… well, you just have to try. Pokko is a way for you to completely upgrade your snack game.
At its core, Pokko is based on a family recipe. Founder Sasha Rajamani had been sharing bags of these chips with friends and colleagues for many years. In 2021, he decided to take it up a a notch and founded Pokko Chips. Now these flavours are available to everyone.
Pokko features Asafoetida, a spice that has been used for centuries in Iran and Afghanistan. In its natural form, Asafoetida (also spelled “asafoetida”) is a pungent herb but once cooked it delivers a flavour that is similar to leeks or onions. It’s the subtle hint of this flavour that make Pokko unique. Pokko currently comes in two flavours: original and spicy (which features Kashmiri chillis from India).
Remarkably, Sasha founded the business in 2021. Not only was the world still trying to navigate COVID-19, but he had also just become a new father. Obviously, balancing his family commitments as well as the time required to build a new business was difficult, so he surrounded himself with a team of experts and mentors who were instrumental in guiding Pokko in its early days.
Consider yourself warned, though. Once you experience the crunch, the taste and the spice you will find it hard to go back to “regular” snacks!
Pokko Chips Website
Founded by former management consultant turned entrepreneur Nima Mirpourian, his business leverages his years in social research, talent acquisition, and technology consulting to grow the influence of creators and executives on social media.
Recorded May 2022
Like many things of beauty “It’s Souper” began as a dream and a way to find a place in a diverse community for Nigerian born, Lola Adeyemi. Today it’s more than a dream—it’s a business that brings the flavours of Africa to food lovers.
After pursuing a Bachelors Degree at the University of Winnipeg, Lola relocated to Toronto. But even in a bigger city she noticed a gap in the food market. While working as an IT Specialist, she would shop the specialty stores for ingredients to create unique Nigerian dish to every potluck or team building event. The empty containers and rave reviews from her coworkers confirmed that the gap she had identified was real. But her co-workers didn’t have experience with the ingredients, let alone know where to find them.
In Nigeria, soup is enjoyed year-round. In Canada, she found that some of the “ready to eat” options weren’t flavourful enough, weren’t hearty enough, and we’re interesting enough to make soup an everyday meal. She always had to tweak the soups by adding more flavour and spice to them when she got home. For her, soup should be vibrant, exciting, and colourful! “Soup is an aromatic twist of flavours and textures exploding in your mouth, soup isn’t only for when its cold and dull outside, soup is for every day, soup should be food for your soul. SOUP is LIFE!!”.
With that kind of passion, it’s like she was destined to create and found It’s Souper, an Afro-fusion gourmet brand that creates soups and sauces to elevate your cooking game. #Soupislove
Recorded May 2022 After years working in the British Columbia restaurant industry, Bamba Vodka Founder, Brandon McKeachie decided to carve out his own place in the world of spirits with the goal of crafting an outstanding vodka that showcases the "spirit of BC."
As a product, Bamba was crafted to shift outdated perceptions that the best vodka was colourless, odourless, and flavourless. Instead, vodka can be delicious and complex. Bamba is a vodka that challenges the notion that vodka is a spirit that you add to other juices or sugary sodas. It is something that can be enjoyed on its own.
Bamba is crafted with 100% locally-grown organic corn from the Okanagan Valley. Add a bit of yeast, a bit of magic, and some amazing British Columbia water and the distillation process results in a complex flavour profile—vanilla and sweet corn, a fuller body, and a long smooth finish without the “eyes closed, head shaking” ethanol burn.
The name Bamba is an enigma. We wanted to pick a name that people could create their own meaning and associations around. If you really go looking for a meaning, Bamba can reflect advice, mastery and maybe even the need to get a little rambunctious. But it’s what it means to you that matters.
Recorded April 2022 Kory Zelickson is an entrepreneur and innovator who has launched a number of success e-commerce and technology companies.
He and his family choose to eat a plant-based diet. Although gaining in popularity, plant-based products are not as readily available through traditional grocery and retail chains. Not only do plant-based products fight for shelf space within their category, they also must compete with other products. As a result, it can be hard for customers to find all of their desired plant-based products — fish, chicken and beef to milk and egg alternatives—in one place. It can also be difficult for new start-up businesses to reach consumers, especially since many food products need to be shipped frozen to remain fresh.
To solve the problem, he created Vejii (www.shopvejii.com), an online digital marketplace that meets the needs of consumers and plant-based companies. Through an online portal, customers have access to their favourite plant-based products and are exposed to new products from emerging providers. Vejii controls a number of cold-storage distribution facilities across North America, ensuring that online orders are shipped directly to the customer exactly as the manufacturer intended.
Recorded April 2022
The Inuvialuit live in the western Canadian Arctic, predominantly in the coastal regions near the ocean. The landscape plays a huge role in defining the Inuvialuit style of carving, which uses natural materials — muskox horn, baleen, antler, soapstone — to represent everyday scenes. Consequently, each piece of art has a story to tell about the region, the environment, and the people.
Priscilla Boulay was born and raised in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT and is a proud third-generation carver. Her Daduck (Grandfather) was a carver, who passed the skills down to her mother, aunts and uncles, who in turned passed them down to her.
Before starting Inuvialuit Carvers, Priscilla was selling her sculptures and jewellery at local trade and craft shows. Encouraged by compliments from her customers, she eventually started Inuvialuit Carvers as a way to share her own art, art from family members, and art from other indigenous sculptors with a broader audience. Today, her work can be found in boutique galleries across Canada, but most of her business comes through the connections she makes on social media and through her website. Her artwork and her stories are worth sharing.
From her studio in Irricana, Alberta, she continues to tell stories through her carving and sculpture. Her daughters are fourth-generation carvers, and she has recently begun teaching soapstone carving classes to students across Canada, ensuring that the stories live on.
Recorded March 2022
I first met Belinda Aramide at a professional business networking event in 2018. At that time, she was a successful Sales Account Executive. But being a cog in a corporate machine was weighing on her. She might have been happy, but she wasn’t fulfilled. She hinted to me that she was working on something, and a short while later she launched Claim Your Space.
Claim Your Space provides business coaching and consulting for entrepreneurs and executives. Because the solutions are based on personal values instead of simply business goals, clients come away with a deeper understanding of how they can succeed in business by aligning and communicating their values to their clients. You might even consider Belinda the first client of Claim Your Space! She shares some of her wisdom on the “Claim Your Space” podcast, and is an active public speaker.
At the core, she helps executives and entrepreneurs confidently “take up space” in their industry, ensuring that their unique expertise is presented to the clients they deserve.
Recorded March 2022
Aline Nalbandian has always been drawn to how other cultures expressed their identity. That might because she grew up Toronto, Ontario, one of the most diverse cities in North America.
Later in life, as she began to travel with her family, she fell in love with Colombia. As a way to remember her trip, she bought a mochila bag at a local market. In Canada, she would be stopped on the street asking where she had purchased her amazing hand-made bag. This was the spark that eventually grew into A-line Wayuu Love.
In August 2021, she formally started the business with a distinct social purpose. Aline works directly with indigenous artisans of La Guajira, Colombia, eliminating the number of steps between artist and customer. This allows her to give back to the La Guarjira economy and bring awareness to the customs and tradition of some of Colombia’s indigenous people.
Each mochila bag is a function piece of hand-made art. Durable, high-quality, and definitely one-of-a-kind.
reg Fishell is an outdoor enthusiast and owner of Fishell Paddles, North America’s premier supplier of handcrafted wood canoe paddles.
Greg grew up in a canoe tripping family and spent much of his life on the water and working at summer camps as a guide. It was during his camp years in Ontario and through his father John that he developed a close relationship with master paddle maker, Ray Kettlewell.
In the fall of 2013, Ray announced his retirement from paddle making to focus on building cedar strip canoes. Greg got in touch with Ray, and came to an agreement to take over his time-honoured designs, templates, and equipment. A short four months later, Fishell Paddles was launched. Working alongside Ray, Greg quickly mastered the trade by drawing on his wisdom and knowledge.
Emily McInnes launched EYE BUY ART in 2009 because she wanted to help individual collectors and trade professionals discover and connect with contemporary art.
EYE BUY ART is constantly experimenting with innovative strategies that enhance their digital presence, alongside projects that take place in the physical world. These projects include international art fairs, pop-ups, strategic partnerships, and temporary public exhibitions that give profile and context to the artists they work with in an otherwise crowded space.
Today, the business provides two distinct services. They curate site-specific contemporary art projects for corporate partners and offer eyebuyart.com, an e-commerce platform targetting individual collectors.
ebekka Hutton has a passion for establishing deeper connections between local farmers and consumers. In 2012, she launched Alchemy Pickle Company and since then has been making high-quality fermented products available to discerning customers.
All of her pickles, condiments and beverages are hand-crafted and traditionally-made. They contain only the freshest organic ingredients and sea-salt: no vinegar added. This creates nutrient dense, living foods with complex flavours and bio-available nutrients.
To Lisa Ridout, jewellery is a metaphor for the way everything in life is connected. Movement, flow, structure, tension, shape, colour and texture are all facets of a person's life. Lisa expresses these elements in jewellery that she designs and makes, by hand.
Lisa manipulates precious metal in wire form. Through a combination of adapted historical patterns and unique new designs, she creates custom pieces that stand the test of time.
Recorded October, 2021
Origin Handcrafted was founded by Marc Liss and Kayla Penelton on two humble ideas. First, people should love the things they own. Second, the things they own should be built to last.
This is the driving vision behind Origin Handcrafted Goods. Every item that leaves their shop — whether a piece of custom jewellery or a handcrafted kitchen knife — is made with care and attention. Properly maintained, these are objects that you can use every day and share with the next generation.
Recorded October, 2021
It would be easy to dismiss Adoniaa Beauty as just another cosmetics company. Even then, the work of founder Adedoyin Omotara would be impressive. She is the founder of Adoniaa Beauty and the leader of the “Unmask Your Beauty” movement.
”Adoniaa” is the Greek word meaning “beautiful woman”. Adedoyin’s vision and mission: to help women connect to their individual beauty and empower them at every stage of their lives.
Recorded September, 2021
In 1991, Richard Godin and Peter Wearing started talking, literally around the water cooler. Richard had recently been to his first wine tasting and Peter had visited wineries while travelling in Australia.
For some reason, they decided it would be a good idea to start a business as a wine importer with the sole intention of writing off travel expenses. So they did. Thirty years later, Small Winemakers Collection works with over 1,000 restaurants and 5,000 private customers.
Compass did not want to create another generic spirit; they wanted to make something world-class. The only way to do that was the old fashioned way, using fresh ingredients and distilling in small batches. Making a different type of spirit also meant building relationships with farmers and foragers who—whenever possible—provide the necessary raw ingredients.
Karen and Roger Dewling are co-founders of East Coast Glow, situated in picturesque Bonavista, Newfoundland and Labrador. The studio sits near the edge of the North Atlantic, where the constant parade of icebergs is a continual source of inspiration. They view their company as a creative iceberg water cosmetics studio.
www.beforethebusiness.com/east-coast-glow www.eastcoastglow.ca