Canada's #1 Podcast for Entrepreneurs 
Canada's #1 Podcast for EntrepreneursLaura Beauparlant is an award-winning international keynote speaker, an expert on branding and design and the author of Brand Chemistry. As the founder and creative director of Lab Creative, her mission is to help ambitious entrepreneurs create strong, memorable brands that consistently attract their ideal clients.
For over 15 years, Laura has helped countless small business owners and entrepreneurs gain confidence and grow their businesses through unforgettable branding.
Brit Garon grew up in rural Ontario. He attended Western University in London Ontario, where he received a degree in Finance & Economics.
Immediately after University, Brit moved to the GTA and began work at CAA, where he helped launch the travel insurance company Orion Travel Insurance. He was lured away by the Danish insurance company software that CAA had helped develop, where he helped run operations on this side of the Atlantic. While working there, Brit and his roommate developed the idea for what would become ScholarTree.
ScholarTree began life 2 years ago and officially launched in 2017. ScholarTree helps match students with scholarships, so that they can afford to pursue the career of their dreams.
Patricia (Tish) Conlin heads up the Global Consulting Group Inc. (GCG), a leading talent solutions company with over 25 years finding leaders for our clients in IT, Engineering, Real Estate, Finance and Healthcare companies. GCG has end to end solutions for talent acquisition, Executive coaching, wellness and transition along with Retirement transition solutions. As well as building GCG Tish is passionate about wellness. As a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Certified Emotional and Social Intelligence Trainer and Black Belt Martial Artist, Tish has seen the difference coaching makes to improves lives and performance. Tish is a well know speaker and her first “ABCs of Food: Boost your Energy, Confidence and Success” is now available and she is writing her second book on building inner resilience.
For the past decade, Taylan Pince has been leading the talented product team at Hipo Labs and helping brilliant startups go from “a small team with a good idea” to multi billion-dollar companies. He is both artist, engineer and innovator – a startling collection of talents. Hipo is a brilliant example of a company that has grown through its own self-sustaining investment and discipline.
Hipo, specializes in providing startups with two critical things: flexibility and quality. They build maintainable and scalable product solutions very quickly and efficiently, so founders can focus on growth and sales. Taylan has worked with startups like Robinhood, Moment, Keen and Fieldguide.
Rob Hunter has been an entrepreneur ever since he was a kid. He had an eBay account by the time he was 12 years old, and sold Japanese professional wrestling VHS tapes and DVD’s (yep!) to pay his way through university at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.
He did so well, he was able to establish a mini student real estate empire. After graduation, he sold my properties and got into the ice cream business, opening 7 Marble Slab ice cream stores by the time he was 25. Rob has had lots of tremendous high’s and low’s as a multi-unit franchisee, and learned a lot of lessons along the way.
In 2012, he got offered a great scholarship to do his MBA at the #1 school in the world for entrepreneurship, Babson College. In Boston he met a co-founder, a wife, and immersed himself in the technology startup culture of the city.
Right now he’s back in Toronto and focused on growing HigherMe – a way for retail and hourly employers to find, screen, and hire better employees faster.
Robin Smith Co-Owner and Co-Founder of VL OMNI – which he has built over the past twenty-five years. He is also founder of genealogyman.com. VL OMNI provides a platform for agile and scalable iPaaS ecommerce integration. It is used by global multichannel to move data seamlessly through their infrastructure as they grow, expand, and accelerate their business. VL OMNI is headquartered in Oakville and has offices in the UK as well.
Emilee-Mae Feely, 26, began teaching piano in Waterloo four years ago to earn cash on the side. She went on to develop a web-based business called Feely Piano School that lets you book a piano teacher to come to your home. In 2014 Emilee-Mae founded Feely Music, which has been called the “Uber of Music Lessons.” Since then, it has grown from a small startup to a three-province, 10-city enterprise. Currently, Feely, a “self-taught entrepreneur,” is associated with three incubators at the University of Toronto Mississauga, Sheridan College, and Carleton University, which are helping support her journey. Lately, she has been focusing on the business side of the company and is no longer teaching. Over 10 cities in Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia are served by Feely Piano School.
Michael Koral leads customer acquisition and operations at Needls. He is a sales and marketing expert who has excelled both as an employee and an entrepreneur. As an Account Executive with Xerox, Michael gained valuable skills that helped him close deals with small business owners and C-level executives alike. Michael parlayed his experience at Xerox to establish and lead the sales team at online advertising startup Menu Palace. In his own words on Twitter he likes long walks on the beach, a glass of champagne… but he fronts that by being an analytics junkie that loves data!
Justin Hartzman is a born entrepreneur, motivated, hard working, ambitious and high level thinker are a few words that describe Justin and his passion for business.
Justin is a graduate from one of Canada’s premier business and economic program at the University of Western Ontario. Coming from a long line of entrepreneurs and investors, from an early age Justin worked retail in his family’s businesses, rising to managerial and buying positions. Understanding sales, forecasting, team management, and learning from others are what continue to drive him. Justin is an avid traveler, investor, knowledge seeker and a family man. He is also a Scotch enthusiast.
Justin with his team owns and manages a large portfolio of websites and businesses. These fall into the B2B, B2C, and consumer content spaces.
With his extreme knowledge of everything internet and past experience in start-ups to exits, Justin’s current focus as his mature business flourish is taking the leap back into start up culture with Needls.com.
Mark Evans spent 10+ years as a technology reporter with two of Canada’s largest newspapers and has four startups under his belt. Mark brings his unique brand storytelling approach to high growth emerging companies that need to create a leadership position.
Mark provides strategic and tactical guidance to develop effective content marketing and regularly speaks and workshops in various locations. In this podcast Mark talks about marketing that resonates with prospects, customers, partners, and investors – everything from Websites, videos, and infographics to eBooks, blog posts, and pitch decks.
