News

Douglas Soltys?

Stuart MacDonald for sure! And the mesh gang.

Amber Mac ?

David Skok at the Logic

I hope not

Amanda Lang?

www.jonapr.co/tech-journalists-canada .??

Christine Duhaime twitter.com/cduhaime/status/722171166765539328?s=19

Douglas Soltys - the man, the myth, the media mogul!

Ahem.

While I appreciate how supportive Canadian tech reporters have been in my own previous efforts and those of peers, in general the Canadian tech press does little to question the skullduggery easily found even within a number of our more celebrated technology companies, and doesn’t adequately reflect on those that have failed. Kara Swisher does definitely appreciate the reporter’s role to “afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted” and asks the big questions about how our technology companies impact society. As our industry matures and broadens its reach I’ve hoped that such a reporter would emerge, but she sets a high bar.

Mark Evans would love to see if I can help. I’ll shoot you a DM.

Hey Mark, we use Dubb. dubb.com?ref=Scalear Great CTA capabilities and sequential videos.

My company doesn’t use technology but we have great success hiring university grads from any background. Coupled with a great on boarding plan. So we partner with many Uni’s and attend their events. Also many great sales orgs. One that’s female based. Could dig up name if you don’t go tech route.

Yusuf and his team do great work, would recommend having a chat with him! www.zevenue.com/

Recommend Joseph Fung and Uvaro

Predictable Revenue based out of vancouver

Try Adam Gellert

What is your ACV?

Check out HiredHippo or talk to Adam Gellert. Pretty much all of my hires are from that source

Hey, Alexander. (Long time, no see. Nice to find you here.) I spent several years in a great TEC group in Ottawa. I think the experience probably hinges to a fair degree on the group chair and its members, but I expect that would hold for any peer group. We were fortunate to have an excellent chair, and the others in the group became great friends as well as trusted counselors. Still in regular contact even now, seven years after leaving the group. Happy to introduce you to our group chair (in Ottawa) if you wish.

We have done some. In some jurisdictions, we have a separate legal entity and hire direct. Others, we used a 3rd party to manage contractors, handle payroll, benefits, compliance, etc. You can check out pilot.co/ there are many others out there that offer the same service.

I have hired hundreds during my 20+ year career in HR leadership. If you set up a legal entity in another country then you can hire locals as employees of your company. If not, your only options are to hire on contract or go through a PEO like Greg mentioned above. I guess a fourth option is to go through the Global Talent Stream (if you're hiring tech) and move them to Canada.

We use OFX. For bills under US$10K they charge a flat fee of $25 per transaction. And there is the option for you to pay or the recipient to pay.

Plooto

I use wise.

Firmafx. Great rates, FREE wires. We use them for everything...top notch customer service too. Happy to make an intro.

Plooto

Leanpayments.com ... flat fee $9.99/txn.

Transferwise

Wise is my go to for every international payment or transferring money abroad, I’ve been using them (previously known as Transferwise) for 5 years.

Plooto

+1 for Plooto

Jack Bensimon

Plooto

Try trulyfinancial.com/

Thanks for the reco Rob Tyrie. Truly Financial due to launch the our small business banking service soon - it would be first of its kind in North Am. Meanwhile Najeeb you can sign up for Remitr.com - it's a global payments service for Canadian businesses. Many of our customers use Remitr for Canada to US payments every day. It's direct deposit via ACH, so there are no wire transfer fees on either side.

Usha Samuel, JFYI

Klanto.com Najeeb… let me know if you have any questions. Happy to help you whatever is required

Thanks everyone a lot of good options didn't know existed, super helpful!

RBC PayEdge is extremely capable and complements your existing banking platform. Happy to connect you if needed.

You can try bill.com

I have a great one that I use - please message me if you'd like my contact's email.

We use MyHSA through Gallagher. My insurance agent put us in touch with them.

My suggestion is for me to introduce you to a trusted health insurance broker and he can work with you to design something that makes sense. He knows all of the major vendors in Canada and has close relationships with each. He'll make sure you minimize your costs while optimizing value.

ayacare.com check us out

We used Benefit Deck, great team and HSA was easy to use (10% admin fee). Happy to intro if you'd like! www.benefitdeck.com/

Myhsa has a really simple UX and I use them with 20+ startups that I work with. Let me know if you want more details

Maybe a silly question, but with only 4 people, you being one, why wouldn’t you self manage that? Basically same as paying out expenses. I can see as you grow that could be harder to manage, but as 4 people should be pretty easy and you will save the admin cost. Alternately just give an annual payout of a wellness bonus.

LEAGUE

MyHSA!

League now only works with companies with 500+ team members

MYHSA. 12% admin fee

I’d go with Chris Gory‘s advice and then bring him in when it’s time for a fuller plan. He’s a broker I trust!

intox.ca does this as part of the on-boarding process with new clients. Happy to facilitate the discussion. [email protected]

Chris Atchison

Rachel Azagury-Amirian

Matty McComb

Katerina Lyadova would love to learn more to see if I’d be a good fit to see your project come to life. DMing you.

Didtility group in Toronto.

Distility

Hey Katerina. I will throw my hat in the ring as well. Sent you a DM www.dingusandzazzy.com

Lina Ismail and Philippe Garneau are amazing!

Jack Bensimon

I actually *just* finished doing this with a client. (And I've done this many times before.) Happy to chat, if you'd like -- send me an email. www.davidpullara.com www.linkedin.com/in/pullara [email protected]

i do this! message me :)

Highly recommend Unicorn Rebellion. They’re experienced with small brands and large enterprises. I’ve hired them with two large clients who were over the moon with their work.

Emilie Nolan

Nightshift.net - we do this at a premium level.

👋 Hey Katerina, Maybe I can help. More about me -> sindwani.com . You can dm me

Hi there, our agency does this for clients at all sizes - www.woodenpanda.ca - let me know if you want to chat! :)

Katerina Lyadova I'd love to chat. visit meetfutureproof.com or book into our Lead Strategist's calendar: calendly.com/yana-at-futureproof/30min

Check out Theplaybooks.co

Hey Katerina Lyadova just PM'd you

I’d highly recommend Lucas Duguid. Amazing work, very professional and easy to work with. I’m over-the-moon with everything he’s done for me at two companies now.

Knightsbridge is good

Transferwise app

Firma FX is our pick - worked with them for years and love them

Wise (formerly known as transferwise).

Agility Forex

Thirding Wise (previously Transferwise)

Anthony Aquino - Bendix (in Toronto) bendixfx.com

Lean Payments - they are a Waterloo startup

Use Veem it’s the best!

Veem FTW

Can I ask the volume range and currencies involved? Sometimes, another bank may be the right answer.

Transferwise or xe.com

Two words.... norbert's gambit

The banks need money though...

Monnex

Western Union is great, worked with them multiple times.

Check Remitr (Sandeep Todi) www.linkedin.com/company/myremitr

Try remitbee currency exchange, offers mid market rate. www.remitbee.com/currency-exchange

Thanks for everyone's awesome suggestions on this. We wound up going with OFX. Here's what I learned, different companies will charge based on the volume you are transferring. So some of these competitors are better for small amounts, some are better for larger amounts. The type of currency you're exchanging matters as well All of these are good suggestions and have different strengths

Excel?

Carta

We used Founded when it was called Founded. It's seems it was bought by RBC and is now part of Ownr. We still use their partner version, so can't vouch for what it might be now. www.ownr.co/

Ledgy. Hands down.

We use Carta and it’s great!

Used carta in the past but excited to try pulley in the future

slicingpie.com

Excel

Jack Bensimon

spreadsheet if it's simple. once we started getting complex with convertibles, multiple share classes and rounds, we started using captable.io, which is US-centric, but works fine for the free tool we need. Nice to hear about others here.

Look into capiche

Pulley!

Denon Osterman I would give that stuff to an HR company rather than try and figure it out. We're at 20+ employees and it's all taken care of by a third party (thank God haha)

Congratulations on starting your new business. We would be happy to help you with the website design and development. Here is a link to our portfolio. You can book a free consulting call at the end of the page. comfable.com/consulting

Kevin Picard the horse whisperer. Sounds like a really neat business idea. You have come to the right place because I am probably one of many people in this group that can help out. It's a really good community of helpful people. Here is my website www.dingusandzazzy.com

Hi Kevin Picard, we work with founders and owner-operated SMBs. Happy to chat about your website and project: [email protected] You can check out our site here: www.meetfutureproof.com

Hey Kevin, It looks like you've got a few excellent options already, but I'll throw my hat in the ring. I'm a Calgary based developer and most of my work is with startups and specifically getting that first version to market ASAP. Depending on what you envision for your site there are a couple of key things to consider. If you're just looking for a quick and relatively inexpensive build to get you going with some standard business website features (blog, about us, contact, etc) then you'll probably be fine with a platform like squarespace or wordpress, whether you hire someone to build that for you, or do it yourself. On the other hand if you are looking to have a pretty custom user experience or your are looking to do something very unique, those platforms outlive their usefulness very quickly in most cases. If you'd like to chat about your site I'm more than happy to help!

Grand Cru Deli

Nellie Kwok Anika Taneja