Our Tectorian of the Week is Aidin Tavakkol, co-founder of Victoria ecommerce startup LimeSpot.

Tavakkol represents all of Victoria’s latent potential as a place to launch and grow a technology company.

What has Tavakkol built here in Victoria?

Tavakkol and his team have launched LimeSpot, a personalized web experience that is intended to “bring the social back to social media.” For starters, LimeSpot’s technology creates a more efficient shopping experience by instantaneously displaying products that customers are most likely to buy.

A software engineer by trade, Tavakkol had already spent a decade helping build Iran’s second-largest software company before deciding to head to Victoria to do something new.

Tavakkol says achieving success back home, he felt his calling was to explore the world in order to accomplish something even bigger.

So, Tavakkol took a chance and joined his sister here in Victoria.

Like many Tectoria tech entrepreneurs, Tavakkol was attracted by Victoria’s great weather and a variety of high-powered, world-class university programs.

Tavakkol received his MBA this past spring from the Gustavson School of Business. At the same time he was completing his studies, he was busy building LimeSpot.

While studying at UVic, Tavakkol encouraged his friend and future LimeSpot co-founder Majid Ghaffari to join him.

At UVic networking event, the pair’s startup idea caught the eye of Paul Summerville, a business professor and mentor at the the Gustavson School of Business.

“I was giving a presentation, and I noticed Aidin standing off to one side,” says Summerville. “We talked, he explained his idea, and I was hooked.”

Like Tavakkol, Summerville, who has enjoyed a stellar career working in investment banking and has served as chief economist with two major multi-national financial institutions, is also a talented transplant who has chosen to call Tectoria home.

Soon after connecting with Tavakkol an Ghaffari, Summerville was on board as the third co-founder and LimeSpot was incorporated in April 2013.

Fast forward just over a year: LimeSpot today has 15 employees around the world and has successfully raised a healthy dose of seed financing from private investors locally, in the United States and the UK.

Tavakkol and his teammates at LimeSpot have used this time to apply their software engineering expertise to patent a powerful “personalization and recommendation engine” that is powered by an individual’s social network profile.

The end result is to provide a personalized web experience that provides highly relevant results and recommendations. Improving ecommerce and online shopping is an obvious match for LimeSpot’s technology.

And people are starting to take notice.

So far, Victoria-based LimeSpot has inked agreements with major ecommerce players including Shopify, PayPal, and Bigcommerce.

A lot has changed in the 18 months or so since  and his co-founders launched LimeSpot.

Tavakkol and his team have raised enough equity to develop and launch their first commercial product offering. They have beefed up their in-house technology, have created a US subsidiary, and have established a global sales engine. LimeSpot has also hired a CEO, tech veteran Bob Bell.

In this whirlwind of activity, it’s easy to forget that when Aidin Tavakkol decided to do something big, he decided to do travel to Tectoria to do it.

We’re excited to see what LimeSpot does next.

What makes Insight, Design, Sustainability, Innovation, and Sociability so critical, and why should your brand harness these key guiding principles?

According to Tectoria’s own Marc Stoiber, these questions form the five pillars esssential for “future proofing” brands keen on seizing the future.

Marc’s book on future-proofing brands is due to launch this fall. To start things off, Marc is going to help us launch Fort Tectoria by speaking at Experience Tectoria next week:

A familiar face at Royal Roads University, Marc writes on brand innovation for Huffington Post, Fast Company, GreenBiz and Sustainable Life Media. He also speaks on the subject from coast to coast, and has been featured at TED.

His work on Mr. Clean earned his team the Procter & Gamble Worldwide Turnaround of the Year Award in 2005.

A Royal Roads instructor, Marc consults for clients including British Columbia Government health care and BC Hydro. Before embarking on consulting, he was vice-president of green innovation at Maddock Douglas, founder of Change Advertising, National creative director of Grey Canada and creative director of DDB Canada.

These days, Marc Stoiber works with our friend Jude Brown as a creative strategist, entrepreneur, green brand specialist and writer, building resilient, future-proof brands.

“I don’t deal with accomplished creative directors of national agencies on a daily basis,” says Jude Brown. “The best thing about Marc is he likes to share. He has a wealth of experience in marketing and business, connections all over the place and sound advice – he hands them all over freely.”

This is important, because Marc advocates building a “global expert network.”

According to Marc, a global expert network is, as the name implies, a network of smart, specialized idea people you can call upon to guide your thinking. In Marc’s case, his global expert network is at the C-suite level, generally entrepreneurial, with strong brand experience.

In short, Marc helps people all over the world forge a more enlightened path forward and helps them guarantee the continued viability of their business.

And he does it all from right here in Tectoria.

We’re so excited to hear him speak next week!

 

 

 

Hootsuite’s VP of Beards & Business Development Greg Gunn is our Tectorian of the Week.

Why Greg Gunn, and why now?

For one thing, Tectoria veteran Gregg Gunn will be returning home to speak at our brand-new space on Fort Street at the upcoming Experience Tectoria extravaganza on September 11th, 12th and 13th:

The topic of Greg’s speech? “Finding The Next Whale.” Greg will be discussing how Hootsuite is searching for “the next Hootsuite” from within the very walls of their Mount Pleasant offices over in Vancouver.

And what a whale it is: Hootsuite has been speculated to have a value of anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion following its record-breaking $165 millon Series B funding round last year. The company is also looking to fill 100 positions by the end of this year at its new 27,000 sq ft HQ2, an awe-inspiring building located in Mount Pleasant in East Van.

While just a ferry ride away, Hootsuite is a long way from Greg’s beginnings working with early stage, high-growth companies at Vancouver Island Tech Park in Saanich.

A passion for people, technology and data

Now “Chief Harpoonist” and VP of Business Development, Greg Gunn launched the sales team that has made Hootsuite the key tool that major enterprise-level companies such as Coca-Cola, H&M, Tifffany & Co., IBM and more use to manage and measure social media engagement.

It’s all part of what Greg calls his passion: people, technology and data.

“Greg is an energetic and talented leader,” says Anthony Sukow. “He has a great business mind and a pragmatic approach to making money.”

Sukow is well-known in Victoria as one of the founders of Terapeak, like Hootsuite, itself another indispensable software tool used by millions of people all over the world. And Greg Gunn was one of the first employees

“Greg worked with us on developing our business relationships with eBay, growing key enterprise customers, and working on high value projects, services and initiatives,” says Sukow. “We hired Greg right out of UVic and he stuck with us in the early days.”

Today Terapeak has moved to the foot of Fort Street (with offices in the Bay area and Toronto) is the leader in ecommerce market analytics, helping online merchants grow their business and become more profitable.

There’s a bit of Greg Gunn in TeamPages, another technology story that got its start in Tectoria.

And along they way Greg has travelled far himself. He worked for Idea Builders, a Nigerian based NGO focused on poverty alleviation through entrepreneurship and agriculture.

During his time in Nigeria, the UVic Commerce grad forged local and international partnerships to expand programs including micro-credit programs, primary agriculture education, and an award winning “Women Mentoring Women” program.

Coming back to Tectoria

And now Greg Gunn returns to his roots in Tectoria. We’re happy Greg will join us to celebrate the launch of our beautiful new HQ at 777 Fort Street in mid-September.

We hope you come out to welcome Greg back, too!

Our Tectorian of the Week is the AXYS Group, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month.

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In many ways, the AXYS Group represents where Greater Victoria’s tech sector has been, and where it’s going. Forty years ago, a tight-knit group of visionaries saw an opportunity and then worked like crazy to take advantage of it.

Along the way, the companies of the AXYS Group have created a whole bunch of new technologies that are helping change the world, have produced a ton of high-paying jobs, and have put Victoria on the map as the location of Canada’s top ocean technology cluster.

Besides attracting talent, the AXYS companies also nurture and produce talent, adding knowledge, wisdom and experience to the Tectoria gene pool.

Privately-held AXYS Group was founded in 1974 and has played a leading role both in the economy of Saanich Peninsula and Greater Victoria.

The founding members of the AXYS Group all had graduate degrees in marine analytical chemistry. Their background and interest in marine science is responsible for the direction the AXYS Group has taken.

Paul Erickson played a key role within the AXYS Group with Seastar Chemicals. Since stepping back from day-to-day operations just over a decade ago, Erickson has turned a personal interest in type 1 diabetes into an active role as a philanthropist involved in funding research to for the hereditary condition. He has been an early stage investor in numerous biotech and technology companies.

David Thomas still serves as the president and chairman of the AXYS Group of companies, while Peter Berrang was the founder and President of Seastar Optics Inc. for 10 years.

Seastar, which manufactured semiconductor laser devices for the telecommunications industry world-wide was sold to SDL Inc. of San Jose, CA., a public company, in Dec. 1995. SDL was subsequently acquired by JDS Uniphase.

AXYS Group company Seastar Chemicals is still a major employer on the Saanich Peninsula, while AXYS Analytical is a world leader in ultra trace analysis of Persistent Organic Pollutants and emerging organic contaminants.

AXYS Technologies, which designs and builds its distinctive yellow marine hardware, is the most recognizable of the companies sharing the local DNA.

The AXYS Technologies legacy began with marine consulting contracts to Environment Canada for wave studies in 1974. This was followed by the design of several marine technology devices in the 1980’s that lead to an opportunity to design, manufacture, install and service Canada’s Marine Weather Buoy Network. Enhancements and improvements to these technologies has been an ongoing mandate in close collaboration with Environment Canada.

In the early 1990’s, AXYS began inventing additional marine technologies in collaboration with the National Research Council (NRC), including the industry-leading TRIAXYS directional wave monitoring buoy. The NRC also assisted financially with development of the next generation WatchMan500™ controller processor.

Over the last twenty years, AXYS Technologies has continued to grow its marine product portfolio and increase market share with major buoy network sales in Italy, Colombia, Spain, Portugal, the United States, and Brazil. AXYS has built and tested over 200 meteorological and oceanographic data buoys of various types.

In the last five years, AXYS Technologies further diversified with the creation of the first commercially-deployed offshore wind resource assessment buoy, as well as hydrological products for freshwater monitoring, and automated weather stations for aviation data.

Other companies in the AXYS Group have also developed a strong reputation for innovation.

In 2005, Atlantic Canada’s Jacques Whitford acquired AXYS Environmental Consulting Ltd. to become one of Canada’s largest environmental and engineering consulting firms. In 2008, engineering services giant Stantec went on to acquire Jacques Whitford – a lot of people all over Canada and the rest of the world are looking at what innovative companies are doing in Tectoria.

With special thanks to ASL’s David Fissel who himself has not only watched the local ocean cluster thrive and grow, but has also played a key role in the process.

Our Tectorian of the Week for August 8th is Erin Athene.

As an Executive in Residence at Accelerate Tectoria, Erin is a well-known wise and friendly face in Victoria’s community of technology startups.

Erin has been there, and has done it all, which helps her guide, coach and grow ambitious early-stage technology entrepreneurs to continue the ongoing astounding growth of Victoria’s tech sector.

Erin brings nearly two decades of experience in a variety of roles, from management consulting to business development, communications, entrepreneurship, investor relations, and launching start-ups.

Erin’s Twitter feed is a great place to catch bite-sized portions of her vast knowledge and ask her any questions about entrepreneurialism you might have.

But what makes Erin our Tectorian of the Week?

A fellow mentor has this to say about Erin:

• She’s busy, but always available to help.
• She possesses a wealth of life experience allowing her to see things from multiple perspectives, with a sense of compassion and empathy.
• She’s passionate and committed to making a difference in her community.

A prime example of Erin’s community-building attributes is her role as a champion of the Victoria chapter of Ladies Learning Code, aka “LLC.”

LLC is a Canada-wide not-for-profit group that is working to empower everyone to feel comfortable learning beginner-friendly technical skills in a social, collaborative way.

The Victoria chapter will hold an “Introduction to HTML & CSS Workshop” on September 27 at MediaCore and is designed for absolute beginners.

Says Erin: “We need to raise $1000 to show that there is enough community interest to support offering workshops in Victoria. All proceeds will be used for direct expenses required for the workshops, and extra funds will go towards scholarships for women who cannot afford the $50 workshop fee. ”

The Tilt campaign has so far raised $600, with 15 days left to go.

Update from Erin:

We’ve already hit our $1000 target, so our stretch goal is to raise $5000, because every donation is doubled thanks to VIATeC’s generous offer to match $5000!

To hit our stretch goal, we’re looking for 7 tech companies to donate $500 each, or 70 individual supporters to donate $50 (the cost of 1 workshop participant)! We’ve already raised $1100 with 14 more days to go!  We can do this Victoria!

Contribute to LLC Victoria’s Tilt Campaign here.

The end goal? Helping create new technology entrepreneurs; high-growth businesses – Erin’s passion.

In 2007, Erin co-founded Topaz Bridge Corporation, an enterprise software company providing HR applications connecting SAP to Microsoft Sharepoint, to save Fortune 500 companies millions of dollars in SAP customization costs.

Topaz grew from conception to first multi-million dollar customer acquisition, to a valuation of over $20M after only 17 months in business. Erin was primarily responsible for fundraising and investor relations, raising $1.4M in Seed and Series A financing rounds, closing by Q4 2008.

Erin has gone on to found business development startup MarketplaceREV Partners and, most recently Purpose Social Media, a coaching resource to support social enterprises, faith-based initiatives, and causes of global and local significance who want support with their online messaging, visibility and digital marketing strategy.

So, Erin is a high-energy individual with a strong community focus and a laser-focus on helping fledgling entrepreneurs cross the chasm and take their game to the next level.

Which is exactly what every Tectorian really ought to be.

Laura Meyer of StarFish Medical is our Tectorian of the week.

Laura is StarFish Medical’s supply chain manager, her background is in electro-optics, and she has also built aircraft for several years. She’s a Lean facilitator, which means Laura helps optimize supply chains, and she’s happy to share her expertise with other supply chain and manufacturing managers in Victoria.

In fact, a true Tectorian, Laura volunteers her time to organize the VIATeC Supply Chain Round Table. Collaborating with peers across different companies to share best practices and build a strong tech community is the Tectorian way, so thanks Laura!

Before arriving in Victoria nearly a year ago, Laura worked all over the world managing and then building supply chains for advanced manufacturing companies like StarFish Medical, Victoria’s well-known medical device design, development and manufacturing company.

StarFish clients are often entrepreneurs bringing new concepts to life. Laura’s job is to help engineers source or create standard products that turn concepts into prototypes and eventually medical devices. Laura also supports ViVitro Labs, a StarFish Group company which is itself well-known within its global industry for designing and providing cardiovascular device testing equipment and lab services.

What makes Laura such a pleasure to work with?

“She brought the promise of adding experience and energy to the manufacturing and supply chain team. Eight months later she has delivered on all counts,” says Jason Dolynny, StarFish’s Director of Manufacturing.

“Recently Laura helped transfer entire existing supply chain from a Calgary manufacturer into our operations,” says Jason. “The medical device involves 30 vendors and the task was completed in 3 months. Laura works so closely with the client that her counterpart in Calgary feels completely aware and trusts the StarFish team completely.”

Once again, a Tectorian is helping put our community on the map as a place where idea grow. We’re happy Laura has come here to share her experience and drive, and look forward to seeing what she does in the future!

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Jesse Learmonth is our Tectorian of the Week for July 18th.

Jesse is an inspiration: since helping launch web and mobile startup Bet Smart Media in 2010, Jesse has not only built a successful tech company right here in Victoria, he has also worked tirelessly to connect fellow entrepreneurs in town with resources and support – the very spirit of a Tectorian.

But first, more about Bet Smart.

Bet Smart has been developing web and mobile betting products since 2010. Jesse and his team have taken an idea (we remember a presentation they made at the Tech Park on a rainy winter day back in 2010) and have turned it into reality. That’s Tectoria, for you.

Bet Smart focuses exclusively on the mobile “iGaming industry”, and more specifically, the sports betting category. The team helps people find and choose bets, and their strategy is to partner with sportsbook operators to supply them with content-driven products that deliver value to the bettor, whilst helping drive bets to the sportsbook.

Bet Smart also has a service offering, lending itself out to other companies looking for some extra horsepower and expertise in the area of app development and more.

Jesse has also channeled his drive and enthusiasm into the Victoria BC Startups group on Meetup.com.

The group provides true technology entrepreneurs with regular meetups with other local startup founders to exchange ideas, share stories from the trenches, and liaise with others who have a true appreciation for what it means to start a company!

It’s an technology entrepreneur group run by other entrepreneurs – a cohort that typically works night and day to build their businesses with little time for socializing.

So Jesse is helping build community, helping share information, and helping build Tectoria.

Thanks Jesse!