BCBusiness

Rick perreault co-founded Vancouver- based software company unbounce in 2009 because he had an itch nobody else could scratch. he was a digital marketer whose campaigns kept getting delayed because he couldn't make or change a landing page without getting the it department involved. perreault wanted a simple, drag-and-drop tool that even technically challenged marketers could use to build, publish and test landing pages by themselves. it didn't exist, so he and five co-founders started unbounce to make it happen. about 800 customers bought the first bare-bones product in the year after launch. now unbounce has 15,000 clients globally. the co-founders have been joined by 160 employees and 15 dogs in the company's Vancouver and berlin offices. perreault says he and his partners wanted to provide careers worth getting up for every day: "let's create a place that's awesome, where people want to work–and that can make money." –D.H. R U N N E R U P Rick Perreault C O - F O u N D E R a N D C E O , u N B O u N C E Nanaimo-based morgan Carey should be used to accolades by now. this is the third year in a row that his Real Estate Webmasters (REW) has been named an Entrepreneur Of the Year finalist. Carey keeps earning more laurels because he refuses to rest on any of them. he founded his bootstrapped business in 2004 to make websites for realtors, but both the company and its technology have travelled light years since then. among REW's latest innovations is the augmented reality feature on its app, which Carey describes as "pokémon go for real estate." point your phone around a neighbourhood, and instead of pikachus and bulbasaurs you'll see which properties are for sale and for how much. Carey says his business grows 35 percent year-over-year like clockwork, and he no lon- ger has to fight for every win. "it's a lot easier to make money when you have relationships and you have money," he adds. "success breeds success." –D.H. R U N N E R U P Morgan Carey F O u N D E R a N D C E O , R E a L E S T a T E W E B m a S T E R S "It was always a question about when i would start my own business–not a question of if," says David gens. his father, older brother and uncle each owned companies and served as early role models for him. he always thought it would be more reward- ing to run his own enterprise than to work for others. after earning a finance degree from ubC's sauder school of business in 2009, gens was working as a private equity analyst when he read about companies in the u.s. creating what would become his business model for Vancouver-based merchant advance. small storefront businesses like hair salons and auto repair shops often struggle to find financing. gens's firm offers these companies loans and collects on them by taking a portion of daily debit and credit card sales. merchant advance, which now has 50 employees, has provided working capital to more than 2,300 Canadian small and medium-sized companies. –D.H. R U N N E R U P David Gens F O u N D E R , p R E S I D E N T a N D C E O , m E R C H a N T a D v a N C E C a p I T a L 44 BCBusiness OCtObER 2018 e n T r e P r e n e u r o F T H e Y e A r 2 0 1 8 / T E C H N O L O G Y 25th a n n i v e r s a r y

• Cover