BCBusiness

M BCBUSINESS.CA But underneath the fur is a man who wants his company to be one of the rst names that comes to mind when you think of Vancouver (and Canadian) tech busi- nesses. He thinks his team can get there by selling procurement software. Crazy, right? Maybe. Mann and Procurify's two other found- ers, Eugene Dong and Kenneth Loi, CTO and COO, respectively, began working on the idea for the company in Dong's par- ents' basement in Burnaby after meeting in BCIT's business management program in 2011. There have been many lessons along the way, but for Mann, none was more vital than understanding what he calls the three most important drivers of an organization: people, process and systems. "Systems is about technoloŽy, process is about work- 'ows and how you manage things, and people is about change management," he says in a slightly raspy tone. "No matter how crazy your technoloŽy, if you don't have all three connecting, none of it mat- ters; it'll all break at some point." T H E R E I S N O S U C H T H I N G A S O U T C O M E S Mann, Dong and Loi quickly realized that there was a gap in the procurement market. To maximize e—ciency, businesses use soft- ware to make payments, track purchases and quickly analyze their nancial data. At the enterprise level, players like German multinational SAP and California-based Coupa Software dominate the industry. But for smaller businesses that can't throw big dollars at the issue, there remained a lack of options. So the trio started developing Procurify, with an emphasis on an easy-to-use plat- form that would let companies streamline payment processing. They pitched it to any- one who would listen. They had business cards made and eventually landed their rst client, a company in the aerospace industry. It was enough to move out of the Dong fam- ily home and into a Burnaby o—ce that cost $300 a month. "Unbelievably ghetto" is Mann's way of describing the place, and he would know: it was his home for six months after the daily commute from his native Abbotsford became too much. However, Mann and crew were still having trouble navigating the startup land- scape. In particular, getting funding was something of a problem. "Startup Canada came to Vancouver and asked people, 'What was your aha moment?' And I was so frustrated, I just said, 'I'm going to tell you why I will never have aha moments,'" Mann recalls. "And I guess they liked it because they wanted me to pitch in front of 450 people. We went there only because the rst-place prize was meeting Ryan Holmes. I wanted to meet him because he was the person who's done the one really big thing in Vancouver, who's been successful in that realm." While preparing their pitch, the team wrestled with the question of whether potential investors would consider their product attractive. Was it sexy enough? "We went there and thought, OK, no one is going to give a shit about purchasing soft- ware; it's just not sexy," Mann recalls. They put a card under each seat in the room. On one side: the word "grateful." On the other: "There is no such thing as outcomes." As Mann explains it, "Thomas Edison said that he didn't nd the one way to make a light bulb; he found a thousand ways not to make a light bulb. It's the reality that if you try something and you look at it as an outcome, you can shift to the next outcome and the next one. And if you look at it as failure, you're never going to look past that to see the next place to go. And that was really what we talked about." He takes a few beats, sips his Hey Y'all and nds the smile that has momentarily eluded him. "And we didn't win. And I didn't get to meet Ryan Holmes. But we got second place, and got either a $1,000 Xbox package or lunch with an investor." The investor turned out to be Boris Wertz, founder of Vancouver-based Version One Ventures. With Wertz's help, Procurify was able to get into tech accelerator Grow- Lab Ventures (now Highline). From there, a cold email to Mark Cuban resulted in the U.S. billionaire and Shark Tank personality becoming an investor in Procurify. Thanks to his seed funding, the company was able to move into a Richmond o—ce, and it wasn't long before more clients joined in on the fun. I T ' S A P R O C E S S In 2014, when Procurify was looking to leave its rst spot in Richmond for a bigger space, Mann and company enlisted Colliers International agent Peter Muench, who excels at nding new homes for burgeon- ing tech companies. When evaluating whether to take on a client, Muench always considers prod- uct, he notes. But more important to the realtor is believing in the team behind it. "He's one of the more visionary guys…the level of passion and excitement he had for the service just blew me away," Muench says of Mann. "He almost convinced me to leave Colliers in the rst year that I was there. Because when I went out and met him, you got the feeling that wherever Mann rambles up two 'oors to the top of the building, sloth suit in one hand, a Hey Y'all in the other. On the roof, he'll talk about—among many other things—the snares of startup culture, getting seed money from Mark Cuban, why he refuses to go to Silicon Valley and Thomas Edison. He'll also (seemingly genuinely) invite our photographer to Burning Man. The 34-year-old greets people with a st bump and leaves them with a hug, which, when you're wearing a sloth suit, is somewhat tting. It would all be quite weird if it weren't in line with what Procurify is about: doing things diªerently. Sure, many tech companies talk of promoting fun and culture in the workplace. That's why craft beer on tap and weekly yoga sessions are usually more punchlines than actual perks. "STARTUP CANADA ASKED PEOPLE, 'WHAT WAS YOUR AHA MOMENT?' AND I WAS SO FRUSTRATED, I JUST SAID, 'I'M GOING TO TELL YOU WHY I WILL NEVER HAVE AHA MOMENTS'" –Aman Mann, co-founder and CEO, Procurify JUNE 2019 BCBUSINESS 27

• Cover