BCBusiness

July/August 2021 - The Top 100

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

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FROM TOP: KEZIA NATHE; MAXWELL TIMS JULY/AUGUST 2021 BCBUSINESS 47 A L E X M I L L E R AGE: 27 Owner + operator Pelvic Floor Strong LIFE STORY: If you attend group fitness classes in Vancouver, you might recognize Alex Miller as an instructor. Miller, who spent eight years working at numerous local studios, also started a business teaching mindful movement to kids aged five to 12. The South Surrey native found herself at a crossroads in early 2019. "I was burnt out, and I wanted a next step," Miller recalls. She thought of opening her own studio–a move that could have been ruinous after COVID struck. But two friends who host the 7 Figure Entrepreneur podcast introduced her to recent guest Emily Lark, a U.S. entrepreneur who created a popular back pain program. Deciding to build a similar business around her passion for pre- and postnatal wellness, Miller did a three-month online mentorship with Lark. Over the next year, she crafted the materials and marketing for Pelvic Floor Strong, an exercise program aimed at women aged 40-plus whose benefits include better bladder con- trol. Although Miller had no marketing experience, the business took off instantly when she launched it last May. "So I quit my job at the studios, and it's been full-on ever since." BOTTOM LINE : Mostly thanks to U.S. customers, Langley-based Pelvic Floor Strong saw dramatic sales growth in its first year. Miller, who became a mother in April and has started creating an umbrella brand called Alex Miller Wellness, plans to launch a pre- and postnatal program for women in their 20s through 40s. –N.R. J O E P A R E N T E A U AGE: 29 Co-founder + CEO Fable Home Goods LIFE STORY: After growing up in Regina with a janitor father and warehouse worker mother, Joe Par- enteau knew he just had to go some- where the weather was a bit better. So he followed a golf scholarship to William Woods University in Mis- souri, where he studied accounting. He then came directly to Vancouver (again, weather), thinking he'd get a job in his field and call it a day. He did, kinda. But Bench Accounting isn't exactly KPMG or Deloitte, and Parenteau was soon taken with how the online bookkeeping service did business. "A lot of autonomy is given at Bench," he says. "Tons of entrepre- neurs are going to come out of there, just the way they operate it–it fuels entrepreneurship. It's technically a bookkeeping company, but it's really more like a tech startup." Parenteau already had an idea–realizing how much easier it was to shop at Ikea than at Williams Sonoma or Crate and Barrel, he sought to modernize the high-end dinnerware buying experience for millennials—and partnered with tech workers Tina Luu and Max Tims to launch Fable Home Goods in 2019. "We see it progressing into a home décor brand," he says of his digital merchandiser. "While we sell dinnerware today, that's not where we're going to end; we're just getting started. I think you'll see us look into other components of the home– planters, wall art, rugs. There's a lot of space there." BOTTOM LINE: Since last August, Fable has grown from the three founders to 16 employees and raised well over $1 million in fund- ing. The only hitch? The company keeps selling out of product. Fable opened a Burnaby warehouse in April (Parenteau's been relying on his mom's expertise) that should permanently solve that problem. There are plans to add a storefront to it, too. –N.C. 3 0 U N D E R T H I R T Y Alex Miller Joe Parenteau

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