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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TOP: KAT WILLSON JULY/AUGUST 2021 BCBUSINESS 51 C O U R T N E Y P E T E R S AGE: 29 Co-founder + CEO Supercrush LIFE STORY: Courtney Peters found her way to business by way of banking and medicine. Although the Surrey native comes from an entrepreneurial family, she had no plans to head in the same direction. Peters, who got her first job when she was 13, began working as a teller for TD Bank while earning a communica- tions degree at SFU. She became a branch manager and got promoted to events and com- munications at the corporate office, which also gave her an opportunity to learn about business. Peters then took a similar position with advocacy group Doctors of BC, where she moved into marketing and learned that she enjoyed it. What's now Supercrush began in early 2018, when she sewed a few scrunchies with some girlfriends and posted the results on Instagram. Friends and family asked about buying the scrunchies, so Peters recruited her mom, Shelby, a lifelong sewer, to help with production. "We had zero intention for it to become a business," she recalls. But demand was so strong that they hired a local home-based sewing team before quitting their jobs in September 2019 to work on Supercrush full-time. Keeping manufacturing in its hometown is important for the Vancouver com- pany, which sources all fabric for its hair accessories locally, Peters says. "That's always been at the heart of what we do, as well as giving back to our local community." Supercrush started making face masks during COVID, giving a portion of sales to the Union Gospel Mission; so far, it's donated $27,000. BOTTOM LINE : Revenue has grown dramatically each year, even though Supercrush did no paid advertising until last fall. About 70 percent of its customers are Canadian, with the rest in the U.S. "In 2021, we're focusing on building a solid foundation for future growth," Peters says of the business, which now employs 10 contract sewers on its team of 13. The company pays its workers a fair wage, uses recyclable packaging and minimizes production waste. Among this year's goals: expanding stateside and getting into more brick-and-mortar stores, including larger retailers. Supercrush also plans to release a haircare product this fall. –N.R. C A L V I N H O + A L B E R T K I M AGES: 27 + 28 Co-founder + COO Co-founder + CEO Greenline POS LIFE STORY: Albert Kim doesn't have a lemonade-stand story from his childhood–not quite, anyway. In high school, Kim, who grew up mostly in Richmond after immigrating to B.C. from South Korea at age five, made $400 by creating registration software for Model UN conferences. But he didn't know that entrepreneurship was an option until well into his studies at UBC, where he earned a computer science degree. Being in Vancouver got Kim curious about the cannabis industry, and with legalization looming, he saw an opportunity. He and Taiwan-born Calvin Ho, a high-school friend who was doing architectural drafting after completing a BSc in physical, environmental and human geography at UofT, developed point-of-sale soft- ware for a couple of cannabis stores. Figuring they could build a real busi- ness, the pair launched Vancouver- based Greenline POS in 2018. Ho and Kim both consume cannabis, but that was just one motivation for starting the software- as-a-service company, which also helps retailers stay compliant with regulators, manage inventory and protect their data. "I like people who make businesses, and because of that, I like the people who started the retail business," Kim says. BOTTOM LINE : Having stared down its big, well-capitalized rivals, Greenline is now one of the largest POS providers in the Canadian canna- bis space, with 500 stores signed and $2.56 million in booked revenue. The company, which has 32 staff, aims to triple its business for the second year in a row. Eventually, the co-founders hope to expand into Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and perhaps Europe, Kim says. "I like to share the story of Greenline because I think it shows that in cannabis, you don't have to be a mega-raise, mega-spend type of corporation to make something work." –N.R. 3 0 U N D E R T H I R T Y Courtney Peters Calvin Ho Albert Kim

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