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.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1512670
37 BC BU S I N E S S .C A J A N U A R Y 2 0 24 FOR SOMEONE UNDER THE AGE OF 30, Maxwell Nicholson has already lived a surprising number of lives. At 13 years old, he founded a cupcake shop in his hometown of Grand Forks, receiving media attention and accolades. He later went to study at the University of Victoria, where he served as director of external relations for the school's student society, worked as an instructor as an undergrad student and wrote a textbook for ECON 103 (not kidding). Oh, and he has worked both as a full-stack developer for a San Francisco startup and as a business analyst for global management giant McKinsey & Company. With the world essentially at his fingertips, Nicholson decided to mix his real-world skills with his entre- preneurial roots and start Blossom, a social investing platform, in 2021. "We have three pillars: community, education and portfolio analysis," explains Nicholson over a Zoom call while in New Orleans at a fintech con- ference. "We're seeing a big shift from financial advisors to DIY investment—the younger generation, they want to do it them- selves. So they're turning to tools like Reddit, YouTube and TikTok for education. There's a gap in the market for a platform to help these DIY investors connect and to empower them." Blossom has seen over 60,000 users on its app and has ranked in the top 50 on the App Store in the finance category. The company has also brokered partnerships with key financial institutions like BMO. "That's one of the biggest reasons why we're expanding to the U.S.," says Nicholson. "There's only 30 million people in Canada. One of every 1,000 Canadians now has downloaded our app. We want to get a million people on it." Nicholson is currently in the process of a $2.5-million fundraising round, 30 percent of which has already been committed. But through everything he's done, Nicholson is still the kid making cupcakes in Grand Forks. "For me, business is very tangible," he says. "I would make the cupcakes, bring them to market, sell them to the customer, see them bite into it in front of my eyes. Even when I think about building product at Blossom, that's the lens I have. It's about building it for the customer, delivering it to them and delighting them with it."–N.C. WHEN I CALL ANASTASIA KIKU, she's at SFU's Burnaby campus. Things are hectic. They've been like that since her company, Reusables—which helps orga- nizations shift f rom single-use packaging to a more sustainable approach—moved its focus to university campuses and corpo- rate offices. "Honestly, it's been a pretty big pivot," she admits. "Before it was mostly on takeout for restaurants, cafés, grocery stores. Now the focus is on closed-loop environments." The project launched at SFU began two weeks before our con- versation, and Kiku says that she's "dealing with all the issues as they come up." Starting with the school's Mackenzie Café, students can get their reusable containers filled with food and return them (in three days or less) to the ap- propriately labelled smart bins. Since its launch in 2021, Re- usables—which Kiku co-founded with Jason Hawkins—has diverted over five tonnes of waste, avoided over 20 tonnes of CO2 emissions and worked with over 100 res- taurants to empower more than 5,000 people to reuse 150,000 takeout containers. The shift to corporate clients promises to be even more impactful and potentially habit- changing. "I think we're learning Maxwell Nicholson CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, BLOSSOM SOCIAL Anastasia Kiku CO-FOUNDER AND COO, REUSABLES that sustainability gets you in the door and allows you to start the conversation, but only a really strong business case and strong economics will allow you to deliver and have one of those long-term relationships," says Kiku, noting that Reusables, which has five full-time and three part-time employees—hopes to have five more corporate contracts by early 2024. "In a couple of years, we'll have developed a model that helps our clients from both an environmen- tal and financial perspective; we'll be able to show how transitioning to Reusables helps save money and the environment."–N.C.