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UNDER UNDER
LILI GAO
Age: 27
Co-founder and COO,
One Up Party
L I F E S T O R Y : Surprise parties are
fun. Surprises while party planning
are not so fun, as Vancouverite LiLi
Gao discovered when organizing
a birthday celebration for a friend.
Communicating with different ven-
dors for cake, balloons and flowers
was a nightmare, and the end result
was a disaster: the cake got lost, the
balloons were two hours late and
the flowers didn't look anything like
she expected them to. "I was really
disappointed and embarrassed," Gao
recalls. She had the idea to create a
platform for party planners to order
everything they needed from a single
place and bootstrapped her way to
founding One Up Party in 2018.
Instead of crayon-hued décor à
la Party City, One Up Party focuses
on trendy, modern decorations like
metallic foil letters and balloons with
sparkling string lights. It's the stuff
Pinterest boards are made of, and Gao
is out to make the process as flawless
as the photos: because it uses an in-
house pastry chef, florist and delivery
team, the company is efficient and
nimble, able to take on large orders
with as little as 24 hours' notice. One
Up Party sells its supplies online and
through its brick-and-mortar location
on Vancouver's Fraser Street; goods
are also available at London Drugs.
B O T T O M L I N E : One Up Party
celebrated $500,000 in sales in 2023,
and Gao anticipates the company
will hit its goal of providing supplies
Brydon March
Matthew Hussey
