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30 B C B U S I N E S S . C A A P R I L 2 0 24 translate smoothly to interiors when he decided to build his own multi-generational family home. But once he faced the framing stage, the 3D structure was underwhelming. The great room was too large (too great!), the spice kitchen was too small and the layout for one of the bathrooms wasn't practical. The framer assured him this was normal ("Dude, of course, everyone makes changes on-site") but detail-oriented Deol wouldn't let it slide. "I was like, I don't like this... I've got to spend al- most $10,000 on changes that could have been avoided if I had a different way to view the plan," he says. This laid the foundation (pun extremely intended) for Plan Your Space, a floor-plan presentation studio that Deol launched in February 2022. The company can project up to 2,300 square feet at a time in its Langley location, and offers custom- ers 80 feet of walls and real furniture and appliances on wheels to get a custom, life-sized visualization of their floor plans. "We're always trying to elevate this more and more," says Deol. "How do we make this as real as possible for a homeowner?" B O T T O M L I N E : Plan Your Space has completed over 250 floorplan walkthroughs and is moving to an 8,000-square-foot Burnaby studio this summer. The furniture library is growing thanks to partnerships with B.C. brands including Rove Concepts and Midland Appliance, and local interior designers are starting to include a Plan Your Space walk- through as part of their quote for custom homes. Beyond residential design, Deol reports that the studio has been used for planning dental clinics, mini golf courses and even fast-food drive-throughs. All the mar- keting is done in-house, of course. "I feel like I get to live both my dreams simultaneously," says Deol. –A.H. JULIAN WELLS Age: 21 Co-founder and principal, Student Housing Initiative L I F E S T O R Y : In February, Tim Chen's story went viral. The UBC student said he would rather live with his parents in Calgary and spend $1,200 on flights per month than spend at least $2,100 in rent for a one-bedroom in Vancouver. "Students are not being treated equitably in the housing market," says Julian Wells, co-founder and principal of Victoria-based research consult- ing organization Student Housing Initiative ( SHI). Most students don't have the credit and rental histories to compete for housing with people who have full-time jobs, yet that's the situ- ation they're in. Wells, for example, lived on campus as a first-year UVic student from Toronto but struggled to find a place the following year. "I signed a lease, like, three days before I moved in," he recalls. "I was working three jobs and I couldn't really afford vegetables because my rent was so expensive." While running UVic's real estate club, Wells, who is studying economics and political science, saw an opportunity to build data-driven reports that could weave student perspectives into new policies and developments. So he launched SHI with peers Grace Murphy and Jona- than Cook in 2023. An SHI survey conducted across five Canadian campuses revealed that 50 percent of students think their rent is unaffordable and 74 percent prefer transit-based walkable communities. "We have to remember that we're building cities for people currently," stresses Wells, "not just for the people who will be living in them in the future." B O T T O M L I N E : SHI conducts studies to help real estate leaders, institutions and governments consider students when planning housing projects and policies. In 2023, it raised $14,000 to survey 200 students across Canada and gave $3,000 back as tuition grants. It has also been involved in the creation of more than 4,000 new housing units in Victoria and Vancouver, says Wells: SHI insights were quoted in the approval of four housing projects and considered in the development of several more. –R.R. ALEX LEE Age:28 Co-founder and director, Blue Gentian Capital L I F E S T O R Y : Alex Lee's great- grandfather came to B.C. at the age of 16 and was told that he could get a job logging in the remote Vancou- ver Island community of Alert Bay. He ended up running the general store there and putting his children through university. Years later, that man's great- grandson also yearns for entrepre- neurship. While getting a degree in business technology management at UBC, the younger Lee built a number of apps, including a soundboard app called Wowi (which created a "wow" in the voice of actor Owen Wilson on command) and Moody, a facial recognition app that analyzes your emotions and builds you a Spotify playlist based on how you're feeling. But his first true tangle with building a company was Apex Aerials, a drone videography and photography service providing real estate agents with aerial footage of their properties. "I had a bunch of realtors that were interested, but the technology was cumbersome and hard to use," admits Lee. "It crashed when I crashed the drone." After years of working with Vancouver-based quantum comput- ing firm 1QBit, Lee branched off to co-found venture fund Blue Gentian Capital, where he leads the com- pany's advanced tech efforts. "I'm interested in the things that are going to have a big impact on tomorrow," he says. "Things that are a bit out there." He cites U.S.-based company IonQ, which is building a trapped-ion quan- tum computer, as an example. "It's crazy complex and really interesting. [The hi-tech sector] is where I spend most of my time." Of course, Lee also has his eyes on starting his own venture, which is in stealth mode right now. All he'll say is that "it's in the sound design space, specifically in generative AI." B O T T O M L I N E : While Lee is hesitant to share exact numbers, companies in BCG's portfolio have seen success of late. The aforemen- tioned IonQ went public a few years ago and has been stable in a rocky market, while U.S. financial insights platform Aumni was acquired by J.P. Morgan last year. –N.C. ESTEBAN SANCHEZ Age: 29 Co-founder and CTO, Commutifi L I F E S T O R Y : Esteban Sanchez was coding before he was a teenager. When he was growing up in Mon- treal, his parents would tell him to stop playing on the computer and go outside. By the time he was 14, he would tell them he wasn't playing, he was working. Sanchez sold his first video game that year, for $2,000. In high school, he built High Up Games, a video game company that UNDER UNDER

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