BCBusiness

58 BCBusiness march 2015 B ut by the fall of 2012, Summer- ville had joined Gustavson as an adjunct professor, in addi- tion to his mentoring, and was ready for his next adventure in the business world. He found it in Aidin Tavakkol, an Ira- nian MBA student who had joined Gus- tavson's MBA program a month late due to visa issues and had shown up to the networking event looking a little lost. "I could have easily turned and spo- ken to 15 other people," recalls Sum- merville, now 57, whose international resumé includes a stint at Lehman Broth- ers, as chief economist with RBC, the TD gig and a turn with Wel- lington Asset Manage- ment in Boston. "In fact, there was kind of a line to talk to me." But there was some- thing about Tavakkol— his authenticit y, his mat u r it y—t hat made Summerville reach out. "You know, I wouldn't say it's love at first sight, because I wouldn't want to get that wrong," he says with a chuckle from his home in Victoria. Judging by the grin on Tavakkol—who's shar- ing the split screen of a Skype conference call in December from his new home in Berkeley, California—the sentimental summary isn't far off. While their seamless rapport stems from mutual admiration, the relation- ship has grown beyond friendship to become a business partnership—one that they now believe is poised to make them millions. The company that they launched in early 2013, Limespot Solu- tions Inc., combines the profiling power of social media networks with the reach of e-commerce, allowing online retailers to create a customized shopping experi- ence for their clients. "Basically, we figure out the demo- graphics of the person that is the target audience for that product," explains Tavakkol, 33, a software engineer. "We also track user behaviours and their interest in particular products." The end result is an online shopping experience that mimics real life in that shoppers can browse through only the items they're likely to want instead of sifting through a store's entire inventory of, say, shirts, the way customers are asked to do when clicking through conventional store websites. After receiving initial support from UVic's Innovation Centre for Entrepre- neurs, which connected the pair with free legal advice and helped refine the busi- ness plan, Summerville raised $750,000 from his personal contacts, and Limespot now has 40 retailers signed up for its customization software. The company has a staff of 12, and is headquar- tered in Victoria, with offices in Vancouver, the United Kingdom and Berkeley—where Tavak- kol decamped shortly after graduating from UVic last summer in order to establish Limes- pot's presence in Silicon Valley. With a soon-to-be- announced deal with several "global brands," Summerville, Tavakkol and their third partner, Majid Ghaffari, are predicting big things for their upstart. "I'm confident we're going to be on the front page of the Wall Street Journal," says Summerville, who now regularly f lies between Victoria, Berkeley and London, where he's been securing that forthcoming deal. Of course, it isn't necessarily the goal of Gustavson's mentor program to cre- ate new businesses—although it has hap- pened before, most notably in the case of grad Kyle Vucko, whose mentor Hannes Blum became an early investor in Vucko's online menswear company Indochino. MBA Guide 2015 "I'm confident we're going to be on the front page of the Wall Street Journal," says Summerville, who now regularly flies between Victoria, Berkeley and London, where he's been securing a forthcoming deal

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