BCBusiness

M y B i g g e s t r e g r e t "My mother passed away when I was a teenager. When she died, I realized I never took the time to truly appreciate her. It taught me, in the most difficult of ways, to be thankful" J u s t i n p o t t e r ceo, cleaniF y holdings inc. age: 29 the story: "I'm not going to say it's easy to have two kids and run a company," says Cleanify's Justin Potter. Families and 20-something tech entrepreneurs don't generally go hand in hand, but Potter—who operates on five hours of sleep as the father of a six-year-old daughter and four- year-old son—considers running his own company a dream come true: "If I had to do it again, I would. It's in my blood." His seven-person Vancouver startup is essentially Expedia for the cleaning industry, aggregating a city's many cleaning companies, big and small, under a single digital roof. Through its website and app, members can book and pay for cleaning services via one online portal, where they com- pare options by price and cus- tomer ratings, all in a matter of minutes. Potter got his inspiration for Cleanify as a teenager, work- ing at his friend's father's janito- rial company: "What I got from that was how screwed up the cleaning industry was, particu- larly for the cleaner. I knew there was a big opportunity in cleaning because it's so fragmented." Markers oF success: The company has expanded into the Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and Chicago markets, with Potter saying that he receives five to 10 new applications a day from inter- ested cleaning services. Cleanify is growing cautiously, ensuring it handles each new market with care. As for why they went into Chicago, Potter says it's where "we had the biggest backlog of applications." —T.M. My Biggest regret "Not starting sooner. I met a guy in Silicon Valley who's 20 years old. He's brilliant and runs a company" 3 0 u 3 0 40 BCBusiness april 2015 i a n c r o s B y co - Founder and ceo, Bench accounting inc. age: 28 the story: As a 19-year-old UBC business student looking for a route into the video game industry, bookkeeping wasn't Ian Crosby's ambition. "I didn't have any useful skills, or at least I didn't feel I did," says the now 28-year-old CEO and co-founder of Bench Accounting. But at a job fair in third year, after pitching himself to about a dozen companies, "lo and behold one of the companies liked my attitude." He ended up working at Threewave Software as a bookkeeper through to graduation. As it turns out, balancing the books struck a chord: "I thought, I'm just going to try and build this better." After graduation, he spent two years at Bain & Company's Toronto office before quit- ting to launch his own firm. Bench Account- ing builds and sells bookkeeping software for small businesses and provides a support team of accountants to help its clients navigate the intricacies of bookkeeping. His biggest problem these days? Finding employees for his fast- growing firm: "It's hard to find executive sales talent in Vancouver." Markers oF success: Bench—which now has 110 employees (up from just 10 employees 18 months ago)—has secured $9 million in venture capital funding from investors in Vancouver, New York and San Francisco. Revenues are increasing 15 per cent month-over-month. —J.P.

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