BCBUSINESS.CA APRIL 2017 BCBUSINESS 39
L I F E S T O RY: Arts and science
are intertwined for Daniel Penn,
who was born in the U.S. and
holds American, Australian and
Canadian passports. While pursu-
ing a bachelor of arts and science
at McMaster University, he wrote
two cookbooks for students, fol-
lowed by a third when he studied
food sciences at the University of
Copenhagen. Both his brothers are
artists, and his father, Dr. Ian Penn,
is a cardiologist and artist who,
with Daniel's mother, adolescent-
health physician Dr. Sandy
Whitehouse, established the
IDEA
award to purchase artworks for
Vancouver General Hospital.
When Daniel graduated in
2011, Whitehouse was working
on a project at Emily Carr
University of Art and Design re-
searching ways to let adolescents
open up to doctors about mental
health issues. Daniel returned to
Vancouver to help, and in 2013
they launched Tickit, an interactive
platform to enable comfortable
communication between patients
and doctors. Patients input details
on a mobile app, and an algorithm
highlights key information for
health-care providers. The
average first-year contract is
$25,000, with some clients in
the $100,000 range.
T H E B O T T O M L I N E : Tickit
is used by B.C.'s Providence Health
Care, Boston Children's Hospital
and the San Francisco Public
Health Department. Shift Health
doubled its sales last year and is
expected to turn a profit by the
first quarter of 2017. —F.S.
D A N I E L P E N N
Co-founder and CEO
SHIFT HEALTH
A G E : 2 8
L I F E S T O RY: Alex Relf and
his girlfriend, Kerri Jones, had no
restaurant experience when they
started asking banks for a loan to
start a meat-pie shop in Whistler.
"Nobody would touch us," Relf
recalls. "I was 24, and nobody in
North America had heard of this
food concept."
But Relf, who grew up in
Victoria, and Jones, a native
of Newcastle, Australia, were
convinced that the savoury pies
would be as popular in the ski
resort as they are Down Under.
While working full-time at service
jobs, the couple had spent two
years crafting a business plan and
developing recipes in their kitchen.
Using their own savings and funds
from one private investor, they
opened Peaked Pies in July 2013.
On the first day, lineups were
out the door. Demand for the pies
(which include steak, bacon and
cheese; butter chicken; and lentil)
hasn't let up. Last December, Relf
and Jones opened a second store,
on Denman Street in Vancouver.
T H E B O T T O M L I N E : About
40 people work at the two stores,
which together sell between 400
and 1,000 pies a day. Relf has
increased employees' wages by up
to 25 per cent and offers benefits
including
MSP coverage, ski pass
contributions and affordable
accommodation in a unit he rents.
"It was important to us that all
of our staff feel like part of the
family," he says. —M.G.
A L E X A N D E R
( A L E X ) R E L F
Co-founder
PEAKED PIES
A G E : 2 9
