L I F E S T O RY: Photography and
technology have always been pas-
sions for Phoebe Jiang, who found a
way to spin that into a business. Jiang
moved to Vancouver with her parents
in 1999 from Luoyang, a city in Central
China. After earning a bachelor of
business administration in finance
and accounting from
SFU in 2010,
she worked several corporate jobs,
including a stint as a sales assistant
to investment advisers at Toronto-
Dominion Bank. One day Jiang
and her husband, a software devel-
oper, noticed that a professional-
photographer friend used a
DVD
burner to provide images to clients.
Seeing an opportunity, the
couple launched Pixieset Media, a
cloud-based service that lets users
upload and send photos, in mid-2013.
Jiang's husband wrote the software,
so startup costs were low. Also, news
of Pixieset, which offers plans ranging
from free to US$50 a month, spread
quickly in the close-knit photography
community. "We never spent much
money on marketing or direct selling,"
Jiang says. "It was mostly just word
of mouth."
T H E B O T T O M L I N E : Pixieset
serves more than 200,000 photogra-
phers worldwide, according to Jiang,
most of them in English-speaking
countries. The team stands at 16, and
revenue has climbed from just $4,000
in 2013 to more than seven figures
last year. —N.R.
L I F E S T O RY: Khallil Mangalji calls Burnaby
home, but he lives in constant motion, bounc-
ing between B.C., Ontario and California.
No matter what's on his plate, he's always
starting something else. When Mangalji was
a Grade 8 student at Meadowridge School
in Maple Ridge, he sold copies of Halo to his
video-game-obsessed classmates. That illicit
business ended quickly, but it sparked his
technology-focused entrepreneurial drive. He
kept launching side projects while earning
simultaneous bachelor's degrees in business
and computer science at Wilfred Laurier
University and the University of Waterloo.
In late 2015, Mangalji co-founded Fiix, an
Uber-for-auto-repair marketplace, where he
serves as
CTO. Fiix sends licensed mechan-
ics to customers' doorsteps at the click of a
mouse. Its contractor-based mobile model
means growth isn't constrained by shop space
and overhead. For customers, Fiix promises
lower, more transparent prices and more
convenient repairs. The upside for mechan-
ics: a bigger chunk of the shop rate normally
charged for labour, with no commissions and
greater flexibility.
T H E B O T T O M L I N E : Fiix works with 15
mechanics in and around Toronto but aims to
become the largest auto-repair company in
North America within three years. Revenue
is growing by 50 per cent month-over-month.
In January the Fiix team, which includes co-
founders Arif Bhanji and Zain Manji, landed a
prestigious fellowship at Silicon Valley startup
accelerator Y Combinator. —D.H.
K H A L L I L M A N G A L J I
Co-founder and chief technology officer, FIIX
A G E : 2 3
P H O E B E J I A N G
Co-founder and COO
PIXIESET MEDIA INC.
A G E : 2 9
BCBUSINESS.CA APRIL 2017 BCBUSINESS 45
