With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/950283
36 BCBusiness ApRIL 2018 lIfE SToRY: After completing degrees in psychology and law at SFU and Cardiff University in Wales, respectively, Taran ghatrora was in the midst of a master of law degree at UBC, ostensibly on the way to her dream of becoming a human rights lawyer with the United Nations. Imagine being her mom and dad when she called them to say she was dropping out of school to sell organic tampons. "I feel like they were unwaveringly supportive," remembers ghatrora, who grew up in Surrey to parents from India and the U.K. "I knew I had their unconditional love if I failed." THE boTToM lINE: That hasn't happened: the business that ghatrora started in 2014 with her sister, Bunny, and friend Jessica Bilmer was selected by hootsuite's The Next Big Thing accelerator. Recent- ly rebranded to Blume from Ellebox, it has sold more than 200,000 organic tampons and pads through on- line subscriptions, good for annual recurring revenue of $360,000 in 2017. Blume has four full-time staff and customers in every province. ghatrora says she and her partners hope to raise awareness of self-care in addition to growing the company. "We really want to expand the educational aspect of our business in a relatable, authentic way through women's stories, not just clinical information." –N.C. tA R A n g h At R o R A Co-founder and CEO bluMe age: 26 lIfE SToRY: mohammad Akhlaghi has three birth- days, as he says is custom in his native Iran: the day he was born; the day six months previous his engineer father and dentistry professor mother moved his birthday to so he could start school a year early; and the day in the lunar year, which is based on the moon's rotation rather than the sun's. he shares the latter birthday with the prophet mohammad, hence his name. "In none of those I'm 30," Akhlaghi insists. "Not even on the moon." Akhlaghi came to Vancouver from Tehran after high school to attend SFU, where he earned a degree in elec- tronics engineering with a minor in business. The latter compelled him to start three companies with varying de- grees of success before co-founding parkizio Technologies in 2016 with Ali mohazab, who holds a phD in theoretical mathematics from UBC. The company "brings parking into the 21st century" by linking parking lots to other infrastructure, like traffic lights, allowing planners to more effectively control the use of cars in cities. THE boTToM lINE: parkizio has partnered with Easypark in a bid to make Vancouver's parking lots inter- connected. Right now, all of its revenue—the company hit the high five figures for 2017, 60 percent of it profit—goes back into developing its technology. parkizio's two found- ers are its only current full-time employees. –N.C. m o h A m m A D A k h L A g h I Co-founder and CEO Parkizio technologies ltD. age: 29