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
ApRIL 2018 BCBusiness 43 BCBUSINESS.CA lIfE SToRY: growing up in Vancouver, Dana Stephenson helped out with his dad's car-repair busi- ness, but he moved on from transmissions to tech. Today he runs a web-based service that brings indus- try, educators and post-secondary students together for experiential learning opportunities in the U.S. and Canada. Stephenson and Riipen co-founder Dave Savory conceptualized the business when, as part of a UVic entrepreneurship project, they discovered that many of their classmates were struggling to join the job market. "We started to think, 'What more could we do to prepare ourselves for the transition to the workforce?'" Stephenson says. "What it came down to for us was more real-world experience." After graduating with a BComm in 2012, Stephenson worked as a sales manager for a roofing company while helping run Vancouver-based Riipen on the side. The platform, which struggled with an initial strategy of enrolling businesses, lost both of its software developers after the first year. Stephenson and Savory quit their day jobs and began targeting post-secondary institutions, where priorities are shifting to experiential learning. "We realized if we use professors as the catalyst and the school's name to attract the companies, all of a sudden it would work," Stephenson recalls. Once Riipen had signed up 16 schools, it raised $180,000 in seed capital on FrontFundr, a Vancou- ver equity crowdfunding platform, and rehired a developer. In 2017, the company secured $1.8 million in its first financing round. Now working with 150 post-secondary institutions across North America, it plans to expand to Australia, New Zealand and Europe this year. THE boTToM lINE: Academic institutions pay Riipen $25,000 to $100,000 annually, based on student enrollment. Industry partners are charged $500 to $1,000 per project, or they can buy a pack- age for $15,000 to $50,000. Riipen generates 75 percent of its revenue from industry partners and the rest from schools. Revenue climbed from $100,000 in 2016 to $740,000 last year, and Stephenson reckons it will reach $2 million in 2018. –J.W. lIfE SToRY: Felix Böck, who hails from a tiny alpine village in southern germany, was headed for a career in carpentry after leaving school in grade 9 to study the trade. But Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences, near munich, gave him the chance to earn a degree in wood technology and industrial engineering. While becoming the first member of his family to graduate from university, Böck worked in Ethiopia as head of product development for a start- up creating bamboo-based alternatives to wooden building materials. In 2012 he returned to germany; after he joined an engineering firm connected to the wood industry, UBC recruited him to do a phD as part of a research collaboration on structural bamboo with the massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge. Böck, who has worked all over the world as a consultant, found it tough to connect his bamboo research to Vancouver. But when he learned that each year in the metropolitan region, as much as 600,000 tonnes of wood that could be reused for construction end up in the landfill, he knew he had to do something. The aha moment came one night over sushi with his girlfriend, who told him to start small. "We had these chopsticks in our hands, and that's when it clicked," he remembers. In mid-2016, Böck launched ChopValue manu- facturing as a side project. ChopValue collects used bamboo chopsticks from local restaurants and trans- forms them into household items such as shelves, side tables and wall tiles. The Vancouver company has recycled more than 3 million chopsticks and is moving into making building materials, says Böck, who still does the collection himself and plans to de- fend his phD this spring. "The most surprising thing is that we are cash-flow-positive after year one." THE boTToM lINE: In February, ChopValue's recycling program was preparing to scale up to 300 metro Vancouver restaurants from about 65. Next year the eight-employee business expects to double its almost $1 million in annual revenue. plans for 2018 include expanding its entire concept— recycling, design and manufacturing—to three major North American cities. –N.R. lIfE SToRY: One year into a business degree at the University of Calgary, Kerryn Cooper felt uninspired. "I was getting really discouraged," the South African–born entrepreneur recalls. "It was dry; I wanted to be more creative." At her mother's sug- gestion, Cooper, who had immigrated to Victoria with her family at age nine, enrolled in the makeup artistry program at Vancouver Film School. After completing the one-year course in 2007, she freelanced on film sets in Vancouver, but her career took a detour a couple of years later when she saw a friend sporting eyelash extensions. In- trigued, Cooper got certified in applying extensions herself, a move that paid off when she moved back to Victoria in 2012: there, she was one of only two people offering the service. Launching heartwood & Co. the following year, she worked out of a small space at the back of a friend's clothing boutique until she had a large enough clientele to open her own salon. In a larger storefront, Cooper solidi- fied her brand; in 2016 she brought on her first business partner, stylist Jen Li. Last may, heartwood moved into its current 4,200-square-foot multifunc- tional space. The company's services now include a hair and beauty salon, a beauty academy, a community and event space, and a catering bakery specializing in wedding cakes—the latter run by Cooper's newest business partner, her sibling, megan Cooper. THE boTToM lINE: heartwood employs 20, monthly revenue exceeds $100,000, and Cooper plans to open a second location in another Canadian city within five years. –J.W. f e L I x B ö C k Founder and CEO choPValue ManuFacturing ltD. age: 29 k e R R Y n C o o P e R Founder, CEO and co-owner heartwooD & co. age: 29 D A n A s t e P h e n s o n Co-founder and director of academic partnerships riiPen age: 29