The Hard Part with Evan McCann

Mallory Greene is the co-founder and CEO of Eirene. Eirene provides a modern and caring approach to cremation services. Arrangements can be made from the comfort of your home with the support of their funeral directors, online or over the phone. In this episode, we discuss Mallory’s days as an early employee at Wealthsimple, what inspired her to start Eirene and what it’s like building a business in an emotionally charged space.

Jared Henriques is the Founder of Renga. Renga is a group of creative thinkers & makers that build brands the future can be proud of. In this episode, we discuss how Jared started Renga, what he means by brand therapy and how founders should think about brand.

John Ruffolo is the Founder & Managing Partner of Maverix Private Equity. Maverix is a private equity firm focused on technology-enabled growth and disruption. They look for great entrepreneurs interested in globally scaling their business and looking for a financial partner to invest at least USD $50M to $75M in the business. In this episode, we discuss how John started OMERS Ventures, the story behind his big investment in Shopify and his thoughts on the Canadian tech space.

Vivek Ramaswami is a partner at Madrona. Madrona is a seed, early stage and acceleration-stage investor. Investing for over 25 years in startups in the Pacific NW, now investing across the US in machine learning, AI, marketplaces, devops, biotech and across the technology spectrum. In this episode, we discuss Vivek’s investing career which has included stops at Goldman Sachs, Redpoint Ventures, Steadfast Capital and now a focus on early-stage investing at Madrona. Check out Vivek's newsletter on AI.

Jesse Rodgers is the co-founder of Eigenspace. Eigenspace makes investments with a combination of money, time and network access. They are investing in, building and connecting University of Waterloo students and alumni builders. In this episode we discuss Jesse’s journey through Velocity and CDL, co-founding his own company and why Canada needs more early-stage investment.

Michael Hyatt is an active investor and entrepreneur. In this episode, we discuss Michael's first venture, what founders he likes to invest in, the founding of Creative Destruction Lab and a look at the Canadian tech space.

Simon Sokol is a Vice President at Relay Ventures. Relay Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in passionate entrepreneurs disrupting and creating new markets through mobile technologies. In this episode, we discuss Simon’s path into venture, why he co-founded his own fund Gambit Partners and his thoughts on the Canadian venture space.

Matias Marquez is the founder of ethos. ethos is a white-label digital asset platform on a mission to accelerate the world’s mass adoption of digital assets by facilitating rich experiences for both brands and their customers. In this episode, we discuss the NFTs, crypto and blockchain and how brands are leveraging NFTs and the ethos platform to create a better customer experience.

Saud Aziz is the co-founder of Vault. Vault is a banking platform built for global Canadian businesses. In this episode, we discuss Saud’s time at KOHO and Revolut, why he started Vault and the Canadian banking landscape.

Alyssa Atkins is the founder of Lilia. Lilia makes the end-to-end egg-freezing process feel fast and easy, working with top egg-freezing doctors and saving you thousands. In this episode, we discuss the impact Lilia has had on women’s lives, tactics on how to test initial business ideas and what the Y Combinator experience was like.