getWyred’s First Month of smOffice

From the time Chad Ballantyne, the owner of The Creative Space, got back in touch with us about winning the grand prize for the smOffice competition, we were beyond excited and relieved for the next six months of our lives. Being at the ribbon cutting with our fellow winners, Jon Grootveld of VertaGro for vertical farming and Liam Squires of Tandempark, a website which helps connect people with volunteer opportunities, was a really fulfilling milestone for getWyred.

Getting Featured in Our Local Newspaper! With the help of our PR genius Amanda Sutton, of Catalyst Communication Choreography, we were able to get our news of winning the smOffice competition and what our app will do to The Haliburton Echo. This exposure along with the coverage done by CTV Barrie, The Barrie Examiner, and The Barrie Advance got our company attention in the local community at large, which was one of the critical things we needed at our stage.

Mingling with MPs at Foxstock. The first networking event we were invited to was Foxstock, a charity fund-raising event just outside Innisfil. We met with a longstanding champion of The Creative Space and smOffice, Stephen Jones who introduced us around his beautiful farm. One of the other valuable connections smOffice made for us was meeting John Brassard, the MP for Barrie-Innisfil. In terms of being introduced to the most influential people in Barrie’s government, no one could have been a better person to connect with and it was all possible because of the smOffice connections.

Mixing with Other ‘Treps at Flying Monkeys. The next networking event we were fortunate enough to be invited to was the Trep Mixer down at Flying Monkey Craft Brewery. Not only was their homemade craft brew splendid but Neeta Grover of Invest Barrie, Sara Bentham of Georgian College’s Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre,

ventureLAB and Brandon Houston of Switch Video were kind enough to give some sage advice for moving forward with smOffice.

Cheesin’ with the Sharks. Next, we took our first dive in the Shark Tank with our sponsors at Tyger Shark, Tyler & Jimmy. Not only were they welcoming, supportive, and encouraging but learning of their history with leading digital marketing campaigns for the biggest brands in entertainment made us even more excited to work with them in improving our website over the next six months.

Dress to Impress. Although Silicon Valley plays by its own rules, even with dress code, one of our mentors Angela Baldwin advised us to cater to our audience and always dress for success because you never know who you’ll bump into in your career that could make or break your company’s progress in that moment. Having that needed conversation in the safety of our smOffice desk definitely helped us cut the learning curve and turn months or years into days.

Everybody Loves Chris. The second mentor we met with this month was Chris Adams, co-founder and Head of Business Development of gShift Labs. After nearly two hours of spitballing and getting to know each other, we came out of that meeting with a suite of ideas that we could bounce around in marketing & business development. Getting access to Chris’s expert guidance wouldn’t have been possible without without smOffice and we can not express our gratitude enough.

Love It When a Plan Comes Together. The last milestone that we accomplished in our FIRST month of smOffice was talk with Lisa Hyde of BDO Canada about our current business plan and its eligibility with certain government grants and capital programs. One program that she suggested more than the others was Futurpreneur, a non-profit organization across Canada that provides financing, mentorship, and support tools for aspiring entrepreneurs between 18-39. With so many options to discover because of the access to people and resources smOffice has given us, we can’t wait to start blowing ahead at full steam in launching getWyred onto the App Store!

Taking a Spin On the e-Bike. Now smOffice is not all about business! They’ve provided some sweet perks that include food, culture and to get around downtown, we have access to the amazing Sonders e-Bike! It’s wild to think we took this bad boy out, ripped around Dunlop, down the lakeshore, and back in less than five minutes! Wow!