MTL possibilities

Yesterday Leo took me to his friends restaurant Ludgers. It has really great food and a very relaxed and hipster atmosphere. 

I met up with Leo's friends including his partner for O'Noir. One of the chefs,  and his girlfriend who is a Norwegian circus performer. 

I am really loving the Montreal hospitality and warmth!

We talked at length about my possible move here.  I really get along well with everyone in the officer here.  I love the French culture and I have never lived in Montreal! Those are the amazing things about this decision. The only downside is the possible lead up time is quite short.  I only have about 2 weeks to get my affairs in order as the company is looking to get someone hired right away. 

I actually chatted with Faris,  Sandy and Leo about this. They are all on-board and Sandy especially as the city manager has given me his explicit approval if I do make the decision. 

After chatting with Shalaka (HR) in Toronto it seems our Vancouver office is also looking for a courier growth associate! So now there are three options in front of me:

1. Move to MTL
2. Move to Vancouver
3. Stay in Toronto

If I do move to Vancouver it will be amazing as it is all pristine unknown territory and I have never even been to the city! Also I feel like the growth potential there is limitless in terms of my career.  As they are only a two man operation hands on learning will be invaluable no matter what I do in the future.  Also because they are such a small team I will be able to hop around and play roles in sales,  KAM and eventually city manager! Or at least that is the plan.

As for staying in Toronto.  My friend and sales guy Yash just recently gave in his two weeks notice to attend a programing boot camp.  So I could definitely fill the sales role he left behind and that will be a new set of challenges and experiences.  But as the office is larger,  there is less vertical movement at least in the short term. 

So it seems my main goal now is either 1 or 2. It's really a toss up right now.  I haven't yet spoken to Dave or Mike yet.  But from chatting with Shalaka they seem interested as well and I know for MTL I have Sandy's blessing. 

Peace from MTL. 

Business trip to MTL!

So today I am in MTL! I am here until Wednesday evening to help out their operations here. 

I flew in the morning today and quickly took a cab to the office at 51 Sherbrooke West. The foodora office here is in a shared space with other companies.  it is an old Victorian building refurbished with modern and contemporary decor.  In the first floor,  there is a Cafe with wicker chairs spawled about. It has a really hipster startup vibe.  Really digging their space! 

In terms of my role here I am mainly helping my counter part Faris who does courier management here. 

As soon as I arrived we got to work.  On-boarding  10 people for working with Foodora.  Luckily the bags we shipped out on Friday arrived in the nick of time. We were able to get all couriers set up today as a result. 

In terms of the office,  there is Sandy the city manager.  Leo and Andreas in sales.  Ivan,  Elie, Faris and some other people I didn't get to meet today.  All really cool people.  Ivan actually spent 18 years in China and can speak perfect Chinese.  Andreas is one of the partners of O Noir the restaurant with the blind wait staff and you dine in the dark!  We might grab a bite there tomorrow!

It was a busy day today since I only arrived in the afternoon due to a flight delay.  So this evening I only got out of the office around 7:30pm.

My friends Valerie and Pierre are in Montreal.  I met them when I was in Munich and we went to beer halls together and got merry along with a bunch of other tourists.

I am waiting for them right now in a MCD.  Going to go grab some drinks in a bit and catch up 😊. 

Peace from MTL.

Opportunities in Toronto

There are so many opportunities in Toronto. Specifically downtown Toronto!

This past week I went to a couple of amazing events. The first is an entrepreneur talk series put on by MaRs institute by College and Univeristy. In the morning every month they have entrepreneurs come and talk about their field. This week it was Gimmy Chu the CEO of Nanoleaf. He talked about his journey from idea to execution.

Gimmy Chu of Nanoleaf. Morning entrepreneur series! Makes waking up at 6am that much more bearable! The event went from 8-10am. 

One of the cool things on display at the techTO. The girl in the screen was skype us from her home but she can control the robot and attend the convention as if she was there! I first saw this in an episode of Modern Family. 

Tech TO. 

I also signed up to be the lead volunteer of the Toronto Startup Job Fair. This event happens every two-three month. I was there at the last event as a volunteer. Consequently that is also how I found my current job with foodora. I connected with Shafina the coordinator and I attended some networking events courtesy of the job fair.


Peace from Toronto.

25K launch party Foodora

Our company foodora passed the 25K order count so of course we had a party to celebrate.

We went to Pursuit OCR which is an obstacle course by Queen and Dufferin.

It was a great time, the drill instructor took us through all the courses one time before she left us to our own devices.

The most interesting part of the place was the half pipe. This is a sliced up version of a halfpipe used for skateboarding. The goal is to run up the pipe and go over. It is actually really difficult because there is almost no grip from your shoes. To exacerbate the situation, the pipe goes up almost vertically at a 90 degrees angle pretty quickly.

I was able to do the smaller ramp but failed to succeed on the bigger and more impressive ramp.

I also raced one of my collegues Patrick on an obstacle course. It was neck in neck until the very end where we had to pull a rope up an incline and I simply lost my momentum. It is really tiring!

Afterwards we all went to Milagros which is a Mexican place we recently onboarded to our platform.

All in all a great night and I feel like I really got to know my colleagues better.

The whole team! 

Peace from Toronto. 

Snowshoeing adventure

So this past weekend I went snowshoeing for the first time.

My friend Adam who I play hockey with regularly invited me. We had no plans and figured out everything on the day of.

Adam, Evan, Brittany and I piled into Evan's old Buick on a clear Saturday morning and we simply drove north with no destination in mind. After picking up our snowshoe gear from a rental shop we headed further north past Barrie.

Eventually we stumbled upon a trail and started out route. Within 5 minutes Evan slipped and his foot fell into water. We were scared he was going to get hypothermia so we built a fire to warm him up.

Luckily everything was fine. After drying off and marching on we eventually got to a lake clearing in the forest. It was beautiful. Wide expanses of white vacuum as we looked out into the clearing.

We tested the waters literally with our feet and eventually made it to the other side. This was defintiely the highlight of the trip. Before the sun fell down we finished off and got back to the car.

To finish up a great day we all had all you can eat sushi down by 8 Sushi on Danforth. A great way to spend a Saturday!

lunch of champions - canned fish toasted on an open fire with Timmies bagles

Adam carefully testing the waters

Peace from Toronto.