Wilfrid Laurier University startup Teknically picks up award at Canadian Business Model Competition.

Teknically, an SME website data analytics business borne out of a reunited school friendship at Canada’s Wilfrid Laurier University, has been awarded C$25,000 in seed money from the Canadian Business Model Competition.

The Canadian Business Model Competition is considered by many as the darling of the Canadian start-up funding competitions and is hosted and organized by the Starting Lean Initiative at Dalhousie University’s Rowe School of Business. The competition emphasises the lean canvas model methodology. It pushes students to validate their business by getting outside of the classroom to test their hypotheses and assumptions by talking with their target market.

This year’s main winners represented Teknically, a web site data analysis reporting business run by Wilfrid Laurier entrepreneurial students, which include among others, co-founders Brandon Chow and Andrew Paradi.

The entrepreneurs have been good friends since grade one. They each pursued their own entrepreneurial endeavours in high school. Paradi did freelance video production and web design and Chow started his own IT hosting company, Provision Host. After Provision Host was acquired in August 2013, Brandon and Andrew reconnected during their first week at Wilfrid Laurier University and founded Teknically.

Teknically has developed a data analytics product called Webplio, which claims to cut through the technology and computing coding to explain simply to small business websites how their web site and content can be better deployed or designed. The solutions focus on website visibility, usability and technology.

Canada’s Business Model Competition is the national qualifier for the International Business Model Competition. This year, the competition was a two-day event consisting of a panel discussion, a fireside chat with Steve Blank and the final pitches for C$50,000 in prizes from Deloitte.

 

Photo: From left to right: Laurier’s Megan Piticco, Teknically’s Brandon Chow and Andrew Paradi, and Laurier’s Dave Inglis