It’s been about two and a half months since Jonathan Natavio brought his Vancouver-based startup to Kamloops and he says being embedded in the growing local tech community has reinvigorated his entrepreneurial spirit.
Natavio was the winner of the Built in Kamloops contest that awarded him a business-development opportunity worth more than $50,000, including office space, living space, mentorship and $10,000 cash.
With the contest, the Kamloops Innovation Centre hoped to showcase Kamloops as an ideal place for entrepreneurs to build their new business. Having found fast success in the Vancouver market with his tech-enabled concierge service, Porter, and looking to test the platform in a smaller market, Natavio was the perfect contender. He embarked on his six-month residency at the Kamloops Innovation Centre in July.
“It has really given me that drive that I originally had, not that I lost that drive, but it's always exciting to see new people, new ideas come to life and that's what excites me,” said Natavio.
Two months in, Porter is starting to gain traction in Kamloops, Natavio said. When we chatted with him prior to the move, he anticipated to face several challenges in adapting to a smaller market. Porter is a corporate-facing product that helps large companies take care of menial day-to-day tasks. Companies summon “Porters” who do things like clean, shop, deliver, move, repair or whatever else you need done, right down to building office furniture.
Guess who's here and ready to get started? Come by and say hello to our newest community member @SummonPorter 👋🏻👋🏻 #hi #builtinkamloops pic.twitter.com/CRIfDzaGUF
— Kamloops Innovation (@kicpeople) July 4, 2017
In introducing the product in Kamloops, not only did Porter lack the network of service providers it had built in Vancouver, it’s target customer didn’t necessarily exist here.
“In Vancouver, with a focus on corporate offices, that's where we saw a lot of success,” he said. “But, in Kamloops, there aren't too many corporate offices around, so I really needed to understand what sort of companies, what kind of customers could we potentially work.”
They think companies in the food and beverage sector will be the main Porter users in Kamloops and other cities this size. Natavio’s operations manager will be moving to Kamloops in the near future and he was plans to hire two more employees in the city.
"Everyone I've spoken to, at least, they've been very receptive of the concept, they've been very receptive of potentially trying out the service and definitely receptive to at least having a conversation, seeing how porter can fit in the Kamloops market" Natavio said.
“We've only started to gain traction as of recently... I think we've just started to scrape the top of the iceberg, so to speak."
On top of growing his own business, Natavio has been involved with the work Kamloops Innovation does. He mentored participants at Startup Weekend, a 54-hour competition that saw teams create and pitch business ideas. He’s also hanging out at the TRU Generator, an extension of Kamloops Innovation that exists on campus for students. His office hours are Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“If any student is interested in becoming an entrepreneur or launching a startup, that's an opportunity for them to come down, talk to myself or any other entrepreneurs who have office hours and chat about the struggles, chat about the successes and the wins and the losses and what it takes to actually build a company,” Natavio said.
“I definitely see Kamloops as an area for growth in tech and there’s definitely exciting times ahead.”
