18
VANCOUVER ISLAND
OCTOBER 2019
Nominations Sought For 20th Vancouver Island Business Excellence Awards Gala Event Organizers Searching For Nominations For Successful Companies To Nominate Ahead Of November 22 Deadline
N
ANAIMO – Organizers of the 20 th Annual Vancouver Island Business Excellence Awards a re looking forward to a large number of entries from award-worthy businesses this year as the November 22 nomination deadline
is now around the corner on the calendar. “Each year, nominations are generally evenly split between companies south of the Malahat, and those from north of the Malahat,” says Mark MacDonald of Business Examiner, which coordinates the event. “That’s not surprising, as the population of both areas are very close, but it also shows the strength of the economy on Vancouver Island is spread out.” “We expect that to be reflected in the number and quality of the entries this year for the Gala, which will be held in Victoria on January 30,” notes MacDonald.
“These awards always bring out new, exciting ventures that make our judges’ job a little tougher each year as they decide who wins each award.” Black Press is a Platinum Sponsor of the BE Awards, and RBC Royal Bank and Grant Thornton LLP are the event’s Gold Sponsors. Winners of each of the 17 Categories will be invited to a special “Breakfast For Champions” round-table the following morning, hosted by RBC Royal Bank, Grant Thornton LLP and Business Examiner. Categories this year are: • Automotive (car and truck dealerships & fleet sales)
• Construction / Development/Real Estate • Entrepreneur • Food & Food Production (a g r icu lt u re, sea food, food products) • Green & Technology • Health Care • Hospitality • Industrial Manufacturer • M a n u f a c t u r e d Wo o d Products • Ocean Products • Professional (legal, accounting, insurance, coaching) • Construction/Development/ Real Estate • Retail • Small Business (under 20
employees & under $1 million in sales) • Tourism • Trades (automotive repair, plumbing, electrical, roofing, etc. • Business of the Year (over 50 employees & over $1 million in sales). The nomination deadline is November 22 this year, and companies can self-nominate. There is no charge to participate. Nomination forms can be downloaded at www.businessexaminer.ca/ events. For more information on the event contact MacDonald at 1-866-758-2684 ext. 120 or email: mark@businessexaminer.ca
Victoria Startup Explodes Onto Restaurant Scene by Simplifying Ordering Process Cuboh Named to New Ventures BC Top 10 List
V
ICTORIA - Victoria-based tech start-up Cuboh is addressing a growing headache in the restaurant industry. Third-party ordering platforms like UberEats, Doordash, or SkipTheDishes help to boost sales and make local eateries more accessible than ever, but the number of services in the market can prove to be a logistical nightmare for restaurant managers and owners.
Cuboh’s proprietary ordering system was created to simplify this increasingly complicated process, consolidating all ordering platforms into a single system. This software gives restaurants the ability to automate how their orders are accepted, as well as determine how order information is sent to their POS system. Founded in 2018, the company has made a name for itself, winning Start-Up of the Year at the 19th Annual VIATEC Awards
Co-founder & CEO Juan Orrego (holding trophy) and his team at the 2019 Viatech Awards this summer. A couple months later, it was named as a Top 10 Finalist for the 2019 New Ventures BC Competition. “The company started a little over a year ago,” says co-founder and CEO Juan Orrego. “In late 2017, I was doing a co-op for my degree that ended before it was supposed to. I still needed to put in more time in order to graduate, so I decided to do an entrepreneurial co-op, starting my own company.” Orrego had experience working in the restaurant industry, so decided to target that market, offering solutions to common restaurant problems. “Initially, our products weren’t getting a lot of traction and we were struggling to sell,” he continues. “We developed a relationship with a major restaurant chain in BC, who told us that they would buy a certain kind of product if we’d build it for them. We pre-sold the product, built it, and have been scaling it ever since.” In order to create this product, Cuboh needed to find a way to integrate their product with tech industry behemoths like SkipTheDishes and UberEats. “In the beginning, we were way too small to get their attention, so we had to be resourceful,” says Orrego. “We did some experiments and noticed that the receipts offered the best path to get all the information in one place.
”We created a system that read the receipts, which we used for the first several months. Once we grew to a certain size, we were able to go back to the companies and properly integrate the software.” Early on in the company’s journey, Orrego was joined by co-founder and CTO Sinan Sari, who previously worked as a software developer, project manager and product manager before moving to Canada from Turkey in 2017. Since its humble beginnings, Cuboh has grown to house a team of 14 employees (and counting), who have helped to foster the company’s recent growth. Their system is now in use in restaurants all over North America, as well as some overseas locations. Though there is now competition in this space, Cuboh has differentiated itself through its proprietary technology and unique take on software integration. “ Eve r y t h i n g we d o i s re s t a u ra nt self-regulated, which makes our product very appealing,” says Orrego. “We’ve got a pretty unique take on how to do integrations right, which is important because you’re working with a lot of networks, POS structures and menu structures. We retain nearly 100 per cent of our customers, which is very unusual in this industry.” cuboh.com