Profile: Jon Christensen and Bidmii

What is Bidmii?

Bidmii is a revolutionary online platform that provides unparalleled convenience and security to homeowners, realtors, and property investors interested in home improvement projects.

With Bidmii, you can easily access local contractors with the right skills and experience to fulfill your project needs at competitive prices. By holding funds in trust throughout a project, Bidmii has completely eliminated stolen deposits for homeowners and reduced accounts receivables for contractors by 98%.

Bidmii's mission is to unite the world's home improvement community by making life easier for both homeowners and contractors alike. We have established strong partnerships with Home Hardware, HGTV's Scott McGillivray, and countless brokerages across the country. In addition, we've launched embedded finance and AI integrations that make it fast and easy for contractors to do their jobs. It's no wonder Bidmii is quickly becoming the de facto resource for home improvements!

What was the insight/inspiration that led you to launch it?

I'd worked in restaurant development for the majority of my career, where my team became very good at developing new restaurants quickly. We did this by implementing off-the-shelf automation products across real estate, franchising, design, and construction. It was messy, but it worked. At the same time, I struggled to find contractors to help me finish my basement. When covid hit and put a pause on restaurant development, the timing was perfect. We decided to take the domain knowledge and best-in-class practices from the commercial world and build it from the ground up, in an all-encompassing, easy-to-use platform for homeowners and contractors.

How has it been received by the market? Why do you think it has been so well received?

In the beginning, we knew we were solving the right problem because our system wasn't great, and people were forcing it to work. Since then we've learned, and completed rapid iteration by leveraging user feedback, and we have a platform that is now pretty awesome, streamlined, and growing organically and through channel partnerships.

How did you know you were ready to found a company?

I had developed a team building, problem-solving skillset at the executive level, and had a technical co-founder that is as crazy about perfection as me.

How did you meet your founders/know they were the right people to start a company with?

We met each other in junior high. He was a cloud architect before it was cool. Just great friends that became better friends throughout the process.

What has been the hardest thing on your journey so far?

User onboarding. The people involved in home improvement are not likely to be digital natives. They don't want onboarding videos or help articles. They'd love a phone call, but those take too much bandwidth for a rapidly scaling company.

What has been the most pleasant surprise?

How much the users love the platform.

We expected people to be pleased, but we didn't expect to have fans. There are people who come to all of our shows and ask to take pictures with us. It's a pretty surreal experience.

What is your super strength?

Team building and motivation around a large, seemingly impossible goal.

Who is the unsung hero on the team? Why?

I sing his praises whenever I have the opportunity, but Phillip, our CTO, and my co-founder. He is a mad genius and maniacal about making sure we get to the truth and finding a solution that's as close to perfection as possible.

What are you trying to achieve over the next 12 months?

Ironing out the kinks in all of our current processes and then launching in the US in early 2024.

What advice do you wish you had been given prior to launching?

Don't raise money too early. Grinding in the early days is easier than you think.

What is your proudest accomplishment outside of your startup?

I'm the Chair of the Board of Hopewell Children's Homes, and the work that the organization does is incredible. We opened a new home this past year, and are looking forward to more growth in the future.

Who are the 5 Canadian startups you like in your market?

• Biiibo

• Quick Contractors

• Billdr

• Part3.io

• SmartReno

*Reply to this email and let us know the companies and innovators you'd like us to profile in an upcoming newsletter*

Quick Takes: What is going on with D-Wave?

What is the latest with D-Wave?

According to investors, Burnaby-based D-Wave Quantum is having liquidity issues. This could mean that it may be having trouble paying its bills and it has to raise additional funding shortly or it may be forced to sell or shut down.

They recently went public, so how did they end up here?

D-Wave went public via a SPAC last year but the SPAC was relatively unsuccessful despite being a leader in Quantum.

D-Wave has historically raised $350m+ USD from investors and received millions more in federal aid and has never had an easy time raising.

It now finds itself in this precarious position for several reasons:

• The company tried to raise $340m USD in the merger with the SPAC but only raised a combined $39m USD from SPAC holders and private investors while incurring transaction costs of $11.5m and having to repay $20m+ in venture debt.

• To provide liquidity, D-Wave arranged a line of credit for up to $150m USD for $2.6m in commitment fee and the issuance of shares to the lender. The credit line limits the amount D-Wave can call on daily and the debtor can't own more than 9.9% of D-Wave and the share price must remain above $1 a share for D-Wave to access it.

• The issue is that the share price and market cap have fallen enough to get the debtor close to 9.9% and the share price is hovering just above $1

• The near-term threat? The lock-up period for early investors - who purchased shares at 2 cents is about to expire and they may rush to sell pushing the price below $1.

If D-Wave can't access the loan they may not be able to meet commitments as they are running the company at huge losses.

What about revenue? Do they have it?

Yes they do, from about 63 large clients, but it's 2022 revenue will most likely be less than $9m USD while expenses in the first nine months were $40.9m USD

What is next for D-Wave?Right now, we're not sure. They already switched CEOs and business models. We assume they can't cut costs much more. They might be able to do a reverse stock split to get the share price up but they still have the 9.9% threshold.

What are the main takeaways?

Sadly, we may be seeing the end of this 24-year-old company that took a bold risk to lead the quantum revolution. But we can't predict the next steps completely.

Unfortunately, this will hurt Canada's reputation as a Quantum leader.

This is also a reminder that the company that has the technology lead may not be the one to reap the rewards. In this case, the company did the research and had the breakthrough but it did not produce a product that provided the right return on investments for customers. They either need the cost basis to be cheaper or they need customers to pay more.

Listen to Founder and Former CTO of D-Wave Geordie Rose speak at a past TechTO Event:

*Reply to this email and let us know your takes on the week in Canadian Tech*

Listen to the latest episode of Quick Takes

Quick Takes returns LIVE with a brand new episode on February 23 at 12:00 pm ET/9:00 am PT across the TechTO platforms.

Episodes dropping every other Thursday all year long!

Catch up on past episodes here, while you wait.

Subscribe to Quick Takes on Apple Podcasts, and Spotify so you never miss an episode as it drops.

Feature your Company and Story at an upcoming TechTO Event

We are looking for tech companies in the Toronto ecosystem to host booths and share their story with the TechTO community.

With hundreds of technologists in attendance at each event, it's a great opportunity to showcase your story, product, or mission to your desired audience.

Reach out to [email protected] and let us know a bit about your company, and what you're building, and we will see if we have a fitting event for you to join.

Headlines and Content

• #ICYMI - Catch up on past newsletters if you hadn't yet subscribed!

• Canadian Startup news of the week >> READ HERE

• A trillion dollar opportunity >> READ HERE

• Funding slowdown? Not for climate and clean energy software. Here's why >> READ HERE

• Spotify founder takes on Healthcare >> READ HERE

• Levr.AI closes $1m in pre-seed funding >> READ HERE

• Speaking of D-Wave, listen to former CTO and Founder Geordie Rose speak about the AI takeover and Super Intelligent Aliens coming to earth at a past TechTO Event >> WATCH HERE

A Few Takeaways from Geordie's presentation:

On AI:

"What you've heard about AI is not what we mean by ai. What we mean by AI is a software system that can do literally anything that a human can do, literally anything. And obviously, computers are better at things than people in lots of different ways. So now imagine not only can they do everything that a human can do, but they can do everything that the best human at any task could do better than."

"Intelligence isn't magical. It's not some kind of weird thing. It's a mechanical outcome of the way that our machines and our heads work. We're going to figure it out eventually, and when we do, we're going to make it better in all sorts of interesting ways."

On Advancement:

"These machines are going to be able to take control of the tools from which they are built. To create better versions of themselves and what is sometimes called an intelligence explosion. It is something that biological creatures can't undergo. I think it's an absolutely guaranteed outcome of progress."

On Entrepreneurship:

"People don't talk about this enough. Entrepreneurship isn't about roses and fun. It's about getting your soul crushed over and over and over again, and the people who succeed are the ones who keep getting up."

TechTO Talent

Head of Content Marketing, Knak (Ottawa, ON)

Why is this cool? Knak is a world-class enterprise email and landing page creation platform with a focus on making successful and happy customers by providing them with an incredibly powerful, yet easy-to-use creation platform. They market to some of the world's top marketers across the globe. Lead, plan, and execute new strategies to bring awareness to the platform, build a customer database, and more >> APPLY HERE

Demand Generation Specialist, Shinydocs (Remote)

Why is this cool? Founded in 2014, Shinydocs searches organizes, and understands unstructured data at scale, providing actionable security, compliance, and business operations insights. They also partner with some of the largest companies in the world to revolutionize how they use and access their data. You will collaborate with marketing to implement the processes required to execute new demand-generation initiatives, for the entire organization >> APPLY HERE

Senior-Level Game Developer/Designer

Senior-level game developer/designer, ideally with experience in educational games for kids.

What you'll be building: Immersive, AI-powered games for kids (see video)

Already built: Powerful no-code game design studio that enables anyone to turn traditional learning materials into immersive digital games.

Contact: Erica and mention the TechTO Newsletter Placement!

Co-Founder Search

Are you looking for your next Co-Founder? Not sure where to start?

Reach out to [email protected] with the following info:

• What you're looking for in a Co-Founder

• What you're building

Events and Links

Check out the interesting content, events, and happenings for the community here:

• TechTO Talent | Virtual | February 22, 2023 - Meet and mingle with top tech talent and employers hiring now! >> REGISTER FOR FREE

• DX3 Expo: March 1 & 2, 2023 - A focus on everything from digital marketing, advertising, and retailing >> REGISTER HERE

• TechTO #IWD2023 Event: March 6, 2023 - Come celebrate women in tech with us! >> REGISTER HERE

• TechTO Special: Web3: March 22, 2023 - Learn all about one of the hottest topics in tech from the top innovators in the business >> REGISTER HERE

• International Conference for Women in Business: March 27-29, 2023 >> REGISTER HERE

Want to showcase your company, events, and opportunities to 60,000 subscribers across the Canadian Tech Eco-system? Reach out to [email protected] to learn more!