Once again we are reminded that Kamloops is full of creative entrepreneurs and incredible talent. Choosing the finalists for the Fast Pitch Competition at Aberdeen Mall for this coming weekend has not been as easy as we had anticipated.
There have been many great submissions but we have finally come to our top eight who will be pitching their creative business ideas and start-up businesses on Saturday to our expert panel of judges.
Kids Coffee & Tea Company – Team Genie from Race to a Million will be pitching their long awaited business model which supports children’s charities including the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The Kids Coffee and Tea Company plan on measuring their success by the health and wellness of local children in the community. They maintain that every aspect of their operation from their suppliers, to their roasters, to their customers will be approached with a goal of supporting kids’ programs and enrichment opportunities in a sustainable and effective way. With an exciting distribution program already underway and plans for future retail outlets and franchises, Kids Coffee and Tea Company aim to be so much more than a great cup of coffee.
Agile Schedule – Jarrod Goddard from Net Shift Media will be pitching his web-based personal scheduling system that solves the problem of checking multiple calendar sources for your own calendar of activities. Personal schedules, work schedules and school schedules are all combined into a single calendar system to save time and frustration for users, business owners, and schools. Agile Schedule will combine a unique approach to serving the business community, post secondary schools, and individuals while integrating social media and communications tools with this unique approach that Jarrod believes is poised to become a prominent personal scheduling system and a single definitive source for managing our daily lives.
HeatPads.ca – Team Alpha from Race to A Million will pitch their latest business idea for reusable heat pads. Team Alpha’s Heat Pads are reusable self-powered heating devices. Popular uses for the pads include warming your hands, soothing tense muscles, and a variety of other applications. Team Alpha believes they have developed a business model capable of providing significant return on investment. Team Alpha plans to sell the business for what they believe is a low cost opportunity to have a great money-making small business.
The Ripcharger Supercharger- Dennis Smith will present the world’s first commercially available super-charger for 2 stroke engines. Starting with the snowmobile market and expanding into other power sports markets, the Ripcharger Supercharger provides more power, better handling and increased fuel efficiency. Dennis and his business partners at Ripcharger have been getting a lot of practice pitching with their recent entry into the New Ventures BC Competitions so get ready to see a rip roaring presentation as they set their sites on impressing our great judges.
Spark Your Imagination Story Starters – Tamara Vukusic will pitch her collection of 52 scenarios to kick-start imagination, encourage problem-solving and get families talking. Only recently launched, in December, Spark Story Starters are already being retailed across Canada as both a deck of cards and an App available for iPhones, iPods, iPads, and Android devices. Spark Your Imagination Story Starters inspire kids to think beyond the boundaries of what is. Tamara says “The future needs our creative kids. Get your kids to think outside the box with Spark Story Starters and empower them to hone an increasingly valuable skill.”
Cell Pods – Matthew Muzzillo will unveil and pitch his rapid charging “vending” machine for providing a quick charge to mobile and hand held devices. This technology will service people in public locations who are on-the-go. Matthew says “Let’s face it, cellphone demand and usage is on the rise each and every single day. Keeping in touch with friends and family, surfing the internet and snapping pictures can take a lot out of your battery. On-the-go is when you need access to your cellphone the most, so don’t get stuck without power. Utilize a CELLPODS Rapid Charging Machine to ensure that you’ll always have power.”
Wild West Adventure Vacations – Larry Foss will pitch an adventure vacation package he claims to be the only package like it in North America. 6 Days and 6 nights of adventure, visiting historic ranches in the interior of BC. Amongst the unique memories created for a lifetime vacationers will experience robbing a stage coach and a train and they will take a DVD recording of their adventure to share with friends and family. Larry plans on serving 108 clients from late June to early September with 5 days of “old west” combined with one day of “new west”.
ShareMy360.com – Jason Wassing from Greater Than Technology will pitch to our esteemed judges (and unveil to the public for the very first time) a new software platform which has been in development for almost 2 years. Nearing completion this new web based virtual tour online platform will provide an easy and unique way of marketing businesses and sharing information with the world through social media. Jason says there is already significant demand from many sectors including real estate, hospitality tourism, retail marketing, education, and manufacturing.
Episode 18 of the Race to a Million is dedicated to Marc Pouliot and his parents Melanie and Leo. Their message of inspiration and hope inspires us even more to continue our message that businesses should not only focus on making money but also on making a difference for it’s there that we find more passion and reason for life. In business we sometimes say “Seize the day!” but Marc would have us “Squeeze The Day” instead … Squeeze every ounce of awesome out of it that you can get! Thank you Marc.
Episode 17 of the Race to a Million can now be viewed on the website. This week we have a TRU theme to the Race. We take a look at what’s happening with the teams, what it’s like to be a student and a participant in the Race, the Associate Dean of the School of Business and Economics joins us in the study to talk about sponsoring the upcoming Art of Doing Business Series, and we head up to TRU for International Days and speak with TRU World about their marketing efforts to International students.
If you missed the historic event, the auction of Norman the Bull at the Plaza Heritage Hotel, then you have to watch this video!! We also had a chance to get a few words from the chef at the Plaza, James Havlin and Tina Lange the General Manager who hosted and planned the whole event of the indoor bull auction. How much would you have bid for this wine fed bull? Find out the final bidding price in our video segment of Business Outside the Box!!
This episode is running on Shaw TV on the following dates: Thursday January, 20th at 8PM, Saturday, January 22nd at 5PM and Sunday, January 23rd at 5PM (Moved from 3PM)
If you can’t catch it on Shaw TV in the local Kamloops market you can check out the entire episode here on this website through our Vimeo channel in full HD by following the link at the end of this post!
In this episode:
BIZ APPS: Great applications for mobile smart phones and devices. Dean and Peter do battle to see who has the better application. Who do you think better this week? We’d love to hear from you. Vote for your favorite in the comments section of this post!
BIG IDEAS: Bryan Wickham from Dragon’s Decorative Concrete joins us in the studio for a segment we like to call BIG IDEAS. Where we talk about one of his former inventions called the Umbrachipin… A Golf Umbrella that doubles as a putting and chipping practice tool.
PARTICIPANT SPOTLIGHT: Local Realtor, Mike Harrison, from Team Alpha joins us in the studio for a participant spotlight.
SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT: We head up to Aberdeen Mall and interview Trish Baldwin to talk about the mall, its connections to the community, and why they became a Race to a Million sponsor.
RACE UPDATE: We tune into to watch Team Genie, Team Alpha and Team TRU with a race update. Team Genie works on their marketing for the Kids Coffee and Tea Company while Team Alpha and Team TRU team up to “pitch” the Kamloops SPCA on a great business idea which can also help the BCSPCA with a great fund-raising program.
In this video we head up to the Kamloops Convention Centre for the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce Christmas Business Trade Show and Social. We interviewed several business professionals from Kamloops about the benefits and value they receive from being members of the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce and found out what some of these local business owners think of the Race to a Million.
Check out this great 10 minute video on the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce!
We invite you to also submit the benefits and reasons why you would consider being a member of your local Chamber of Commerce in the comments area below this article.
We took our cameras to the offices of several influential decision makers from our region and asked them, “what’s the appeal of living in Kamloops? Why is this city so great to live, work and play? Why should people consider doing business in Kamloops? and finally, what do you think of the Race to a Million?” They gave us some great answers… check them out in this video segment.
It’s the best 12 and a half minutes you’ll spend hearing about this great city!
We’d like to thank the following people for joining us on camera (in alphabetical order by last name):
Terry Lake the Kamloops – North Thompson MLA
Fred Legace the Managing Director at Kamloops Airport Ltd
Deb McClelland the Executive Director at Kamloops Chamber of Commerce
Peter Mutrie the Manager at Northshore Business Improvement Assoc.
Gaye Pooler the General Manager at Kamloops Central Business Improvement Assoc.
Christopher Seguin the Vice President of Advancement at Thompson Rivers University
Dan Sulz the Executive Director at Venture Kamloops
If you are a fan of the Kamloops region and you have a website we invite you to embed this video on your site and share it with your readers. We invite you to also submit the reasons why you like Kamloops in the comments area below this article.
In this episode we feature the City of Kamloops as a great place to live, play, work and do business in our first segment titled “Why do business in Kamloops?”. We took our cameras to the offices of several influential decision makers in our area including the Kamloops, Chamber of Commerce, Venture Kamloops, The North Shore Business Improvement Association, The Downtown Business Improvement Association, Thompson Rivers University, The Kamloops Airport, and The Provincial MLA’s office for Dr. Terry Lake.
In the second half of the show we head up to the Kamloops Convention Centre for the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce Christmas Business Trade Show and Social. We interviewed people about the benefits and value they receive from being members of the Chamber of Commerce and find out what some local business owners think of the Race to a Million.
We finish off the show with a segment about creating a vision for your business. How do you create a vision and why is it important?
Get ready for some exciting race updates from Team Alpha!!! Matt Oginski brings us up to speed on the new strategy with the TRU Wolfpack Hockey mosaic campaign in episode 6. Then in episode 7 Jason Wassing and Matt Oginski unleash the the Kraft Dinner noodle contest!!! Lastly in Episode 8 we will update you on three of Alpha’s projects.
Team TRU has been taking the lead in almost every race update, so what makes them more successful in Race to a Million? What are their strategy’s and what do they have planned for the future? Watch these race updates and you’ll find out!!! For episode 6 we caught up with team TRU at the Kamloops Fall Homshow. Brendan Shaw and Jordan Hirschmiller talk to us about some of the products team TRU were selling. Jumping up one week to episode 7 we went to Wholesale Furniture Brokers to visit Matt Muzzillo. Finally for episode 8 we run up to the classrooms of TRU to speak with Bernie Warren and Usman Vahidy!!
If you haven’t been following team Nexus you can catch up on a few of their updates in the video’s below, the first is a race update from episode 6 where the mystery of www.dealsvm.com is unveiled. Jumping up to episode 8 Professor Investor takes us through the top five products of the week and ways to promote healing!
Here are a couple of videos you may not have yet seen from Team Matrix. In Episode 8 Gregg Murray from Venture Kamloops came into the studio to give us an update on Team Matrix! In Episode 7 we head over to Qforia to visit John Woolner from Team Matrix to get an update on their new team members, as well as what they have planned in terms of business strategy!
Terra Scheer the communications officer for the BC Childrens’ Hospital (Team Matrix’s Charity) joins us on the show in an effort to raise the profile of the BC Childrens’ Hospital. Technology, improvements in medicines, medical research and advancements in medical techniques have all gone a long way to improving the lives of BC’s Children over the last few decades but we have a long way to go. While we are saving lives that 30 years ago we wouldn’t have been able to it does mean that we are now seeing new issues we have never seen before. New maladies such as childhood diabetes are reaching what some may call epidemic proportions as well as heart conditions in children that were unheard of in years passed. This is a big reason why the work that BC Childrens’ Hospital is doing is so important.
It takes extraordinary people to deal with such extraordinary circumstances. Hearing the stories you would think that it would be a very sad place to work… but, Terra says it’s not like that, the caregivers are wonderful and great at making it a fun place that can be full of joyous occasions.
Please support their noble work and Team Matrix in their efforts to make a difference.
Joseph Chan, Race To A Million production assistant, takes up the challenge and makes his debut in this video interview of the TRU Eco Club for Sustainability Week. Bonnie Kloh and Rebecca Purdy join Joseph in our studio to take a closer look in this video.
TRU Eco is the campus environmental group at Thompson Rivers University promoting environmental awareness and environmental action at TRU. For Sustainability week they worked on a number of initiatives including a community art canvas of change, a trashion show (recycled material meets fashion show), and a speakers series on sustainability practices. From environmental economics to the net zero Y Dream Home the seminars were great and showed people many options to reduce negative environmental impact.
There are a number of ways for everyone to get involved with these initiatives next year so please watch the video to see the creative and passionate ideas that have been put forward this year and consider getting involved.
Since you’ve been inviting us into your home for the last few months we thought we’d invite you into one of ours. Join us at Peter’s home, decorated for the holidays, as we talk review what has happened with the teams so far in the Race To A Million.
It’s been quite an adventure so far in the race and since we are switching the calendar over to 2011 we thought we’d share some of our candid thoughts on some of the strategies employed by the teams so far and what we think, straight shooting from the hip.
Where did the idea of the Race to a Million come from? Who is watching? Where are the teams at? What are they doing? Do they have a chance of getting there?
Race To A Million is the 1st ever "Social Reality" TV show - where Social Media meets Reality TV. Our goal is to prove that business can be fun, socially conscious, environmentally responsible, and sustainable while still profitable. We say "Nice People CAN Finish First!"
This a 1 of a kind money making contest highlights innovative and strategic business ideas. It's a contest with 5 creative teams of business people, entrepreneurs and students competing to see who can parlay $500 into $1 Million by July 1st 2011. Fans can also win prizes (up to $10,000) by submitting their creative money-making ideas.
Peter Cameron-Inglis | Posted in Aberdeen Mall, Alpha, Business Ideas, Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, Genie, Kamloops, Make-A-Wish, Teams | Posted on 01-03-2011 
Once again we are reminded that Kamloops is full of creative entrepreneurs and incredible talent. Choosing the finalists for the Fast Pitch Competition at Aberdeen Mall for this coming weekend has not been as easy as we had anticipated.
Kids Coffee & Tea Company – Team Genie from Race to a Million will be pitching their long awaited business model which supports children’s charities including the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The Kids Coffee and Tea Company plan on measuring their success by the health and wellness of local children in the community. They maintain that every aspect of their operation from their suppliers, to their roasters, to their customers will be approached with a goal of supporting kids’ programs and enrichment opportunities in a sustainable and effective way. With an exciting distribution program already underway and plans for future retail outlets and franchises, Kids Coffee and Tea Company aim to be so much more than a great cup of coffee.
Agile Schedule – Jarrod Goddard from Net Shift Media will be pitching his web-based personal scheduling system that solves the problem of checking multiple calendar sources for your own calendar of activities. Personal schedules, work schedules and school schedules are all combined into a single calendar system to save time and frustration for users, business owners, and schools. Agile Schedule will combine a unique approach to serving the business community, post secondary schools, and individuals while integrating social media and communications tools with this unique approach that Jarrod believes is poised to become a prominent personal scheduling system and a single definitive source for managing our daily lives.
HeatPads.ca – Team Alpha from Race to A Million will pitch their latest business idea for reusable heat pads. Team Alpha’s Heat Pads are reusable self-powered heating devices. Popular uses for the pads include warming your hands, soothing tense muscles, and a variety of other applications. Team Alpha believes they have developed a business model capable of providing significant return on investment. Team Alpha plans to sell the business for what they believe is a low cost opportunity to have a great money-making small business.
The Ripcharger Supercharger - Dennis Smith will present the world’s first commercially available super-charger for 2 stroke engines. Starting with the snowmobile market and expanding into other power sports markets, the Ripcharger Supercharger provides more power, better handling and increased fuel efficiency. Dennis and his business partners at Ripcharger have been getting a lot of practice pitching with their recent entry into the New Ventures BC Competitions so get ready to see a rip roaring presentation as they set their sites on impressing our great judges.
Spark Your Imagination Story Starters – Tamara Vukusic will pitch her collection of 52 scenarios to kick-start imagination, encourage problem-solving and get families talking. Only recently launched, in December, Spark Story Starters are already being retailed across Canada as both a deck of cards and an App available for iPhones, iPods, iPads, and Android devices. Spark Your Imagination Story Starters inspire kids to think beyond the boundaries of what is. Tamara says “The future needs our creative kids. Get your kids to think outside the box with Spark Story Starters and empower them to hone an increasingly valuable skill.”
Cell Pods – Matthew Muzzillo will unveil and pitch his rapid charging “vending” machine for providing a quick charge to mobile and hand held devices. This technology will service people in public locations who are on-the-go. Matthew says “Let’s face it, cellphone demand and usage is on the rise each and every single day. Keeping in touch with friends and family, surfing the internet and snapping pictures can take a lot out of your battery. On-the-go is when you need access to your cellphone the most, so don’t get stuck without power. Utilize a CELLPODS Rapid Charging Machine to ensure that you’ll always have power.”
Wild West Adventure Vacations – Larry Foss will pitch an adventure vacation package he claims to be the only package like it in North America. 6 Days and 6 nights of adventure, visiting historic ranches in the interior of BC. Amongst the unique memories created for a lifetime vacationers will experience robbing a stage coach and a train and they will take a DVD recording of their adventure to share with friends and family. Larry plans on serving 108 clients from late June to early September with 5 days of “old west” combined with one day of “new west”.
ShareMy360.com – Jason Wassing from Greater Than Technology will pitch to our esteemed judges (and unveil to the public for the very first time) a new software platform which has been in development for almost 2 years. Nearing completion this new web based virtual tour online platform will provide an easy and unique way of marketing businesses and sharing information with the world through social media. Jason says there is already significant demand from many sectors including real estate, hospitality tourism, retail marketing, education, and manufacturing.
jchan
