Toronto Brothers Focus On Start-up During Pandemic
As many businesses fail or idle during the COVID-19 pandemic, effectively wiping out job gains made in the Canadian economy over the past few decades, a pair of brothers from Toronto is keeping active, working harder than ever to prepare for a busier post-quarantine future.
- (1888PressRelease) May 22, 2020 - Toronto, Canada - “This is the golden time for entrepreneurs”, says Brandon Ryu, CEO and co-founder of Booth Sherpa, the company creating a marketplace platform for tradeshow booth services. Brandon has found that the quarantine allowed him to focus on bringing his business idea to life – Something that his older brother and co-founder, Junho Ryu, agrees with:
“There is no better time to start a business than now, in an environment where the government is pretty much providing citizens something like a universal basic income through the CERB program”
The Ryu brothers reason that the CERB payments have allowed laid off workers and jobless students to free up their days to explore new ideas. Canadians all over the country have reported an increase in home cooking or baking, exercising, reading, playing music, and more.
“For us, we decided to spend the extra time allowed from not needing to work to pay the bills, in creating Booth Sherpa, a business that we have been planning for a few months”, Brandon explains.
Booth Sherpa is a platform similar to AirBnB or Amazon, where a buyer can search and purchase tradeshow services. The main difference with Booth Sherpa is that the buyer is not an individual – Rather, the buyer is a business looking to bring their booth to a tradeshow.
“The B2B tradeshow industry in the US is a $16 billion dollar industry still running on the 90’s technology, and I believe we can truly bring the entire industry into 2020 with this platform”, says Junho. “Folks are wasting valuable time searching for a new contractor to use for each tradeshow they want to exhibit in, emailing their booth specifications on different systems for different vendors, and dealing with accounts payable/receivables. This cycle must be repeated manually for every single tradeshow a company wants to exhibit.”
Brandon explains that they arrived at the idea of creating Booth Sherpa thanks to the mentor that the brothers are currently working closely together. “Junho had previous experience working with our mentor, James Campbell, where they discovered an industry ripe for disruption while trying to start up a tradeshow services contractor business. James had decades of experience selling enterprise-level CRM systems to corporations, and he instantly realized there is efficiency and money to be had here.”
“Only a few months ago, it was just the three of us with an idea. Now, since the quarantine began, we were able to on-board two university students as interns, who were suddenly out of a summer position”, boasts Brandon. “with the added talent and labour, we are really making strides in getting to our first milestone – completing the Minimum Viable Product, or the MVP”
Junho adds, “The professional advisory board that we were able to set up should help us avoid costly mistakes as a start-up, as well”. Since Canadians are finding less work due to the pandemic, the pair of brothers reported that it was a win for the tenured professionals to dedicate their time advising them through many aspects of the business, not just in the area of MVP development, but in incorporation, taxes, accounting, and many more.
When asked what comes after the MVP, Junho jokes that he wishes to be “bought out by Elon Musk”, the Tesla founder and CEO. Brandon clarifies further, “We are not looking to implement our exit strategy right now, but if anyone would like to invest with us, we are always open for discussions”.
Whichever hardship that Canadians are facing during the pandemic, the Ryu brothers show that there is always someone who will turn the uncertainty into an opportunity. To find out more about Booth Sherpa, you can visit their website at www.boothsherpa.com
###
space
space
Satisfied Users & 
Approved Press Releases
Print
Email
Report Spam