Hey Founders,

Happy August: everyone’s in Portugal, listening to Taylor’s first podcast or camping with their phone on airplane mode. It’s August: the month of OOO emails and watching the summer I turned pretty. But somehow and some way, your fam at LOI got in touch with a very busy, and very inspiring person at Shopify a few days ago.

And guess what happened…

Harley-Freaking-Finkelstein, President of Shopify ($170 billion company) agreed to a short fireside chat with our community Sept 25th 🔥

Sign up here before we max out at 100 spots.

Okay, okay. Gotta keep our cool. Back to our script here.

Welcome back to “The League”: you’re no-BS, founder-first newsletter that doesn’t take ourselves too seriously. We give you all the gems, events and advice you need to be a builder in Canada.

Top LOI things going on this month: 

• Entrepreneurship 101 applications are open

• YEY award nominations are being finalized

• Labs 15 interviews are underway

• Harley’s fireside chat is coming up.

• LOI’s hosting a Vancouver run on Thursday.

• Entrepreneurship 101 program kicks off in Sept

☕️ Vancouver Founders, See Ya Thursday

Chris Neumann and a few cool speakers from Google, Tentree, Websummit, Panache, and more in this agenda) are coming together to host a 600-person summit on Aug 21st 9am-7pm.

If you wanna be there (and you probably should be), sign up here

And if you like to get your legs moving before sitting down for 8 hours, join our pre-event morning run & coffee social.

Click below are sign up here.

Side note! Kallisté, one of our team members, is moving to the West Coast this September, and she’s on the lookout for some Vancouver local gems. Send us your recommendations for:

• Favourite trail for a 5 to 10 K run

• Best takeout in town

• Best croissants and sweet treats

• cool area/buildings to live

🇨🇦 Apply to #StandWithOwners Contest

Our pals at TELUS are doing something special this month.

Enter for a chance to win* $200,000 in prizing.

Time is running out to apply to TELUS’ small business contest for a chance to win* funding, technology and exposure.

TELUS Business is looking for business owners who have Made it in Canada. The innovators who built their dream and found their team here. The owners who made it with the support of their community, as a product of Canada.

Applications close September 3 - in just two weeks.

🔗 Apply to Our Entrepreneurship 101 Cohort

Got a younger sibling, friend, or mentee in high school who’s curious about entrepreneurship? Tell them to join our Entrepreneurship 101 class kicking off this September.

We’re teaming up with the YMCA to offer a free, virtual, 4-week program for anyone under 30 in Canada who wants to explore entrepreneurship.

No cost. No equity. No business idea required. Just gotta show up and wanna learn.

What you'll get:

• 4 live weekly sessions (1 hour each),

• Stories and Q&As with real Canadian founders (yes, the ones you see in Forbes and hitting $1M+ in sales),

• Optional mentorship for extra guidance,

• Self-paced learning modules on the YMCA Ignite platform.

• 🗓 Runs September 10 to October 1

• ⏰ Wednesdays, 4–5 PM PT | 7–8 PM ET

• 💸 100% free

Applications close September 8. Join here.

P.S. Folks who join will get access to our special fireside chat with Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify.

🏆 Founder Wins of the Summer

• Rob Ironside got married (with a killer 12-DJ after party)

• Tara Bosch is helping out with our YEY event

• Kushank is speaking at Zapier’s conference

• Jen, Caty and Jenny spoke at our Brainstation event with RBC

• Tyler Heppell broke records with this event he hosted

• We hosted a cool run and coffee social with House 831

• Jaiya won a $100K award at StartupFest

• and LOI’s content team made this awesome dance vid

Got news we missed? Hit reply or send it to us directly here.

🎈Get Your Tickets to YEY Award Night

Lots of great conversations are happening behind the scenes with certain airlines, food and beverage brands and cool speakers. Let’s just say, you’ll wanna be there.

If you applied to win a YEY award this year, here’s who will be reviewing your story in the coming days:

• Janet Bannister

• Tara Bosch

• Chris Neumann

• Siri Agrell

• and mannnyyyyy more (check the site)

PLUS! Tefari Bailey, who won in 2023 award, is coming back as judge! Cool right?

Huge thanks to everyone who’s helped bring this vision to life.

Anyways, you should get back to enjoying your infal 10 days of August.

See ya in September.

Much love,

The LOI Fam

P.S. hit reply and tell us your highlights of august (personal or startup) if you see this. We’re called a community for a reason. That means this is a 2 way relationship. So talk to us. It makes our day.